The Number I

by Nautilusopus

Summary:

"It wanted to go outside," continued Cloud. "You came downstairs before it could."

"What was it after?" asked Cid, who was now properly paying attention.

Cloud shrugged. Then he took another breath.

You're over it. You're over it. You're over it.

"It said I was part of a project," he said dryly.

Cloud hallucinates. Voices sometimes, or music -- it's hard to tell. It's just another consequence of Jenova's encroaching presence in his DNA, and four years after Meteorfall everyone's more or less adapted to it and other oddities associated with being not quite human. Mostly.

What begins as a chance encounter with something that isn't Jenova soon leads to a fight for survival that can no longer be contained in the spaces between numbers, as Cloud tries to keep himself together and finally put his past behind him.

COMPLETE! Please read the tags.

Chapter 1: A Very Normal Opening Chapter For This Post-Series Fluff Piece

Summary:

PART ONE
CONCENTRE

Notes:

Hooooooooooooooooooly fuck this thing's live now. This is easily the stupidest thing I've ever written. It's also the first thing I've ever technically published. Thank you so much to Sanctum_C, Belderiver, and limbostratus for helping me proofread and copyedit this magnificent piece of self-indulgent, petty, overcomplicated garbage for the world to see. 

And to think this thing spawned from a joke about watching someone take a piss.

This is a normal story. Nothing unusual or bad happens in it. Just your normal postgame FFVII fanfiction like how you normally see in the regular vanilla canon, with Cloud and Tifa and some others in it. Mostly fluff. Nothing to see here. Keep walking.

 

At precisely 6:09 am, Cloud Strife heard a creak outside his window, sighed, and quietly reached for the hunting knife under his pillow.

He had already been up at that point, partially for a quick workout -- it didn't really do much for his actual physique due to the enhancements, but it had been a habit for so long it felt wrong not to. There was a small part of him that still felt a small thrill of satisfaction at his own ability to put himself through a morning routine that would have had most professional athletes red-faced and exhausted and not even feel winded.

He carefully crept towards the window, staying low to the ground, and crouched underneath it. If they were burglars, they were certainly persistent. Any thief with half a brain would have moved onto another building by now, after he had noticed them the first eight times. Salvagers didn't come in this far from the ruins of Midgar. And it should have been obvious, given the shabby look of nearly everything in Edge, that he didn't have anything worth stealing, save perhaps his bike, which wasn't even upstairs anyway. Yet nearly every morning at the same time, there they were. Figures, outside his window, in the corner of his eye. Watching, until the minute it was clear he knew they were there -- and, he somehow knew, trying to get in.

He hadn't brought it up to Tifa, let alone anyone else. They'd have thought he was mad, which was an option he hadn't entirely ruled out himself -- they never left any scent for him to follow, and he wasn't really sure how they had gotten onto the roof anyway. The hallucinations were one of the few things he had managed to leave behind with that mess four years ago, and what sort of hallucinations woke you up eight days in a row at the same time?

Barret would probably suggest a shrink again, and Cloud would brush him off and say he was fine, really, and Barret would just shake his head and give him a look and mutter under his breath. Tifa might actually believe him, but the thought of that appealed to Cloud even less. She did enough worrying about him as it was. And about the bar, and the kids that passed through it, and who knew what else she hadn't told him about. Tifa needed good news.

So, here he was, crouched under the window next to the tire he'd been using as a chair for months on end, ready to stab a complete stranger that for all he knew maybe just really really wanted food. There was a bar and grill one floor down, after all.

He sat in silence for what must have been two minutes. A soft tapping started against the wood -- quiet at first, and slowly, then louder and more insistent. It grew in volume until a hundred fingers must have been drumming against the window, and a rushing sound began building behind it, until it felt as though the noise was coming from every wall. Something moved through it all.

Cloud jumped up from under the windowsill and yanked the window open, brandishing the knife at the rain.

"...fuck's sake..." he muttered, sitting down on the chair his family had insisted he replace his tire with, dropping the knife on the table. Upon further reflection, he got back up and pulled the screen down, the water already starting to spray on the papers on his desk.

He turned his chair back to the desk and away from the window. If he didn’t look directly at it, then nothing would be there, and there would be nothing to worry about. And truth be told, he was worried that if he looked at them, they’d somehow be able to see him. Today was a good day -- he had woken up and gotten out of bed knowing exactly what he was doing and why. No need to acknowledge anything to the contrary.

He thumbed through the papers absently. Most of them were bills -- not for him this time, thankfully. Invoices he had been meaning to send out to clients, largely for repair work, or delivery. A couple were accounts, but the numbers part of it all never made much sense to him, so he often had to drag in someone that had actually finished their primary education to help him. Usually that was Reeve, but Reeve's time was extremely limited these days now that the rebuilding effort had moved beyond literal construction of roads and buildings and was now focused on political infrastructure, and Cloud always felt a bit guilty about calling him over for the sake of paperwork, and therefore never brought it up. The end result was a large pile of stressful charts that he could never motivate himself to do alone.

A noise from the end of the hall snapped him out of his intense focus on absolutely nothing constructive, and he hastily flicked the water off an account involving a leaking roof and got up, stashing the hunting knife back under his pillow. Tifa was awake.

Cloud crept downstairs, careful not to wake whoever was asleep on the couch in the back. He'd since lost track of who was here this week. Maybe Yuffie? He probably should have written it down somewhere.

"You're up early," he commented as Tifa came downstairs. Cloud was usually up by 7 (they had talked him down from 4 am, reminding him that most of society didn't run on military time and the extra sleep would do him some good), but Tifa usually slept in until 10 in preparation for the late shifts the bar usually offered.

"The storm woke me up," she said, rummaging through the fridge for eggs. "Maybe I should start a garden, with all this rain.” She paused, staring out the window for a moment. “Wouldn't have to bother taking care of it much." She took a can of corned beef hash from the cupboard and set about dumping the mixture into a frying pan.

Cloud watched her intently. He was banned from the kitchen after the incident with the dishwasher. "It's nice," he said quietly. Tifa looked faintly uncomfortable and refocused her efforts on chopping mushrooms, so he looked away.

The streets would likely be empty today. Cloud was one of the few people in the city that owned a vehicle, by dint of him building it himself, and nobody wanted to walk in the rain. Tifa wasn't the only one it set on edge these days.

"...Gonna be across town today. Broken roof," he continued. "Was gonna save it for tomorrow, but they'll probably want that finished now."

"You should visit Yuffie while you're out," she replied, grateful for the change in subject. "She stole from the till last time she was here, and she knows I'd probably break her fingers. She'd listen to you."

He shrugged. "Headed into the ruins today, too. Maybe she'll turn up. Don't think she's left for home yet."

Tifa looked up from the pan on top of the stove, which was now giving off the tantalising scent of grilled mushrooms. "You're fixing a roof in the ruins?" she asked, doing her best not to sound as though she thought he was wasting his time.

He seemed to notice anyway, and shook his head, looking a bit embarrassed. "No. Was thinking, it's been a while since anyone's checked on... things, out there."

A look of comprehension settled on her face, and she looked up from the pan at him. "D'you want me to come with you?"

He scratched his neck nervously. "If you like. You didn't really know him. Wouldn't you be bored?"

"No."

Cloud looked at her appraisingly.

"...It's something that matters to you. And I figured you'd need someone with you anyway," she said, shrugging. "Johnny comes in at five today anyway. We'll switch off and I'll meet you there." She dumped half the mixture in the pan into a bowl and set it in front of Cloud, and he relented.

They ate mostly in silence, with Tifa intermittently speaking to him about the bar, or the relief effort, or how he really should remember to lock the back door more often, but he didn't mind it much. He appreciated the company, and it was nice to spend time with someone that realised you couldn't really have much to say. Mornings made it more difficult. At the very least, his family said he'd been getting much better, and it helped to hear speech.

Eventually he got up and pulled on his boots. "You'll be here later tonight, for the dinner rush?" asked Tifa.

He nodded, so she could see. "See you later tonight," he confirmed, and turned to leave, pulling on his jacket from the hook on the wall nearby and opening the door to the now slightly less empty street.

Tifa dashed forward and quickly slammed the door shut again, causing him to jump. "Wait!" She produced a pair of tinted sunglasses he had left on the counter the night before. "Don't forget."

Cloud grimaced and put them on. He would look a bit odd, he supposed, wearing sunglasses in the rain, but that was the least of his problems. "Right. Sorry. Later tonight."

Tifa moved away from the door and went back upstairs, probably to resume sleeping. Cloud left Seventh Heaven and headed around out back for his bike and the crate of supplies he kept next to it.

He stuffed the crate awkwardly into the harness on his back (it wasn't really meant for things that weren't swords, but it would hold well enough for a few short trips through even roads), and dug his phone out of his pocket, flipping it open and cupping it under his body to shield it from the rain, scrolling through the tiny two inch calendar the screen offered. Roof, moved up to today. That first.

The drive over helped wake him up a bit more -- weather was another thing that helped, he had noticed. Outside stimulus that wasn't overwhelming, the way sound and light and scent could be, and the act of driving gave him something familiar to focus on.

He should have been focusing on it, anyway. After the first two days, he had started keeping track of it. 6:09 am, every day, without fail. It seemed like the sort of thing a human would do -- whatever they were up to, it was planned and consistently executed. But they didn’t have any scent. Everything had a scent. Even water, if you could believe it. Maybe they were hallucinations after all. He considered sleeping outside, and seeing if he could get a glimpse of them as they approached the building. The idea didn’t appeal to him much, though. If he was outside, they would know he was there, and see him, and…

He couldn’t think of anything worse than having them see him, but that only made him feel worse.

A loud honk cut off his train of thought, and he swerved quickly to avoid an oncoming truck. You’re still thinking about it, he chided himself. That’s not important. Your job is.

His hair was plastered to his face from the wind and the rain by the time he pulled off the overpass. He didn't speak much to the first clients -- out of pragmatism, not inability -- and got straight to work after a few quick questions. An out-of-place pipe rather than an actual hole in the roof, fortunately, that was welded back into place with fire in about an hour. The couple had been a bit suspicious as to how he got onto the roof of a five storey building that quickly, but then he was a young man in his prime who did this for a living.

By this point the rain had let up a bit, and he checked his phone again in the lobby of their flat. Dislodged pipe, check. Next... of course, that sink. It had been a week already, hadn’t it?

He checked the time and saw he had about an hour left to get there, so he made a quick run to the nearest store, consulting another list on his phone that he'd saved as a memo by now: bread; tomatoes; some sort of greens he couldn't pronounce the name of; dish soap; and two rolls, the kind with berries baked into them. He awkwardly shoved the bag over his shoulder to hold it in place during the trip, and made his way back into the city again.

He had barely knocked on the door when it flew open and he was hurriedly pulled inside. "You look like a drowned rat. Didn't I tell you last time to get a hat or something?" said the old woman currently somehow leading him into the kitchen by his sleeve. Ms. Suk. She was a regular of his. He opened his mouth to answer and she cut him off again. "Never mind that. Get yourself situated, I've got a lot more work for you today than I planned."

He unpacked the groceries and sat down at the table, not removing his jacket. She simply shook her head and busied herself with the tea kettle. "How's that nice young lady doing? Tessa?"

"Tifa," he said. "We hired some extra hands. Too busy for just the three of us anymore." He watched her work, suppressing a pang of guilt.

"Mm. About time, too. It's a shame about Shinra, really, she could have been quite successful working for the president, all his fancy dinners and such. She's got the talent to. Don't get up," she warned, as he moved his leg slightly in preparation to help her with one of the lower cupboards, "I'll not have you tiring yourself out this early."

A few minutes later, and after much uncomfortable staring at the tablecloth on his part, she had tea set out for the both of them, and a cheese sandwich for Cloud, with the rolls set off to the side. Cloud chewed in silence for another few minutes.

"My sink," she began, regarding him shrewdly over her teacup, "has not been draining properly since the day before yesterday. I suspect I must have accidentally dropped some silverware down it. I'm sure you're aware of how clumsy I can be. Bad joints, you know."

Cloud nodded. It seemed like a fork and bits of cloth lodged itself in the drain every week at about the same time, for about two months now.

"It's very fortunate you're here, I can never make heads or tails of any of this myself," she continued. "You can take off your glasses, you know. I don't know why you'd bother in this weather."

Cloud finished his sandwich and started on his roll. "Medical condition," he said. That part wasn't entirely a lie. "Too much light gives me headaches."

"Mm. Well, it's a good thing it's raining out then, isn't it?" she said brusquely. "When you're finished, we can get started."

It didn't take long to get the dishes cleared away, and after setting them by the sink, he had the u-bend unscrewed, this time removing a handful of yarn. He reassembled the pipe and showed it to her.

"Well, how about that," she said offhandedly, and he set about washing their dishes while she fiddled with the portable radio in the background. She was unable to get it to produce anything other than heavy static and distorted, indistinct voices neither of them could make out properly.

"Damn weather," muttered Ms. Suk, and switched it back off. "Well, I suppose we'll just have to talk to each other, won't we?" She led him upstairs and gestured to several boxes.

"I need all of this moved downstairs and out of the way. It's mostly things my son sent me from Kalm four years ago to help us get by, but it doesn't do me much good these days, and if I trip over them one more time in the dark I'm going to disown him." She brought out a mug of water and set it on a nearby table for him. "Off you go. I'll let you know what needs keeping."

In the next hour he'd come to regret the lack of a functioning radio. She spoke frequently of her own family in between sorting through dusty boxes of blankets and unused china, of how her son had gone to work for Shinra and had set aside some money for her to live, about how much nicer things had been since she had come to Midgar from western Wutai, about her sister who hadn't gotten out of the city in time, but when the conversation turned to him he found himself drawing a blank. He mostly tried to redirect it about his family as well -- Barret, coming by with Marlene to visit every other week, Nanaki's letters (he wasn't entirely sure how he was writing them), Cid visiting every now and then to remark on his bike or other things he'd built. Ms. Suk continued to probe elsewhere.

"What about you, dear? Where are you from?" she asked.

"...Nibel," he said, after a pause. She nodded thoughtfully.

"Thought you had a bit of an accent, but I couldn't quite place it. Your Standard's quite good." He took a sip of the water and unpacked another box that only looked a few years old compared to everything else. Clothes, mostly, with some photographs he set aside for an end table downstairs. "You don't see many people around from that region. Was it nice there?"

"Cold, mostly." Ha. "The weather's nicer down here."

"I'd imagine so. Your parents, were they natives?"

"I --" Something tore through him, like putting weight on a broken leg, and it opened its mouth to speak. He tore himself away from the daze in his head back to the dimly lit room and the sound of rain, suppressing a wince. "Yeah. Yeah, they were."

"Do you speak much of the language yourself?" she asked. He took deep, slow breaths, not caring for the moment about the mess of old scents that did nothing to help him orient himself. "You're a bit young to, I'd think, but if they knew some perhaps you picked it up?"

"A bit. Just phrases. Suffixes. Stuff that gets mixed in." God, how he missed that radio.

"You've got a good ear, then. Most boys your age don't even know there are other languages. I suppose they speak it up there a bit more. Pah! They did a lot of good for the world, but if there's one thing I begrudge Shinra for, I suppose it's all that culture that got washed away. Nobody's bothered to remember. When I was a girl, we used to... did you want to take off your jacket?" she suddenly interjected. "You look like you're about to have a heat stroke."

It was true. The heat of the house, combined with the work, his own body temperature, and the stress (god, the stress) had sweat running down his face. He hesitated for a moment, braced himself for the inevitable, then obliged. If it'd keep her on the subject of Wutai, maybe his head would stop pounding.

Instead she fixed her eyes on the melted-looking scar running up his left arm and disappearing into his sleeve. "Ah. Goodness, you're certainly lucky, aren't you? Or perhaps very unlucky, as it were. How old are you?" she asked, scrutinising him more carefully.

"Nibel was hit pretty hard. That's why I came to live here, after it was over." Another lie, covering up more questions he couldn't answer.

She nodded curtly. "Well, we're happy to have you, dear," she said. He felt the pit of guilt in his stomach twist a bit tighter, but at least it had the intended effect, and she switched the topic to the rebuilding effort and kept it there for the next half hour.

By the time they were finished, he had a trash bag he dumped out the back, a full bin for recycling, and a pile of old clothes. Ms. Suk scooped the clothes into an empty bag and pushed it into his arms.

He stared at it blankly for a moment. "...Should I put them in the wash?"

She "hmphed" amusedly. "Those? Of course not. What am I going to do, wear them? At my age? Something like that, it'd be awful on my figure. I'd look like porridge someone poured into a sock, if they fit at all. They're yours now."

Cloud blinked. "I can't take these," he objected.

"Why not? They look about your size, and you could do with something decent to wear that isn't worn thin. Makes you look like a hoodlum, and we both know you're certainly not too good for anything I could offer you, don't we?" she said pointedly. "Go, get them out of my sight. They're only taking up space. And here, for your trouble," she added, pressing a wad of gil into his hand. He was certain it was quite a bit more than what he had asked for. She handed him the pocket radio, too. "Something else for you to fix. It's obviously broken."

Cloud nodded numbly, struggling to come up with something to say that wouldn't sound as inadequate as "thanks".

After another quick exchange and her thrusting another package into his hands "for the road", this one containing some sort of spicy baked egg and cabbage mixture that he could never remember the name of, and he was hustled out the door into the now sunny street again, until she found something creative to stuff down her drain next week.

“Get a hat!” she yelled after him.

He flipped open his phone again, wondering if he should perhaps get a proper watch. A bit past noon, with five hours to kill. He could head out to the ruins early and see if there was anything worth salvaging, but it'd be more efficient if he just picked Tifa up himself. And besides that, it'd be easier to get where he was going without carrying a box full of scrap metal and screwdrivers and a bag of clothes all day.

There was a small crowd of patrons in the bar by the time he got back. He came in through the back, set down the crate and the clothes, put his food in the fridge, and made his way towards the front and slipped in behind the bar to begin washing the dust off his hands.

"You're back early," she said over her shoulder, fetching him an apron.

"The roof thing took less time than I thought," he explained. "Tables or bar?"

"Bar. I need to help out in the kitchen," she said, and slipped into the back without another word as he set about making drinks for the patrons.

As it turned out, there wasn't much to do either way. Once the initial crowd cleared out, business slowed to a trickle, and Cloud found himself leaning against the counter with his back to the door, chewing at a hangnail on his thumb.

Tifa reemerged from the kitchen and crossed her arms. "That's bad form. What if someone walked in?"

"Nobody's gonna walk in."

"You don't know that."

"Yeah, I do. There aren't any cars coming, and the sidewalks are empty for at least a block both ways."

Tifa uncrossed her arms and sat down. The vibrations-off-the-sidewalk thing still freaked her out a bit, he suspected, but also Cloud really wanted to win his petty argument for not doing anything.

"I brought food."

"I saw. Kimchijeon?"

"Sorry?"

"The food."

"Oh." He scratched his neck. "Got some clothes, too. Dunno how well they'll fit. The shirts'll be nice, at least. See if there's anything that'll fit you in there."

"Oh!" She smiled. Most of her clothes doubled as work clothes these days and were worn threadbare much like his own, and she'd been putting off buying anything nice for herself for months. "I'll make something for you to bring over next time."

"That'd be nice."

He stood in silence for another few moments. Now that the sky had cleared up, the whole bar was comfortably warm from the sun filtering in through the windows. Tifa was prepping some sort of drink mix, occasionally glancing out the window just in case. His hair and jacket had finally dried out.

They were always busy, it seemed -- he and Tifa and Barret and the rest of the family. That was a new experience; having something to do or be done constantly. People to see, and things to fix, and a room of his own to keep tidy. Or not keep tidy at all. If he wanted he could do nothing at all, for a whole hour. Maybe two. Maybe even a day. (A day, he had thought, seemed like far too much time. It wasn't as though he disliked work.) And then, if he got lonely, he could go downstairs or open his phone and talk to someone that expected nothing of him but his company, and maybe for him to wash dishes or do laundry sometimes.

It was too perfect. He had always suspected as much, and two years ago he'd received an unpleasant reminder of how easily it could be taken away. Having something to lose, for the first time in years... that was a new experience, too. All it took was one mistake.

He thought of the people looking in through his window and wondered if he was on the verge of one of those mistakes right now.

"Hey... Tifa?"

She looked up from the bottle she'd been unscrewing. "Yeah?"

The words caught in his throat. "...If it's all the same to you, I'm gonna head out early," he managed to get out. "Let me know when you switch off, and I'll come pick you up."

"Alright," said Tifa. "Remember, later tonight."

"Later tonight."

Cloud quietly seethed at himself the entire ride back into what was left of Midgar. She'd been so patient. Coming up with the system they had, letting him live in her building, putting up with his presence. If we're having any trouble, we'll talk to each other. Even if it's stupid, she'd said.

All it would take was one mistake, though. Maybe a panic attack at a bad time. Maybe if he had one of his bad days at the same time as one of hers, and neither one of them handled it well. Maybe if Marlene saw. She wasn't there often, and she had seen quite a lot for a girl her age, but there was no point in scarring her further.

That was the point of this trip, though, wasn't it? For his own benefit. Something like that. Some things were a lot more difficult to fix than others.

He pulled his bike up alongside an old abandoned church in what used to be Sector 5, opened up Fenrir and removed the centre blade Vigilante, and proceeded into the city. Strictly speaking, civilians weren't supposed to be here, and going any further on a vehicle was impossible due to the millions of tonnes of twisted steel piled high, with human remains they hadn't been able to retrieve sealed away under concrete and melted skyscrapers. If it was decomposing at all, it was doing it very, very slowly. The earth here was still barren -- not even bacteria seemed to thrive here anymore.

Cloud had been one of the few people "allowed" to head as deep into the city as he was today. If a building collapsed on or underneath from anyone else, it would have been a problem. Cloud and Yuffie were both light enough to navigate unstable ground, and athletic enough to get through what would be completely impassable territory to anyone else.

It had to be him, visiting like this. There was nobody left that would care about that spot on what was left of the sixty-eighth floor. So every week, he came back. One day it would all crumble, but until then it was something that he considered his duty. The world had already forgotten him, so Cloud couldn’t afford to.

It was eerily silent as he climbed higher and deeper into the ruins. Occasionally he'd hear the creaking of metal, as more infrastructure crumbled in on itself, but there was nothing living here for hundreds of miles. The silence set him on edge, and he switched on the radio, which now seemed to be working properly. He'd try to get her to take it back later, if he could convince her to.

Cloud delicately hopped off the top of the six storey building he'd scaled and landed lightly on the wreckage of a train below it. The tracks were mangled and the supports keeping them up had collapsed years ago, but he'd found one could still mostly follow them in towards the centre of the city. Every now and then, he thought he recognised a building. It was impossible to tell anymore. Sector 6 looked just as bad as everything else.

Eventually he reached something that did look familiar -- a pile of shattered glass that had once been part of the neon sign next to it: Shinra Electric Power Company. He made sure his gloves were on properly, bent his knees, and took another leap, managing to get a handhold on the ledge of the second storey. The stairs were blocked on many floors due to collapse, and some passages he'd discovered the last time around had since collapsed in on themselves, so he'd opted to cut his way straight through the ceiling rather than bother shifting rubble. It was faster that way, and at the very least if the building collapsed in on itself anyway he'd already have his sword out to cut himself free before he was crushed.

On the sixtieth floor, the trumpet solo the radio had been broadcasting was suddenly replaced with heavy static again. He stopped to retune it, but it only got louder. He was surprised it had gotten reception this far out at all, and clipped it onto his back pocket again. Perhaps the signal would sharpen if he made it back outside at the top.

On the sixty-first floor, the signal did sharpen, but the jazz solo did not resume. The indistinct voices he had heard before became slightly clearer, but no more intelligible. Cloud saw something move out of the corner of his eye.

His sword had already been out, but now he switched it to its wider stance with a quick flick of his wrist and held it at the ready. Something else moved, and he whipped around to face it.

They were all around him now, and no longer at the periphery of his vision. Shapes he couldn't make out, as though his eyes didn't quite focus on them. The shadows outside his window were here now, with no glass to view them through. He took a step back, and they seemed to move with him. He could hear the distorted noises more clearly now, and it was no longer coming from the radio. They had no scent.

He wanted to get away, to attack, to yell at the shapes, anything, but suddenly his thoughts felt muddy and confused, and his sword clattered to the ground as his hand didn't quite want to grip it properly anymore. The shapes moved faster and they seemed to twist the world around him as they moved, as though they were taking the world and dragging it with them, like ink splashed through water. The noise was deafening and overwhelming, and the air felt thick.

Cloud Strife abruptly stopped thinking.

It was a curious sensation, if it could be called a sensation at all, given he couldn't process it. Every thought he'd had was snuffed out as quickly as it came, and nothing else followed them up. He simply existed, mind inert, his sword still lying at his feet. If the shapes were still there, he wouldn't have known, or cared.

He stood there, completely motionless, scarcely breathing. He took a step forward, then another. He began to walk, at first aimlessly, and then with purpose. He went to the sixty-second floor, and then the sixty third. At the sixty fourth floor, he stood in the centre again, this time for longer. The world seemed static at times, and spun around him at others. His breathing came in odd spurts, as though his lungs simply stopped working on and off.

His phone rang.

Cloud coughed, stumbled forward onto his stomach, and cried out, his sunglasses clattering off his face.

He didn't answer it right away, nor did he pick up on the second or third calls, and simply lay there, trying to pretend he wasn't shaking slightly. The radio had moved onto another song more prominently featuring a saxophone. He felt sick and disoriented.

He put his glasses back on, went back downstairs, collected his sword, and began descending Shinra Tower, frequently stealing glances over his shoulder. He saw nothing but rubble.

He walked back to Fenrir, replaced his sword in his harness, rather than inside his bike, and drove back into Edge, trying to sort out his thoughts. His head throbbed.

He remembered very clearly walking up the stairs. The motion, the sounds of his footsteps, the careful observation of his surroundings and the fixed staring at nothing with his eyes unfocused. But there was a strange period of nothing that accompanied all of it. He hadn't thought anything, been aware of anything, felt anything the entire time. It was as though a portion of his life had simply been replaced with images shot from a camera.

There had been something in that tower with him. He was certain of it, though he didn't know how. He wasn't harmed, as far as he could tell, apart from a scuff on his cheek that would already be healed by the time he got home. It hadn't felt like anything he'd experienced before, even with Sephiroth. That was the worst part of it all, he thought. If it was related to him, he'd at least know how to deal with it. Sephiroth was dead. Explicitly dead, killed twice over. The first time had been fairly thorough, he'd thought, until it had turned out the dead part of him needed killing again, two years after that. None of it had made much sense to any of them, but that had destroyed him for good. He had at least sensed that.

A sharp stab of pain in his head brought him back to the present. Sephiroth might have been dead, but the genetic tampering was still irreversible. He'd have to deal with it sooner rather than later.

When he got back home, Tifa was standing there looking concerned, which was almost worse than looking angry. "You didn't answer the phone. What happened?"

"...Not really feeling well," he supplied lamely. "We'll go back out there some other time."

"Jenova?" she asked, to which he gave a small nod. Whether or not it was the problem before, it was certainly the problem right now.

"If you need me to find someone to cover for you, you'll have to let me know now. If you’re not feeling up to it I can find someone to fill in." She looked over her shoulder at the clock. It was nearly eight. “Do you need me to sit with you for a bit, or…?”

He waved her off. "No, I can still help. Just gotta deal with this real quick."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. S'cuse me." He hurried up the stairs to Tifa's room and closed the door. She'd almost certainly seen his sword out of its storage and on his back.

He removed his boots, his harness, and his gloves, and sat in the middle of her bed with his legs crossed. He took a deep breath and calmed himself, and quietly found the source of his headache and dove into it.

This "meditation" was something he did every day, as a means of keeping himself in check. Jenova would always be a part of him, whether it was in his head or his DNA, so Cloud had given up suppressing it. In his case it was a temporary measure at best. Instead he had opened himself to it, trying to supplant it and incorporate it into himself, to take all that deliberate gnawing at his psyche and make it his own. Progress had been slow but steady, although not without its drawbacks. The benefits far outweighed them, as far as he was concerned. And he'd learned quite a bit more about Sephiroth, and himself perhaps, than he'd intended to. Some things he'd shown to his family. Others, he'd been afraid to acknowledge, even though he knew he'd have to sooner or later.

Usually it was something he did before bed. Clearly that wasn't an option today.

Half an hour later, he emerged, feeling a bit odd as he usually did after it was done. He glanced around the room and noted that there hadn't been any fallout from the process this time. If he were in a better mood and didn't have a dinner shift to attend to, he might've taken that as a sign to experiment with some of the more mundane things he'd uncovered. He slid off the bed and put his boots back on.

As he headed to the door, he paused and glanced under the bed, at the box he knew was hidden there, and the odd white materia kept stored in it. Perhaps it would help if he...

Best not to, he thought, and closed the door.

Chapter 2: Cloud Has A Conversation With Some Friends and Coworkers

Notes:

This was technically done a while ago but I sat on it for ages because I sort of hated it. This one's a bit slow too, I guess. Which is normal for post-series low-stakes fluff pieces.

Is it cheap to go back like three days later and just delete whole chunks of your story if nobody notices? Maybe we'll find out.

Again, thanks to Sanctum_C, Belderiver, and everyone else I pestered at 3 am to bounce ideas off of. 

haha typos what typos you saw nothing

 

Cloud went through the dinner service in a kind of stupor. When they closed the kitchen at 11, he was too disoriented by the events of the day to properly feel tired. He hadn't realised he'd been sweeping around the same table for the last fifteen minutes until Tifa tapped him on the shoulder and told him he could go to bed if he liked. He spent most of his time looking over his shoulder, catching things flitting from surfaces out of the corner of his eye. He had a nasty feeling there probably wasn't anything there, at least not now. He expected to see them everywhere and now they were everywhere. They wanted in. They wanted in, and they were patient and he would slip up eventually. 

At 6:09 am, he was roused from his sleep by a noise. He rolled over and turned his back to the window, keeping his eyes firmly shut until he drifted back to sleep. 

 

---

 

Contrary to what Barret thought, Tifa did not spend every moment of her day worrying about Cloud. That wasn't to say she didn't spend every moment of her day worrying. Most of it she could handle --there was a bar to run, bills to pay, and former Turks to throw off her property. Most of it was something she was used to by now, and was even easier than it had been before now that she was no longer checking for wiretaps and EM sweeps every four hours to hide the terrorist organisation cloistered away in her basement. Just a nice, legitimate business that she didn't have to launder money for or smuggle explosives into for a change. Other things, she couldn't fix -- Nibelheim, or worse things besides. There was plenty of worry to go around.

One of her more recent worries was the rebuilding effort -- she was being called in to help with aid -- a quick supply run to what used to be the cities up north. The bar was important, but so was this. As of two years ago, she'd started specifically requesting any and all volunteer jobs that had room for another person on them be given to her. It was the least she could do, considering. 

She didn't start worrying about Cloud until he retreated back into his room after filling his last appointment, closed business for any more, and did not emerge the next day. Tifa waited for a few hours or so, in case he had decided to sleep in (unlikely, but one could always hope), then went out back to check for his sword. As she had feared, he had removed it from his bike and likely had it on him constantly again.

She endured another half hour of prep work for when the bar opened at lunch, then knocked on his door. "It's me. Can I come in?" 

"Close the door behind you," came the muffled response. Tifa quietly let herself in to avoid startling him, then shut the door and turned around. 

She was no stranger to panic attacks -- not her own, and certainly not Cloud's. But this time seemed different: normally, Cloud would switch off the artificial lights in the room but open a window and sit in front of it on a blanket, staring out of it. She'd sit next to him for a while if they were both up to it, and wait it out. There were probably better methods, but that's what he seemed to prefer the most. 

Cloud was indeed sitting in front of the window staring intently at it, but there were papers taped over it, muting the early morning sun and leaving the room poorly lit. His sword lay on his lap, his fingers clenched tightly around the hilt. Tifa sat down next to him, on the side that didn't have the blade pointing towards her.

"...Bad day," he said after a moment of glancing between her and the window, by way of explanation. She nodded uneasily. 

"...Do you want me to call --"

"No," he interrupted. "I think she's on her way anyway, right?" Tifa didn't answer. "You can go if you like. I'll be fine, I promise."

"Show me you've got your phone on you," Tifa said, crossing her arms. Cloud reached into his pocket and held it up for her to see without taking his eyes off the window.

"And you're going to use it?" she pressed. Cloud just looked at her wearily. 

"Are you going to use it?" she repeated, this time sounding a bit irritated. When it came to Cloud, pride and shame seemed to be one and the same for him as far as she was concerned. "I'm going to call you at ten. Will you answer it?"

"Yes. Phone call at ten." He tore his eyes away from the window, properly this time, and focused them on her. She could see bags forming underneath them. "You had stuff to do, and we planned for it, right?"

They had. Cloud did not handle being alone well anymore, among other things, so they had worked out a system. But still...

"If you need to, call me," she relented. "Okay? Even if it's to ask me how to set the clock on the oven."

"I thought I wasn't allowed --" 

"If you really need to set the clock on the oven, then call me."

"Alright."

She gave his hand a quick squeeze, and he squeezed back so hard she thought he might've broken a finger, but at least it was something. 

"You know..." she began carefully, "if there's something bothering you --"

"There's not," Cloud said quickly. Tifa glanced between him and his sword looking unamused. They were both silent for a moment. 

"...I've been seeing things," he finally admitted. Tifa kept her expression neutral, even though Cloud could probably smell the quick thrill of fear that went through her. 

"What kinds of things?" she asked evenly. If they had learned anything from the last few times, it was that if Cloud was seeing something it was only because, at the risk of it being tautological, the rest of them simply couldn't. The fact that a lot of it was in his head didn't make it any less real. Yet, anyway. He was rather like an anxious, well-armed canary in a coal mine. 

"Just... I dunno. Things."

"'Things'?"

Cloud squirmed a bit, clearly uncomfortable. "They don't look like anything. It could probably just be floaters." He curled and uncurled his fingers from the hilt of his swords, the way she would do sometimes with her hands, a habit he had picked up (mimicked?) from her. Wanting to fight an enemy that wasn't there, in the vain hope that one could pound whatever the issue was into submission. 

"...Sometimes, I'll look at a window or a mirror really quick, and I'll think I see something reflected in it," he said hesitantly. "But then there's nothing there. I've -- I've thought about moving the furniture, so it looks less like people. If that's okay." 

"As long as you don't block the doorways," she replied. He still had not let go of her hand. 

"Is She --"

"I haven't felt a pull or anything," he quickly amended. "And if I do, I'll let you know."

Would you? she thought to herself, looking at the papers on the windows. Then again, would she tell Cloud if it had been her? She couldn't be sure that she would.

"Alright." She stood up. "I trust you. Just don't hurt yourself, okay?"

"I'll be fine," he said, quickly turning his gaze back to the window. "Call at ten o'clock. See you in ten days."

"See you in ten days," she said, and left, closing the door behind her again.

 

---

 

Cloud stared at the door for a moment after she left, then turned his attention back to the window. There hadn't been anything unusual since that morning. No noises, no shadows, no heaviness in his limbs. Perhaps if he just kept watch, they wouldn't show up again. Perhaps if he didn't look at them they wouldn't be there. He didn't know which set of rules to follow, which only made him more anxious. 

Perhaps he was just going stir crazy from being confined to one place for two days.

He let himself into Tifa's room again and closed the door. For good measure, he drew the curtains across the window anyway. Just in case. 

He had realised a while ago it was always better to do this in Tifa's room. It made reaching the right state of mind more difficult, but her familiar scent made things easier to stop in case it didn't work out properly. He could probably go in deeper in his own room, with his own scent, but that made coming back a lot harder too. 

Maybe I can just zone out through everything for the next ten days, he thought. He made a good effort for about ten minutes, but the fact that there was nothing going on downstairs actually distracted him from being able to focus on anything, let alone functions in his brain he still had a very poor handle on. He got back up and went downstairs. 

It was quiet. The bar hadn't opened yet, and the rest of the staff wasn't there either. He sat down on the couch and began to listen for anyone coming. The lights hummed in the ceiling. A few ice cubes settled as the ones under them melted. Next door, someone's dog paced across a hardwood floor in anticipation. 

He felt the panic start to set in about two minutes later, when the dog and its presumed owner left for a walk. The bar was absolutely empty, and would remain so for a while. There was nobody here. No one knows you're here. No one --

He felt himself reaching for his phone, then scolded himself for it. It would probably only be an hour. Toddlers could wait by themselves longer than that. 

After another fifteen minutes, Cloud found himself resentfully conceding that said toddlers had better resolve than he did, and walked back upstairs to his room. Sleep. If he just slept through as much of this as possible, he wouldn't even know he was alone.

And besides the point, he was exhausted. Sleeping had been a privilege, as he'd been made aware of a long time ago. Cloud thought he'd be sick of sleeping by now, but the fact that it wasn't on anyone's schedule but his own anymore made it significantly more appealing. 

He stole a pillow from Tifa's room anyway before going back to his own and buried his face in it. It was gonna be a long ten days.

 

---

 

Tifa leaned back into the window of the airship she was on as the icy wind stung her face. Rebuilding here had been one of the bigger challenges they'd faced. The remote location, coupled with the harsh weather, made it hard to get both people and supplies up this far, and people were one of the few commodities that were even lower than supplies. Most human life in the northernmost continent had been wiped out, and what few survivors there were had fled the area until the carnage had died down. They had considered leaving it uninhabited (after all, it wasn't as though there was suddenly a space issue), but she supposed Barret had been right: people wouldn't want to leave their homes, no matter how bad they got. 

Its isolation had given it one advantage: there had only been two cases of geostigma in the entire area, and only a handful more of more mundane diseases. If anything like it ever popped up again, it would be good to have a haven to fall back to.

Tifa hoped it wouldn't. She knew she wouldn't be able to go through all that a second time, and she wasn't sure if she'd have let anyone else do it either. 

Someone cleared their throat behind her. "Miss Lockhart?" It was one of the other volunteers, looking at her expectantly. 

She closed the window and adjusted the collar of her coat. "We're landing soon?" she asked, and the man nodded. 

"Good. It's a six hour hike to the settlement. The sooner we get going, the better." She hefted her bag over her shoulder and a first aid kit over the other.

Now that they were on the ground, the air didn't have the bite of windchill to it. It wasn't as bitterly cold as it could have been, considering it was summer, which made it the ideal time to set up as much as they could before the area was too closed off by the elements. It would also be more difficult to get birds willing to cooperate the colder it got.

They unloaded the chocobos from the airship as well, though most of the volunteers and staff would be walking. The supplies were the first priority, and they could carry a lot more if unencumbered by a rider. It didn't take long to get everything packed up, and then they headed out into the wilderness, with Tifa at the front. 

Every now and then they found the strewn remains of a house. Bones, sometimes animal, sometimes human, picked clean by scavengers long ago. As they pressed further into the mountains, they found more intact remains, preserved by the cold and a lack of bacteria to take care of them over time, not unlike Midgar. The most they could do was incinerate the bodies using magic. It seemed disrespectful, but they couldn't afford to waste fuel that was meant for the settlement, and couldn't carry every body they found back with them with their limited personnel and time. It would have to do. It was better than leaving them in the ice. 

Tifa clutched the little green materia tightly (fire had not been one of the spells she had chosen to master), restoring the warmth to her hands, then passed it to the woman behind her leading one of their birds. Nobody spoke much. Most of the people here either had once lived here, or knew someone that had. Tifa herself had seen much of the carnage firsthand -- Sephiroth had been a force to contend with. It seemed as though they had been running from him as much as they had been pursuing him at times. 

Sephiroth... when Cloud had first recounted some of "his" escapades in Soldier, he had mentioned his strength and skill and ability with almost as much reverence as he had contempt. She hadn't quite understood it until she saw it for herself, though. She had supposed he was simply a very powerful mage (which he had been), or unnaturally strong (which he had been). But it became quite clear that there was a lot more to Soldier than just performance enhancements. 

She "knew" that, of course -- she knew about Jenova, had heard the stories about the dodging of bullets and the surviving broken necks: it had been another thing entirely to see it; to know for certain that what they were fighting was utterly inhuman. To see things done that must have been magic, but couldn't possibly have been, because there was no magic to do the sort of things he did. 

It was impossible. All of it was, by definition. Magic had rules. Things it could and couldn't do. It was one of the first things anyone learned about it in school -- magic was the rules that let you use other rules to your advantage. 

It shouldn't bother her as much as it did, with all the things they'd seen. She tried to think about something else, and looked around her environment. Snow. Rocks. Icicle. Snow. A burning chunk of someone's arm. Moss. More snow. 

She quietly asked for the materia again when it had made it all the way down the line to anyone that didn't know enough magic to cast it themselves. It was going to be a long hike. 

By the time they got to what could generously be called a "town", Tifa was in a lot better condition than the rest of her group -- growing up in Nibelheim and climbing mountains for most of her life (and for some years, for a living) had acclimatised her to the conditions they had faced, and she was one of three people in any state to unpack anything as soon as they arrived without a rest first. A few representatives from the WRO spent several minutes panting before beginning to assemble the large receiver tower they had brought in pieces with them. The sooner they established connections, the easier it would be to coordinate future endeavours. This area was the last to be added to the grid, due to the remote location and the need to hike out on foot for the time being. 

Tifa, meanwhile, began doling out the other supplies they had brought with them -- mostly batteries and dried fruit. There were enough animals nearby for things like fur and meat, but power and fresh produce were harder to come by. 

One of the men lingered nearby her table and seemed to be waiting until everyone else had left. She glanced at him occasionally, doing her best not to stare back. After another ten minutes when the crowd had thinned out, he spoke. 

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" he said. Tifa actually looked at him properly then. He seemed too old to be coming onto her (though one never did know), and the question was phrased with a certain amount of sincerity. 

"...I don't think so. Do you own the cabin on the outskirts?" she guessed. They'd spent three days in that cabin waiting for a storm to pass, but that had been years ago. 

The man shook his head. "No, I live here. But I know I've seen you somewhere."

Tifa shrugged, keeping her tone as professional as possible. "Just one of those faces, maybe. It's a bartender thing, I guess."

That seemed to spark something in the man. "Yes, that's it! You were on the news two years ago. Something about a --"

The colour drained from Tifa's face. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"That girl in Edge, that's you isn't it? They said you were a hero. Gave some big speech over you and that nasty pandemic business, didn't they?" he continued cordially, oblivious to her discomfort. 

"Oh. Yes, that. No, just a look-alike. Excuse me," she said, and retreated into the crowd to find something else to look busy doing, leaving the man standing there looking bemused.

Of course. Of course there had been fucking cameras there, and of course anyone with a working screen had seen it. She'd hoped no one would remember, but obviously someone did. Now she could hope he didn't say anything to anyone else. 

Her thoughts inevitably drifted back to the stigma after that. It was still poorly-understood what it was -- something auto-immune, she'd heard. She wasn't sure how true it was. The contagion seemed to spread regardless of how well they had quarantined it, and there were theories it had been spread directly through the Lifestream, which had become tainted as well -- apparently its cells weren't the only part of it that had been infectious. That would be the sort of thing Sephiroth would do, because by all rights it made no sense and was just another perversion of the rules of how everything should work.

Either they didn't teach that sort of thing in whatever school Sephiroth had gone to, or he knew and simply didn't care. She had watched him move through the air with nothing but force of will; pass through walls as though they weren't there at all; rend buildings to pieces without so much as lifting a hand; create spaces inside spaces that might not have been there at all. It was as though he simply ignored the world around him and what it should be and its rules, because no one had told him he couldn't.

It was completely alien. Which was fitting, all things considered, and for a while that was the easiest way to think about it. Weird alien stuff from a weird alien guy. 

Then Cloud had done it too -- understood the rules that weren't rules, and...

He wasn't human, they knew. Not biologically, anyway. It was easy enough to pretend he was most days, but sometimes he would move in a way he shouldn't, or something else would, or...

Or whatever had happened during Meteorfall. Tifa didn't understand it, and if Cloud himself did he wasn't telling. 

"Miss Lockhart." Thank god, a distraction. Tifa turned around. Shera waved at her.

"Got a job for you," she continued. "Scouting."

Tifa approached her and lowered her voice. "Scouting? I thought we had this area mapped."

"We do. The important parts, anyway," she explained. "It's not where we're concerned with, it's what. There's a lot of small caves a bit further up north. Now that there's more raw Lifestream in the atmosphere than there was, we think some of the local wildlife might have started moving closer."

Well, that was another reason she'd been assigned to this job specifically, she supposed. Mountaineering was already a pretty valuable skill, but there weren't a lot of mountaineers that could also handle "local wildlife". The great glaciers has small pockets of dragon populations sprinkled throughout the area, among other things. 

"Don't be gone too long." Shera handed her a small bag. Tracking tags, in case she found a nesting female, the gods forbid. "If you're more than twelve hours we're sending a rescue party after you."

The minute Tifa was out of sight of the settlement she felt her shoulders unknot. This was something she could handle -- a big cave with a bunch of monsters in it. It was almost like old times. Those few brief weeks had probably been the happiest in her life in a long time, even amid the near-death experiences and the recent sting of loss. The sense of accomplishment one got from puling themselves up a sheer cliff-face, the thrill of a fight alongside that growing family they had built with each other, the little discoveries of bits of ruins left over from the Ancients. 

There seemed to be a lot of them in this area, she mused as she began to make her way across a particularly narrow crevasse by bracing her weight against the wall above it. Never anything too intact -- bits of old armour, sometimes the remains of weapons, presumably from the ensuing fight against Jenova. She wondered how long they had lasted -- if they'd been wiped out in a matter of days, or had slowly been worn away over a few decades or even centuries.

Tifa carefully slid down the side of the cliff she found at the end of it, kicking off the wall at the end to land lightly on her feet. Cloud or Yuffie would have probably just jumped straight off, but she was no slouch either (and also had a better sense of self-preservation than the both of them combined, in all honesty).

There was a huge structure in the distance -- a natural ridge that seemed sunk into the ice as much as it jutted over the horizon. No one had gone there -- there was little point given the arctic temperatures and the long hike over. It was just far enough out of her way to where she probably wouldn't be able to take a look, either. Perhaps someday, though...

There were rumours the lost capital of the Ancients was this far up north. Who knew, maybe she'd finally discover it and be famous for something that wasn't awful and upsetting.

Further around the edge of the cliff she'd come down from, she found an entrance to the cave system. A few gremlins were lurking around the entrace, she'd have to deal with those first, and that probably meant the cave was already teeming with them.

Never mind dragons, this would be what she'd have to deal with for the next few hours. 

Tifa sighed, worked out the last few kinks in her neck, and adjusted her gloves. It was gonna be a long ten days. 

 

---

 

Cloud had one of his bad days then.

It was something that would never quite go away, he had realised. He wasn't really sure why, and didn't care for the idea of seeing a doctor to find out. It could have been Jenova, or the tests, or leftover brain damage, or just something psychological, or a whole host of other things. Whatever caused it, it was another thing he just had to deal with, and another reason they had their system. 

By the time he woke up, there wasn't a Cloud. All the pieces that made him up had fallen apart or crumbled away in a wash of deafening voices, not all of which were his, and not all of which were Jenova. Bits of noise that had been him once drifted away, each one of them not large enough or loud enough in their own right to properly be a person.

There was a noise. A real one, that existed. Something heard it, and realised it had perceived something else different from itself, and realised that it was itself. It clung to that idea, which was all it could really do: I. 

There were more bits, then, after it realised that it wanted to be, and would continue being. I am. It was all he could do to latch onto the concept, because that was all he was -- I am. 

More voices buffeted him and continued tearing at I am, making him waver, the I am faltering before strengthening itself again. Something touched him (real?) and pulled him, and his thoughts weren't yet strong enough to focus on it. They continued focusing on themselves, and suddenly I am was a self-evident, obvious thing.

Then he realised, as much as he could "realise" at that moment, that something was horribly, terribly wrong. That he was hurting very badly, or was about to. The fear sharpened his thoughts, and he became acutely aware of the something touching him. It was a hand, holding his and giving it a gentle squeeze. 

That didn't make sense, he thought, and the thoughts came easier that time, which they had obviously been doing the whole time, and he was Cloud, and something was wrong... but that didn't make sense, because he was here. Maybe nothing was wrong after all. 

Since he existed, then he must be able to move, which he did then. The hand was still there touching his, which was nice, and there was a noise too -- the same one he had heard and recognised. Talking. It was someone, and they were talking, at him... to him? His thoughts briefly fogged over again, and he looked at the source in confusion. 

It snapped into place then, more or less. He was Cloud, and nothing was wrong. There was warm air filtering in through the window, and someone was holding his hand and sitting next to him, and talking about...

"...up and left me there! What a dick! If you hadn't come and picked me up I'd probably have been there for hours or --" The voice stopped, as though it had noticed something. 

Cloud steadied himself against the other voices and turned to look at where it was coming from. "Jessie?"

Jessie smiled. "Hey, there you are! 'Bout time."

Cloud nodded mutely. At some point she appeared to have led him downstairs and onto the couch in the living area in the back. He stared at the floor and continued lying against Jessie, waiting for the fog to clear. She was saying words, but his brain wouldn't quite parse them properly, and his thoughts wouldn't line up the way they were supposed to in order to make many of his own. It was nice to just be for a while, though.

She continued to talk. About him, maybe? And someone else. Three someones. And a fourth? No, that was her too. Only lost, because of another someone, that said something wrong. His head felt heavy and talking seemed too complicated. So were the directions, which Jessie wasn't supposed to get because he should have been here? No, someone else. 

It must have been another hour or so before the fog cleared from his head enough to make requests from his mouth. "How long was I out?"

She paused, checking the clock. "'Bout three hours, give or take. I had to spend a while poking you to until you twitched to make sure you didn't fall down the stairs if I went to the trouble of getting you out of bed, and even after that you didn't really respond to anything," she explained. 

He grimaced. Four hours was a marked improvement over the two days it had taken him three months ago. He wished he felt happier about it. 

"But, hey," she continued, directing his attention to an end table she had pulled up in front of them, "I made us lunch." Chopped up fruit in a bowl and some cheese. Like himself, Jessie couldn't cook much either, but at least she wasn't barred from the kitchen.

She then scooted away from him and hauled a large box up onto the couch between them. "Found this just lying on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere," she said, and opened the box, displaying the remains of an old sweeper bot. Before Shinra had collapsed, taking most of the government down with it, they'd been used to prevent unauthorised travel in and out of the city, but now that Shinra's servers were no longer active they sat around waiting for orders that never came until they broke down on their own. 

Cloud immediately cheered up. "Wait wait wait, lemme --" he blurted, before disappearing out the back door. A moment later he came back with an old broken down desktop computer he'd smuggled out of an old military base the week prior and set it on the floor. The screen was miraculously still intact. Jessie squealed in delight. 

They didn't really have the sort of plugs either one would use, so Cloud was forced to jab his thumb into where the cord would have been and continuously run a lightning spell through it while Jessie carefully unloaded the magazine from the sweeper. The power surged and cut out intermittently, but it was better than nothing. Within a few minutes, they had switched off, Cloud dismantling the remains of the robot to look at what was left of the engine, and Jessie excitedly working her way through the state-of-the-art command prompt with one hand and keeping the power supply going with the other (lightning was really the only spell she had bothered mastering). 

Jessie would handle the software. Cloud would deal with the hardware. They had a good arrangement. 

So, it had been Jessie's turn this week. And Yuffie a week before that, and then Tifa, and then Barret. So next week it would be Barret again. Probably. 

Their system was something Tifa had come up with after he slipped into his third vegetative state after Meteorfall and they realised this wasn't going to stop. Cloud needed more or less constant watching, for a variety of reasons. There was always the risk of him mentally shutting down and starving to death in his own bed, of course. But his anxiety had returned with a vengeance after his memory had been sorted out, and the blanks in it were filled in, to the point where it was unmanageable at times. The thought of isolation, for any reason at all, was unbearable. It was more than dislike -- it was a full-blown phobia, and as much as he knew it was completely idiotic and juvenile and so, so stupid and pathetic to wind up sobbing, backed up into a corner to fight off a threat that wasn't there, it didn't take more than an hour or two before the first nagging sensations of terror began to set it. There were other problems, too -- his brain not storing memories properly at times, things that triggered panic attacks that Cloud couldn't understand why, and the very real threat of the entity still sitting at the edge of his consciousness that he had to focus on browbeating into submission once every few hours. 

Barret kept insisting he see a doctor, but the thought of seeing another doctor was one of the only things that scared him more than being alone. Or maybe that was the reason why in the first place. Never again, he'd sworn, and he'd meant it, even if it killed him.

He loved the company, of course. It was everything he'd never even hoped to have in a million years. But he hated the reasons behind it. There was another fear, behind all the rest of them, that if they had the choice to they'd never come back.

That was probably the only reason Tifa even let him live with her for free. Because he was a danger to himself and everyone around him. It couldn't possibly be enjoyable, putting up with him the way she did. No small wonder no one else could before.

So, his family worked in shifts, making sure he got out of bed, or at least was awake and simply choosing not to. Making sure he remembered that he was supposed to be somewhere, and when he was supposed to be there. Making sure he didn't go outside without his sunglasses on. Making sure he wasn't alone.

Weeks with Jessie were actually a bit easier, in that regard. She was almost as much of a mess as he was. It was a bit ironic that they had someone as jumpy as her building their bombs at one point.

Yeah, but Jessie has her own place, he thought bitterly. You live off Tifa's charity. Jessie doesn't have nightmares about --

"You okay?" asked Jessie. "You've been kinda quiet. We don't have to do this now."

"...No, I'm fine," he said. "Do you think we could move this, though? Don't wanna get grease all over the rug."

It took them a few minutes to get everything, lunch included, packed up and moved upstairs, before they went back to taking their finds apart, metaphorically in Jessie's case, literally in Cloud's. 

"Anything interesting on there?" he asked, wiping his hands off on his pants before reaching for a piece of cheese. 

"Nothing we didn't already know," she replied, looking up from the lines of green text on the black screen and scooting the plate closer to him. "But this was last updated right before Sephiroth cacked the president, so it's before they patched that bug where it doesn't check for signatures of incoming communication requests while you're scanning for unauthorised communication requests. I've always wanted to poke around with that one a bit, just for its own sake." Cloud pushed the plate back towards her, and she took another slice of cheese for herself. "The keyboard's a little water damaged, too, and I keep getting bad sector errors. Did you leave this thing in the rain yesterday?"

"A little, yeah. Is that bad?"

"You can't leave computers outside, Cloud! They're meant for indoor use in labs and fancy military guy stuff. I waterproofed mine for Avalanche but that's not industry standard."

He shrugged. "Nothing's industry standard anymore, technically." He stuffed a handful of berries into his mouth and turned back to his dismantled robot. "The mako drive on this thing overheated and melted most of the moving parts together," he said, picking up the ungainly chunk of metal that used to be the engine and giving it a firm shake to demonstrate. "Not that it'd matter anymore. The lock on the maintenance panel was still working, actually. Must've been a backup battery in there. I don't have the code for it or anything so I just had to rub a magnet against it for a while." He gestured to the chunk of neodymium he kept in an old sock he'd been using. 

Jessie sniffed. "Can you keep that away from the computer, then? And stop picking out all the blueberries like an infant-baby?"

Cloud opened his mouth to firmly refuse and tell Jessie exactly what hole she could put her pineapple chunks in before a noise in the kitchen took the words from his mouth. It seemed like movement. 

"...Did you hear that?"

Jessie stared at him for a moment. "Uh... no. Sorry."

Normally he would have left it at that -- there were plenty of noises he noticed that most people that weren't Nanaki didn't. Lately, however...

"Be right back." He got to his feet and quietly walked to the kitchen, pacing himself to make it sound as though he hadn't heard anything, the electricity he'd been using earlier now humming at his fingertips in deadlier amounts.

He stepped around the corner, looking around. The kitchen appeared empty. 

No, not empty. Something else moved. Maybe a floater across his eye. Maybe not. Cloud took another couple steps forward, and the noise started up again.

He tensed up. They had followed him from the tower. They must have. They couldn't get inside, could they? He hadn't let them inside. He couldn't quite see them, but they were inside now.

"Jessie?" he called out in warning. That was all he got out. If she replied, he wouldn't have heard, as his thoughts were abruptly snuffed out again. 

It was different this time -- more inconsistent. A few moments later, he was suddenly treated to the shock of having a functioning mind and realising that he couldn't move all at once before it drowned him out again. Brief periods of awareness seemed to come in waves that he had no control over, no matter how much he struggled. He tried to leave, but his legs didn't seem to work, and half the time he couldn't seem to feel them at all. Every muscle was locked up, and in the brief flashes he was able to feel anything, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest. The shapes whirled around them, and he was struck with how much he hated looking at them. Everything felt far away, as though he was being pulled somewhere. Before it could, something else pulled him away, with sharper claws, and it seemed as though he were falling. Help was the last coherent thought he managed to have, as the claws loosened and he slipped under.

 

---

 

"Jessie?" Cloud's voice echoed down the hall, a note of alarm in his voice. Jessie looked up from her computer. 

"Yeah?"

No response. 

"Do they need me on tables already? Isn't it a little early for that?"

Silence. 

"Cloud, Tifa called! She's pregnant and Red's the father!"

Nothing. Jessie snatched up an electric drill from Cloud's tool kit and ran into the kitchen.

Cloud was standing there, quite alone, staring at a spot under the sink. She lowered the drill in confusion. "What, what is it?" She looked under the sink. It was empty, and she turned back to Cloud. "What are you... looking..."

His jaw was set, but his eyes were unfocused. His face was ashen and his lips had acquired a blue tint. He had stopped breathing. 

"Cloud?!" She slapped him then, uncertain of what else to do. It always worked in the movies, didn't it? 

Cloud didn't start breathing again, but that was enough to unbalance him and cause him to topple to the floor with a dull thud. She rolled him over, her panic growing, and fumbled for her cell phone as his eyes rolled back and he passed out.

Before she could finish dialing, he started breathing again.

 

---

 

Cloud stood on the edge of the crater's lip, staring over it, hefting the Buster Sword in his hand. His foot shifted, and a pebble dislodged and skipped down the walls of the cliff. The wind howled, drowning out the staccato tapping after a few moments, and the cold bit right into him through his jacket. Barret came up behind him. 

"You ain't done it yet?" he said, clearly wanting to be on his way. 

Cloud shook his head. "It's dumb. I know it's dumb. It's just --"

"'Course it's dumb. Of all the stupid-ass things you've done, you standin' here for ten minutes and not moving is the dumbest." Cloud said nothing. "What are you gonna do with that thing, anyway? That's what he wanted. Jackass is dead. You gonna keep doing what he wants? Who'd it be for?"

Cloud didn't turn around. "...I dreamt about it for years. It was everything I wanted. It feels like... if I did, it'd all be for nothing. Wouldn't it?"

Barret snorted. "You could do ten times as good as anything they wanted you for. Wasn't that the whole point? This was your own damn idea."

"I guess so." He shifted on the balls of his feet. 

"You guess?"

"...No. I'm right. That's why this was a good idea. I thought of it." Barret rolled his eyes, but Cloud thought he saw him smile a bit. 

Cloud took about ten steps back, judged the weight, then took a running start and hurled the Buster Sword off Gaea's Cliff with a yell.

They watched it clatter off the rocks, making a racket all the way down, before it bounced out of even Cloud's sight. For a split second, Cloud had the urge to jump down after it and retrieve it. He'd have to fix that. Maybe make his own sword. One that was even better than that one. 

"Let's get back to the ship. Marlene's probably getting bored," he said, turning back to Barret, but Barret wasn't there.

There was nothing here with him. He could hear wind, louder than ever, but the air was still around him. Things were lurking behind the wind. They reached for him, gesturing for him to come closer, and he reached back, but the living room floor was in the way. 

Cloud snapped awake to see Jessie peering over him, looking shaken, rocking herself nervously. A couple of the new wait staff watched from the doorway.

"...Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yeah. Fine," he grunted. The room spun around him, and he shut his eyes to avoid being sick all over her leg. "Must've tripped."

"You... you weren't breathing." Well, so much for that lie. 

"I choked when I tripped," he supplied. 

"That's not funny, Cloud."

"It's what happened."

"...Well, I'm covering your shift. We already decided," she said slowly. "Go lie down somewhere."

Cloud sat straight up. "You can't do that."

Jessie looked away and took a deep breath. "It was Jensen's idea. I had to have her help me carry you."

Jensen scowled and retreated back out to the dining room. Jessie did not look at Cloud's face. "You stopped breathing. If it were anyone else I'd say you should probably see a..." she stopped short at his glare. "I said if it were anyone else!"

"I'm not gonna lie down, because I feel fine," said Cloud, feeling even worse as he stood up. "I'm gonna be sitting in the dining room, and if you guys need me then I'll be right there ready to say I told you so." He began to head back through the doorway.

"Glasses," Jessie interjected sharply, offering them to him.

"...Right," he said, quietly sliding them on. The last thing they needed was to cause a panic. He paused on his way out again. 

"...Please don't tell Tifa," he added quietly.

Jessie crossed her arms and glared at him. 

"Fine," she huffed, and got up herself to grab an apron. "Moron," she added under her breath, obviously not caring that Cloud could hear her anyway.

Cloud sat in the corner of the dining room, picking angrily at the placemat. He'd lost another two hours this time, judging by the clock. If he'd been unconscious for that long just from lack of air he probably would be in the hospital, even for someone enhanced. Whatever it was had taken longer than just a few minutes to actually let him wake up.

There had to be a pattern. It was usually at 6:09, but today it hadn't been. It had started at the tower, but they watched him at home, and were clearly already inside. This time he had suffocated. Last time he had walked up a few flights of stairs and stood still for over five hours. This time he hadn't been able to move at all, but he'd still been aware, if barely. 

Was it Jenova? This morning he'd had to put himself together again. No, it couldn't be that. Yesterday he had been fine, and had only started having problems afterward. It was Jenova's sort of thing to use him, but not to get its host killed. If that had been an attempt on his life, anyway. It would have been much easier to have him throw himself out a window at the tower. 

He had been alone at the tower. But Jessie had been in the other room. Did they know that? Would they have cared about her if they did?

There's no pattern, he thought glumly. There's no pattern and there's no "they" and you're going crazy and all that stuff Hojo put in your brain finally melted a hole in it. He didn't even have solid evidence any of it was real. It could just as easily be a relapse, entirely on his part, or worse. 

Cloud suddenly couldn't stand another second indoors under the fluorescents. He made a quick stop to his room, retrieving his sword and the portable radio, then slipped out the back door. Maybe he would lie down somewhere. Because he wanted to.

There was a spot he liked in the ruins. He'd discovered it on accident four years ago, after he put a hole in the roof. He'd thought about fixing it, but that would have worked against the whole reason he liked being there in the first place. Years later, Tifa had coincidentally rediscovered it on her own. 

Cloud parked Fenrir just outside the old abandoned church and stepped inside. Between the holes in the roof (besides the one he'd made when he crashed through it) and the stained glass windows, broken or otherwise, the building was filled with sunlight. Some of the broken pews still had cushions on the seat. While the isolation wasn't ideal, sometimes it was just nice to take a nap somewhere and wake up with the sky in full view and the sun in his face. 

Cloud switched on the radio again and retuned it to one of the two stations available at this point, which was playing a song he vaguely remembered liking during his time in the military. He couldn't recall any lyrics. He lay down on one of the pews and wondered if he used to know them. 

In all likelihood, it was probably just a regular old-fashioned crack-up. The kind he'd never been able to handle before, but especially couldn't now. He'd told himself, and had believed for a while, that it had ended when he had gotten out of the lab; the crying, the pleading, and eventually the resigned submission when he realised no one in the world would help, the shame at the things he'd done and said for the sake of his own self-preservation, and then later for reasons he didn't even understand himself. There was no one left that could hurt him, not really. It should have been over then. 

It wasn't over. It would probably never be over. Every last one of them were dead, and there still wasn't a single part of his life that they hadn't dug their fingers into and taken for themselves. He could do whatever he wanted, and pretend to be a mechanic, and have a family that was willing to pretend along with them, but no matter what he was still, in some way, exactly what they had made him. 

"It's not fair," he said to the radio, which indifferently continued hitting on an undisclosed third party by comparing her eyes to blue jewels. Cloud felt as though he were being mocked, and tuned the radio back to jazz before tossing it over to the patch of dirt that had broken his landing four years ago, next to the pool of deceptively harmless-looking water. It landed speaker-down but continued playing. It didn't take him long after that to doze off in the warm sun filtering in through the windows. 

He slept for longer than he had wanted to, and was woken up by the sound of his phone ringing. Tifa. He'd forgotten entirely. 

He missed the first call while fumbling through his pockets for the right one, but when he called back she picked up on the first ring.

"Hi. Sorry. Dropped my phone," he said. He wasn't entirely sure why he lied about misplacing what pocket he put it in. Maybe it sounded less stupid that way? The first lie of probably several in this call. 

"Well, you called back on your own," came Tifa's voice from the receiver. "How is everything?"

"I spaced out earlier today," he said hesitantly. "I'm fine now, but Jessie's covering for me at the bar."

"How long were you this time?"

"About four hours."

"That's good!" She sounded genuinely happy about it. Cloud felt his chest clench painfully, and kept his gaze on the floor, as though she were there in front of him. "And you were worried it was getting worse."

"Yeah... guess so," he replied, trying to match her tone.

"They've got reception set up here, finally. Don't feel bad about calling, we've got the juice to support it now. They think they'll have a generator here in the next six months, as long as nothing goes horribly wrong all at once." A pause on the line. "Is Jessie there with you? Your end is pretty quiet."

"I stepped out for a bit. It's really nice out tonight." It was. The sun had just set, and the first few stars were beginning to appear. It was a bit colder, but not unpleasantly so. 

"Send me some warm weather if you get the chance, alright?" she joked. "I'll see you soon."

"Mm. See you soon." He flipped his phone closed. 

It wasn't fair.

Chapter 3: And Now For Something Completely Different

Notes:

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER I NEED TO GET OUT OF THE WAY FIRST: Crisis Core is still 100% non-canon. What happened with this is that I ran out of character real estate and figured I didn't want to wind up stuck with three OCs for 90% of the story. Still not canon. Probably never will be for anything I write at all.

This took forever because I wrote it while simultaneously writing the next four chapters all at once, for reasons that will become apparent sooner or later, and also because I wanted to set up two extremely stupid jokes that won't come to fruition for like fifteen chapters.

Thanks to Belderiver, Raaj, Sanctum-C, materiodictable, and everyone else I bothered for this chapter because if I missed any details no one else would notice but I WOULD and it would eat me up inside forever.

"...dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space, and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge.This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area that might be called... The Twilight Zone." The television cast an eerie glow across the blanket, illuminating it enough to stand out but not enough to distinguish it from the monochrome wash the room had taken on in the dim light.

At a little past five, more or less, a loud crunch started its occupant awake. The source of the noise licked its paws contentedly, indifferent to the stern glare it was now receiving from its owner, who reached for the remote under the couch cushions and switched the television off.

"You little shit." The cat, being a cat, said nothing.

Aeris Gainsborough sighed heavily and rolled off the couch she had fallen asleep on to go find a broom. The sad, crumpled remains of her peppermint weren't going to sweep up themselves.

It might not've bothered her as much if she had already been up, but now it was too late to go back to sleep. She shuffled into the kitchen and considered getting herself something caffeinated, but thought better of it. She couldn't afford to be jittery, today of all days. She returned to her living room/study and began scraping up the remains of her potted plant and salvaging what she could into a glass jar she grabbed off the counter. Perhaps it had been for the best -- it has been starting to encroach on the rest of her garden.

Breakfast consisted of eight eggs, dumped into the frying pan with a generous amount of cheese and butter. If caffeine wasn't an option today, a protein high would have to do, and there was no point in leaving perishables in her fridge anyway. She ate quickly, going over the cards for her speech and trying not to hate parts of it now that she was rereading it for the umpteenth time. It was too late to change any of it herself -- the committee had already approved this version to air, and going off script on what would probably be the second-most important day of her life (if she was lucky) was a risk she wasn't willing to take, no matter how awkwardly-phrased and corny the bit about humanity's next step into the future was.

She wolfed down the entire pan in about twenty minutes and got an early start on her hair, carefully pulling it back into a braid she thought would look dignified. Not that it would matter much, the makeup people she'd be assaulted with would probably redo it the minute she showed up anyway. They'd told her the pink ribbon she usually wore looked "unprofessional", so she tied it around her arm instead, hiding it under the suit they had picked out for the occasion. They'd never know.

Her cat Cassiopeia rubbed up against her leg, and she had to gently shove her away. The last thing she needed was to show up covered in hair.

She went over her speech again. And again. And another time to be certain. She went back to her desk and looked over her research, which was technically more important, then lost interest in that and went back to the speech. Loaded with plenty of big long words -- the suit, the vote against her ribbon, the speech, it was all meant to give off the impression of maturity. Probably to offset her age (there was a time and a place for milking the wunderkind angle and today was neither), but there was also the matter of her lineage to consider. This was her project now, after all. Today was about that as much as it was about the project itself.

She herded Cassiopeia into her carrier and checked over her luggage again: a briefcase with the summation of her life's work, which she quickly stuffed her speech cards into, and a tupperware container of licorice allsorts. Bringing in fresh produce probably wouldn't be allowed at the facility, but her candies would probably survive a quick sterilisation. The best part about liking licorice allsorts, Aeris had discovered, was that no one ever asked you to share them with you, so one could just eat the entire box undisturbed, though she did include another container of gummy bears for her coworkers as a peace offering. Outside comforts like this would be missed greatly in the coming weeks.

Briefcase, personal effects (outside toiletries had been prohibited as well), cat... on a whim, she rummaged through a drawer and fished out an old Polaroid camera, quickly throwing it into the bag with the candies. If astronauts got to take pictures of space, she wanted to document her work as well.

Aeris quickly piled everything by the door and made one last check around her house -- her house, another one of the perks of this job. It had really started to grow on her, and it was a shame she wouldn't see it for so long. She locked the door, unlocked it while trying to figure out if she had locked it properly, locked it again, and began her walk down Kenilworth Avenue to the nearest bus stop. This was it.

Cassiopeia yowled angrily the entire drive over to the kennel. "There won't be any plants to eat if you come with me," said Aeris, glancing around them, trying to spot the plainclothes bodyguards she'd been assigned for the trip. Perhaps they weren't here yet. "There will be lots of other cats there you can ruin gardens with together." She hoped there would be, actually. Perhaps then she'd finally get it out of her system.

After depositing her horrible greenery-chewing roommate and lightening her load somewhat, she made her way down to the train station. It was here she started catching a few stares. Shame she hadn't worn sunglasses or something.

On the train out of Reading, the "find the plainclothes" game she had been playing became much easier. The wiry-looking man reading a magazine she wasn't sure about, but the woman sitting across from her that looked as though she ate broken glass and bullets for breakfast that kept staring at the door next to her was easier to spot. Aeris checked her nails and did her best to ignore them both. It was only for a few more hours.

A woman on her left spoke to her then. "This is gonna sound a bit stupid, but you look exactly like that Dr. Gainsborough woman."

Aeris managed a quick smile. "Ah... that's 'cause I am." The woman laughed and went back to her phone, clearly not believing her, but a few other people on the train had heard and craned their heads to get a look. Aeris looked back, and they turned away.

She’d insisted on using public transport -- she didn’t have a driver’s license of her own yet, and she hadn’t liked the idea of the fancy chauffeur they had offered her waiting outside honking their horn when she just wanted to have a lie-in before the big day. If it was on her own terms, she could get a bit of extra sleep. That would surely be worth a few odd looks from the general public, right?

Stupid cat.

The train pulled into London an hour later, and she was immediately mobbed by more security detail the minute she stepped off the platform. She was at least grateful for the help with her luggage, but with them came the press. She kept her gaze focused directly ahead until they made it out of the station and reached the car. They'd have their answers soon enough.

She drummed on the seat all the way to the university, and stopped halfway through going over her speech in her head to realise that she had forgotten to put the pan in the dishwasher before she left, and the kitchen would probably smell awful when she got back. Too late now.

She was swarmed by hair and makeup the minute she set foot on campus, and was herded into an office they had appropriated as a green room. As predicted, they immediately undid her braid and began combing it out to tie it back into a bun.

"I spent good time on that, you know," grumbled Aeris, and then was forced to hold still while they applied foundation.

"I was beginning to think you'd bailed on us," came a voice from next to her, and Aeris managed to crane her head just enough to see Cissnei in the chair next to her, whose artist appeared to be finishing up.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about it," she replied. "All this is just for show. We could just go directly to the facility and not waste twelve hours on all this media circus stuff.”

“It’s a proud tradition, though!” said Cissnei, getting up and watching them attempt to herd Aeris’s hair into a fraction of the volume it normally took up, making her wince. “Everything like this needs something quotable. Armstrong, Sagan, Einstein, Curie. You need a line that someone can spend two hundred takes on trying to nail the one that nets them an award when they make the dramatised documentary version of this in ten years or so.”

“This entire speech is the most generic combination of words I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“It’s not the words,” said Cissnei, sneaking a peak at her speech cards, “it’s the delivery. Think Frank Sinatra.”

Aeris grunted as the makeup staff finally peeled off and stopped trying to remove her scalp. “Mum and Dad didn’t have a speech.”

“Well, you’re not Dr. Gainsborough or Dr. Gainsborough, are you? You’re Dr. Gainsborough,” she commented dryly, clearly amused at her own joke. Aeris rolled her eyes.

A voice came from outside the office. “Gainsborough, Sauvage, you’ve got two minutes!”

Cissnei flashed her a quick smile on her way out the door. “Bonne chance!”

Aeris went over her speech another time, liked it even less than before, then followed CERN’s interpreter out to the auditorium.

A smattering of applause greeted her presence, a few camera flashes, and then silence. The world was watching now. Cissnei was there waiting by the podium with the other interpreter, and gave her a curt nod.

“There are times, in the course of human history, that are known to change our world, our society, in profound and irreversible ways,” she began, with Cissnei beside her, repeating what she had said in French. “From the discovery of the double helix which let us understand where we came from, to the first splitting of the atom, showing us where we are, to our first steps as a species into the Earth’s atmosphere, inviting us to all the places we could go from there. They’ve yielded medicines, and knowledge, and prosperity… as well as destruction, and conflict, and loss of life. Our world is a product of these changes, benign or otherwise.

“It is difficult to accept the world for what it is, to comprehend the scope of how deeply these changes have affected who we are, but it it is harder still to understand our place within it. It can be daunting to know how much harm they could cause, and how much potential for good they might have had.” She kept her gaze on the audience. Not the words, the delivery. Aeris hoped whatever charisma she had managed to dredge up for this day was having an impact on anyone. If anything, she probably sounded vaguely threatening.

“Today, I believe we are on the cusp of one of these changes. And I believe that, not only as a nation, but as a people, we have understood our capacity for greatness. In taking our first steps into exploring another world, we shape the boundaries of our own.” She paused, and dipped her head briefly to some of the men just offstage. “It is through this understanding that has allowed CERN to lead the world forward with this groundbreaking research. Every nation has banded together for the invigoration of the human spirit.”

It was barely an overstatement. It had been the project of the twenty-first century, and nearly every country in the UN had pitched in. The confirmed existence of other universes, of other worlds, had ripped through the scientific community. Thus far the data they had was mostly numbers, but the trail blazed by the late Doctors Ifalna Gainsborough and Hugo Gainsborough (the latter more commonly known by his name before marriage, Gast, for the sake of easy distinction) had left them with something significantly more concrete, and suddenly the prospect of a physical presence in these worlds was alarmingly, startlingly real.

For the last year, billions of euros had been dumped into the construction of a massive compound in the French countryside. Though Aeris had been largely in charge of the project, there were other scientists contributing to its building as well, and she had yet to set foot in it herself. She’d be on a plane to Cannes in the same day if she could just get through this speech.

Eventually, she finished up with another line about being inspired by everyone to make the world better. Utter schlock. Waste of time. There was a warm applause from the audience. Good. That was squared away, at least.

She nodded to one of the general directors of CERN waiting offstage, and retreated offstage herself. Official questions were their problem. At the very least she could ditch her stupid speech cards and wait for Cissnei to finish up the presentation; the other interpreters had been hired specifically for this event, but Cissnei was part of the project proper. If they found anything, it would help to have an expert at hand in case any messages were exchanged. Aeris was a physicist, not a linguist. And of course, there was the more practical side of things being lost in translation between the multinational team they’d assembled from the top scientists in the world.

Personally, Aeris would have been satisfied with a few interesting matter samples, and maybe some microbes if she was really getting her hopes up. At the very least, they had finally confirmed there was something on the other side of it all to begin with.

Truth be told, this project had been in the works for nearly twenty years. Aeris had been the one to rekindle it after the accident that had claimed the previous directors’ lives. Everyone had been leery of the prospect at first -- never mind her age, the word “nepotism” had been on their lips from day one. She’d had to work twice as hard as anyone else to prove she was worthy of the project on her own merits, and then four times that to forge ahead with the data her parents had managed to collect in the bridging experiment before it had all gone to hell.

And to think they’d called it pseudo-science nonsense five years ago. She’d show them pseudo-science…

No, she wouldn’t. That’s the opposite of what she wanted to do.

Eventually Cissnei returned from the stage as well, and from there they were herded back into a car and to the airport. No time to waste.

On the plane, Aeris went over the roster of who they’d picked out for the project.

“Tseng, Wu, biophysicist,” said Cissnei, leaning in to check the paper she was holding. “China’s pick, probably.”

“I remember him from the meetings,” replied Aeris. “Sort of stuffy. Do you suppose he’s any good?”

“Good enough, I guess. I’m not a biophysicist. He’s got three doctorates, I think, which is apparently the minimum,” She adjusted herself in her seat and gestured to Aeris’s peanuts. “Do you want those?”

“How many do you have?” asked Aeris, as Cissnei opened her peanuts anyway. Cissnei shrugged.

“One, for now. Not all of us skipped seven grades. I’m just here on the charisma factor.”

Aeris snorted. “Oh, only one doctorate. How old are you?”

“Is it a contest now?”

“Only if you want it to be.” She looked over the list again. “These are some flashy dossiers, though.”

“Well, let’s hope they’re nice.”

After they touched down, there was another hour-long car ride north from Cannes to the facility. The roads eventually thinned from eight lanes, to four, to two, to a thin strip of dirt that would allow the bare minimum of passage.

It was a bit strange, seeing the sleek new building positioned in that vast, empty field. Cissnei stepped out of the car and voiced what Aeris had been thinking: “It looks like a fortress.”

Indeed it did; apart from of the building where the entrance would be, there were almost no windows. The compound was circular, with three levels stacked on top of and within one another, with a large rectangular structure the size of a supermarket on its own functioning as the front entrance, like an immense closed stadium. A wall had been erected around it, and the whole layout was compact and centralised. All likely necessary, to minimise risk the second time around.

The compound was meant for living in over a period of three to four weeks, and the place was kept tightly sealed in case of any sort of contamination, so only absolutely necessary personnel would be dispatched to the site. Therefore, the team was fairly small, to avoid straining resources, and most of the more mundane functions would be more or less fully automated. They were expecting six or seven members -- from what she could recall, the rest would be arriving tomorrow.

They had each been issued a keycard the week before, and then it only granted them access as far as the lobby. The security was a bit unnerving, and served as a reminder of the threshold she was about to cross. This was it. The culmination of billions in investment and twenty years of work and two lives. The lobby itself was largely empty, with reception being little more than a vacant hall with a plaque on the wall detailing procedures for unpacking luggage for decontamination, which was where the only other door led.

They funneled, one at a time, into a chamber at the end of the lobby, where they removed their clothes and placed them in a separate compartment in the wall with the rest of their belongings, which they carefully unpacked. Aeris reluctantly parted with her ribbon and closed the door, and then stepped into the shower that had just switched on. It seemed a good deal of the process was automated. Both she and her belongings on the other side of the wall were exposed to quick flash of UV, and it occurred to her that she might not get most of her things back. Oh well.

Aeris thought she was probably pushing it a bit with the candy. After the spray switched off, the vents in the room opened, vacuuming out the contaminated air and pumping in filtered oxygen, before the next chamber opened and she was treated to another chemical shower and another radiation purge, this one searing off the very first layer of skin.

After three more rooms, she reached the antechamber of the final decontamination room area, where she was to remain for 24 hours while inhaling low levels of antibiotics laced in the filtered air. Uniforms were provided on the wall until her clothes had finished baking (she worried briefly about the camera surviving the trip), and she hastily put hers on before stepping into the temporary living area and waiting for Cissnei to finish up behind her.

The room was sparsely furnished -- three beds (most likely why they were having the rest of the team file in the day after, as well as to avoid gunking up the machinery all at once) with sterile cotton blankets and foam mattresses; a few chairs; and two lamps; one of which that was fixed into the wall, upon which a compartment opened, allowing her to collect her research, her possibly-ruined camera ,and her mildly-irradiated sweets. There was a simple desk with a screen built into it that connected to the database waiting further inside, to allow review of the materials during downtime, and a rather tall man sitting at the desk watching her expectantly.

“Dr. Gainsborough,” said the man in greeting, rising from the chair and giving her a polite nod.

“Dr. Tseng,” she returned politely. If he was part of this project as well, then most of this section of the building would have been his idea, to prevent forward contamination. Just in case.

He nodded again. Very formal, this one. “Well met. Though just ‘Tseng’ is fine.”

“Then I’m fine with ‘Aeris’,” she replied, then turned around as Cissnei passed through the door from the airlock behind them, her hair on end nearly as badly as Aeris’s. “And this is Dr. Cissnei Sauvage, linguist and interpreter.”

“Hen gaoxing jian dao nin,” was Tseng’s curt reply. Cissnei returned it with an equally reserved, “Nin yeshi.” The stiffness in the room was palpable. Aeris rolled her eyes.

“Well, if we’re gonna be cooped up in here all day with each other, we might as well get to know one another,” she said, pulling up a chair and pulling her hair over the back of it.

“There are very few people in the world that do not know who you are by this point… Aeris,” he said slowly, clearly uncomfortable with the familiarity.

Aeris shrugged. “So what about you?”

“I volunteered for this project because I felt it held potential,” he said shortly. “It had been my goal to contribute to it for seven years when the late Dr. Gainsborough published her first paper, but as you can imagine the ensuing complications made this impossible for some time. This is a rare opportunity for me.”

Aeris and Cissnei exchanged a look at this news. If Tseng was being truthful, that would mean his interest predated the bridging experiment. Back when the project had been a wild goose chase searching for something that most likely didn’t exist, and held no more water than a television psychic claiming they could speak to the dead -- a career-ender for anything it touched.

“Well… we’re glad to have you,” she replied, not quite sure what to make of this.

Cissnei pulled up a chair for herself next to the desk. “I had worked with Aeris before this, six months ago. She recommended me for this. I thought it would be fun.”

Tseng blinked. Cissnei continued.

“Yes. Being part of all this work, being there when we start finding things. It’s exciting.” She gestured to Aeris. “Getting to spend time around people with the mental capacity to understand what you’re saying. I think it will be very enjoyable.”

“I suppose that angle could be appreciated, too,” said Tseng. He returned to his seat as well, and looked at Aeris. “This may be a bit obvious, but you’re…?”

She shrugged. “It was their project, yeah. Lots riding on this.”

He nodded, then turned back to the desk. “We may as well be on the same page. This is mostly just an archive of the data we’ve collected over the last few years,” he said, gesturing to the screen. “I believe we’ll be adding to the data stored here once we get out of decontamination.”

Aeris pulled up her own chair to the desk and leaned over it with him, with Cissnei hovering behind them curiously. The test data itself was a bit beyond her, it seemed, but Aeris found it helpful to have someone to explain concepts to out loud, forcing her to organise her thought process. Cassiopeia never asked the right questions, and was more prone to chewing up her chives and vomiting them on her rug than she was to asking what supersymmetry was or why one shouldn’t call the Higgs-Boson the “god particle” because it was a stupid terrible name that nobody really used.

“What do you think we’ll find?” asked Cissnei, after another hour and a good old rousing round of explaining what a top quark was and why nobody could find it despite enormous mass. “On the other side, I mean.”

“Hard to say,” said Aeris. “I’d be happy with recognisable matter. Maybe some microbes, if we can find something that helps us know what to look for.”

“Just microbes? If it’s another universe, you’d think there would be people there too. Maybe Rome never fell. Maybe we all do Carrousel. Something like that. ”

Tseng cut in. “It could be. There could, in theory, be an infinite number of universes with an infinite number of permutations, if my understanding of the situation is correct. However, you are assuming worlds like this are the majority, when in all likelihood -- and likelihood is the important word here -- they are not.

“Thus, life is thought to be quite common,” continued Tseng dryly, watching Aeris rearrange her belongings around her bed. “But complex life exceedingly rare. If we are correct in assuming that a world like ours is the odd one out, while there may be trillions of permutations of worlds with complex life, there will still be a far greater number where conditions were not favourable for life to evolve beyond the unicellular stage.”

“Maybe. Maybe it’s a kind of life we don’t know exists yet,” said Cissnei.

Aeris expected Tseng to rebut her, but he merely nodded. “Perhaps. That is why I am here, after all. Why you are here, and why the rest of us will be here tomorrow. There is no telling what we will find. If it were practical, I believe they would have imported hundreds of experts here. They still may, depending on what we uncover in the coming weeks.”

“They’ll reevaluate the staff after the first period’s up and they clear us out of here to do safety checks,” said Aeris. Her hair had finally begun to un-frizz, and she set aside her ribbon and began to carefully rebraid it.

“Then they’ll send in more people if they think we need it. Or maybe if we ask. And then we get to check things out for ourselves. Eventually. Most of the groundwork has already been taken care of, over the years,” she added, trying her best to emphasise the silent “by me as well” at the end of her sentence.

“What if we only find a bunch of rocks?” joked Cissnei.

“Then we get to call in a really excited mineralogist,” said Aeris. “We won’t be able to go right away, though. Have to make sure where we’re going is safe enough to send someone through. Run the numbers.”

“See if any lab rats come back inside out.”

Aeris made a face. “...Yes, that too.” It was probably for the best that they weren’t meant to eat anything for twenty-four hours. Cissnei remained nonplussed and got up from her chair, stretching out on one of the beds.

“Anyone got a phone charger?” she said after a moment of silence. Tseng opened the one briefcase he’d brought with him and produced his, looking at her curiously.

“What do you intend to do?,” he asked. “There’s no signal in here.”

“Just some background noise, maybe.” She unplugged the other lamp and put her phone in. “It’s too quiet. Feels like an interrogation room in here.”

The room dimmed with the removal of one of their light sources, but Aeris actually did feel her shoulders unknot a little once the space was filled with a noise other than the buzz of fluorescent light bulbs. The song was vaguely familiar to her -- seemed like a much older one, maybe from the nineties. Something indie and obscure. Maybe French? She couldn’t make out many words under the heavy distortion from the track itself and the speaker. She found herself humming along, until it occurred to her she was probably driving Tseng nuts, who probably didn’t care much for rock music and was probably jet-lagged into hell, something he more or less proved by shuffling over to a bed and crashing right then and there.

The lack of light and the music made her eyes heavy. She spent another hour reading at the desk, before Cissnei had to nudge her upright and direct her to a bed to keep her from drooling on the screen. Perhaps now she’d finally catch up on the time she’d lost thanks to her shithead cat.

Besides, tomorrow there was important work to be done.

Chapter 4: Before We Do Anything Else Though Let's Talk About Math For Forty-Five Minutes

Notes:

Very nervous. The more I post, the more I box myself in with potentially bad unworkable ideas that I won't be able to back out on in the middle of chapter 20. Oh well!

Things are gonna start moving pretty quickly from this point on once the setup finally wraps up. Very nervous about that too.

God this thing's probably ridden with typos again.

Thank you again to Sanctum_C, Belderiver, limbostratus, Raaj, and everyone else I bothered to write this dumb garbage.

The click of the door to the decontamination airlock opening up was what woke up Aeris, and she quickly gathered up the few possessions she had brought with her and nudged Tseng awake. Cissnei was already awake somehow, and had already proceeded through ahead of her. Aeris was quick to follow -- the room was cold and humid, and an automated notification from the intercom had notified her that the other half of the team were on approach and would be using it in an hour or so.

The last airlock on the way out led into a small antechamber that would open up into the main facility. Aeris stepped out through the door, and it clicked shut behind her. Aeris looked down the long hall that stretched out in front of her, and began to lead the way down it.

"It's hard to believe it's all real," said Cissnei from behind her. "I guess someone had to be the person that realised you could actually send people into space, but it's still..."

"I guess so," she replied, heading deeper into the compound and passing through the first ring, mostly containing supplies, and into the second, containing living quarters for the crew. "All the numbers check out in the simulations, anyway." Another luxury they had now that they didn't the first time around.

They branched off into their own rooms, laid out like the spokes of a wheel. There were ten in total, though only six would be occupied with the other four containing supplies. Aeris dropped off her candies in one of the rooms, claiming it as her own, and quickly followed after Tseng and Cissnei.

The next ring in was the biology lab. Tseng was already unpacking his briefcase onto the desk provided. The whole thing seemed almost too big for just one, maybe two people, and this section of the building alone probably had as much money sunk into it as the next three rings combined. Who needed eight different kinds of microscopes? Tseng did, apparently.

It had several doors leading into the next innermost ring, the medical ward; close enough to the labs for quick response in case of accidents, deep enough into the facility to prevent more of them through potential biohazard leaks. Hopefully.

There were two more rings, increasingly smaller, both separated from the sections in front and behind them by airlocks, containing a veritable jungle of computers and machines and detectors that might not ever get used. The idea was to never have to outsource anything they might find outside the facility and have it all done in-house.

Aeris took a deep breath and steeled herself in front of the airlock door of the second-to-last ring of the building, glancing at Cissnei, who nodded, not entirely sure what to expect.

"Excited?" she asked.

"Yes. Nervous, too. My feet are tingling a little."

"That could also be because we're pretty much on top of the generator right now," said Aeris. The entire thing was buried underground and heavily insulated, but the sheer amount of power on tap still made the whole area slightly charged with static.

"...Is that safe?"

"Yes," said Aeris grimly. "They wouldn't have let us build this place without getting it reapproved sixteen times. See for yourself if you don't believe me." And with that, she pushed open the door.

It seemed an unimpressive enough space upon first glance -- several computers along the outer wall, a large screen built into the inner ring. Desks, a whiteboard, and a couple servers.

Slightly more unusual was the rack of towels, and the raised metal disc about two metres across, covered by a glass panel and wired up to one of the more formidable computers in the room.

And of course, the large tank in the centre of the room. That too.

Aeris ran a hand over the side of it, suppressing a thrill of giddiness. It came up to her chest in height and was twice as wide, with a lid that was presently closed over the top. There were ten times as many wires leading from this one as there were the metal disc, and in particular three thicker ones were linked to the screen mounted on the wall.

"Spooky," remarked Cissnei, also staring at the tank, unwilling to touch it. "You're not worried?"

"Even if I was, it wouldn't matter." Truth be told, she was immensely worried. The simulations guaranteed no risk, sure. The lab rats they'd used in the trials seemed to be doing okay, sure. There would be five other people in the room with her in case something as stupid as her flipping over and choking on neuroconductive fluids happened, sure. The medical wing was intentionally right next door, sure.

A wild thought crossed her mind as she considered just jumping in the tank right now before she got cold feet. She even went as far as tipping up the lid. It was empty at the moment, of course, the drain in the bottom clearly visible. That would change in a matter of days, or perhaps hours if they were fortunate enough.

"It's exciting, too," she said after a moment, closing the lid. "We may as well get started with setup. Have everything running for when everyone gets here."

"'We'?"

"You could help, I guess. Get everything switched on and running."

"I am not touching the devil tank, though."

Aeris put her hands on her hips and frowned. "It won't do anything, even if it were on. You aren't in it, and we haven't picked a signal to replicate."

"What if you're wrong?"

Aeris gave the tank a firm pat on the lid. "Then we learn a valuable science lesson. Come on, give me a hand with the contact disc."

They worked for several hours after that. While a good majority of the simpler functions were automated, the instruments themselves weren't. Most of it wound up being staring at loading screens, waiting for systems upon systems to boot up. At about six hours into prep, Tseng joined them, having finished his work in the biolabs.

"You seem busy," he said, glancing over the pair of them. Cissnei had been pacing in circles around the room's circumference and seemed to have somehow managed to annoy herself with it, and Aeris was staring at a monitor watching driver 56 of 1189 load, a thin stream of drool of going down her chin.

"We're sciencing. What have you been doing?" Aeris shot back defensively.

"Much of the same thing," he admitted. "You aren't accomplishing anything at the moment. Neither am I. We may as well retire for the time being."

"Isn't this important?" objected Aeris, as Cissnei all too willingly went right for the door.

"Yes, but we're not supposed to be doing much without half the staff present anyway," she said. "Eat something."

"Fine, but I'm staying here," said Aeris. "I'd like to get a head start on finding a good anchorpoint. If they like, they can tell me to pick a new one when they get here."

Their meals consisted of prepackaged rations. They could have been quite a bit worse, considered Aeris as she dug into some sort of precooked meat pie-esque thing. She had offered the gummy bears and allsorts again, and no one had been particularly interested.

After another half hour of waiting for the system to be fully online, the light beneath the glass-covered disc flickered on as Aeris sat at the computer next to it and began to enter in a string of numbers -- the data from the first bridging experiment.

Once it was determined that the planes of reality they had discovered more or less had atoms the way they were understood in their own, there came talk of visiting said planes using the same technology. The process was simple, in explanation anyway. Safely sending a remote-controlled drone through to another universe had been considered, but ultimately was impossible -- there would be no way know what was on the other side without observing it, and there was no way to observe it that didn't involve sending a billion dollar rover through and hoping it didn't come out on the other side miles underground, or in the vacuum of space. The method considered by the late Dr. Gainsborough involved energy signatures -- the human consciousness was really little more than electricity, and if there were a point of reference on the other side that they recognised and had already mapped, one could use that as a jumping-off point to send their own signal through.

The problem with that, however, was the same catch-22 with the drones; there was nothing for them in the other dimension to see if there was anything for them in the other dimension.

That, and the fact that it sounded ridiculous and essentially ended her mother's career.

Eventually, she and her husband (nee Dr. Gast) had decided someone would have to be the first one in the pool. The effort had been privately funded, unsupervised, and ultimately, fatal.

People had died for these numbers.

It wasn't until three years ago that Aeris realised that they must have succeeded directly prior to the whole thing quite literally blowing up in their faces. The data was garbled enough that it had nearly been discarded, but it was there, and she had worked through it all herself, filtering out distortion, correcting for bugs, and deciphering what she could from burnt papers.

They had their signature, and with it their waypoint.

The glass-covered disc flickered on a few moments later, and pinpricks of light began popping up on its surface. All of them were instances of the pattern they had identified. Some were steadier than others. Most of them didn't remain fixed for more than an instant, and were limited in scope. She sifted through the options, watching them flicker in and out of existence, until she zeroed in on the most consistent one she could find. Good scope, steady source, very few variations. Perfect.

She scooted over to another computer and began running the calculations for it. It would probably take a lot longer on her own, but a head start was still a head start, and Cissnei and Tseng probably had a limited understanding of particle physics and the numbers that went into it anyway.

She was about five hours deep into her work before she turned to look at the disc again and swore.

The waypoint she'd been setting up calibrations for had terminated, she realised. All of them had. She could continue, but the results would be skewed with the signal truncating as it had. Perhaps she could wait a while and see if it picked up anything else.

She got up to retrieve the container of allsorts, and noticed another waypoint. Very steady, decent scope, but not particularly strong -- it had barely registered at all.

It was better than nothing, though, and five hours wasted was still five hours wasted. She scrapped the work she'd done for the first point with a heavy sigh and began on the next one, this time frequently checking to see if it was still there.

She peeled her face off the desk sometime later, not having realised she had fallen asleep. At some point someone else had left another ration pack next to her. She picked it up and went back to the outer ring to the living quarters.

Cissnei was there waiting for her. "It's about time you left that room. They're getting out of decon in ten minutes."

"Who? Oh." Aeris wiped a drool stain off the side of her face and allowed Cissnei to lead her around to the other side of the ring. "Where's Tseng?"

"Asleep," said Cissnei. "He probably didn't want to admit he was still nauseous in front of the project's head."

"I'll get him. You can say hi for me," she said, and started off down the hallway again.

"Should you be here if you're in charge -- okay, goodbye," she heard Cissnei say behind her.

By the time she got back with a decidedly less-put-together Tseng, Cissnei already appeared to be having a conversation with the three men that had just arrived, and Aeris paused uncertainly for a moment.

The first was clearly who the Netherlands had sent, what with the blond hair and blue eyes and the significant height advantage he had on most of them. He seemed mostly content to watch the others. Perhaps this was because of the language barrier, as Cissnei was presently engaged in a conversation in German with the second man. He seemed to be the oldest of the three, a few years older than the blond man, his black hair streaked with grey in places, and Aeris was fairly sure she recognised him from the meetings. She could tell even through the reserved, formal way he carried himself that he had been dying to talk to someone all day.

Aeris was half convinced the third was an intern that had wandered in by mistake. He was significantly taller than all of them and oddly musclebound for a physicist, and looked about as young as she was. He hadn't stopped fidgeting with the sleeves of his scrubs and was clearly bored out of his mind. Her mind went back to the dossiers after another moment -- by process of elimination, the lab in Hawaii had sent him over.

Cissnei paused mid-conversation and turned to Aeris and Tseng, who quickly made an effort to straighten the collar of his shirt.

"Dr. Gainsborough aus dem Vereinigten Königreich Großbritannien und Dr. Tseng aus der Volksrepublik China," said Cissnei, gesturing to each of them as they exchanged handshakes. She turned to Aeris. "Dr. Angeal Hewley from the Federal Republic of Germany, Dr. Lazard Deusericus from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and Dr. Zachary Fair from the United States of America."

They each gave a polite nod at the mention of their names. The blond man, Dr. Deusericus, smiled. "It's an honour to work with you on this project, Dr. Gainsborough."

"Likewise, and Aeris is fine," she replied. "It'll be too stuffy if we keep up the titles the whole time we're here." She turned on her heels again and began to move back towards the sleeping quarters. "Well, get yourselves in order. We've got a lot of work to do."

The tall one, Fair, blinked in surprise, but if he would have said anything she wouldn't have heard it, already on her way towards the fifth ring, unable to keep the grin off her face.

 

---

 

"So, uh... that went well, I guess?" Zack watched the project head disappear around the corner and went back to messing with the sleeves of his uniform.

"Swimmingly," came Lazard's voice behind him, sounding somewhat amused as Angeal heaved a heavy sigh behind him. Zack had decided almost immediately to be on a first-name basis with everyone he was in decon with. Lazard had tolerated it good-naturedly, more or less. Angeal had responded by looking at him exasperatedly and accidentally-on-purpose not hearing him on occasion.

"So... Ange. Can I call you Ange?"

Zack received another stern look.

"Angeal, then. It's unprofessional to ignore your coworkers, Angeal."

Angeal sighed and proceeded down the hall to the living quarters.

"This relationship's off to a great start," said Zack, heading after him.

"You can't blame us for wanting to maintain a professional environment," said Lazard.

"Yeah, but we're basically bunkmates now," said Zack, looking at one of the identical white doors Angeal had just disappeared into. "Can you imagine spending a month at a time living with someone you couldn't stand? Like a girlfriend, but you can't dump them, because it's her house, and also you've lost the keys, and there are no windows and neither one of you can leave without causing an international incident."

"That's... certainly colourful," said Lazard.

"Tell me about it," muttered Zack, and picked a room at random.

It was fairly minimalist -- a bed in the corner, with a couple pillows and some blankets. He'd have to see if there were any more pillows in the supply section.

He spent a full two minutes just sitting on his bed and staring at the mirror over the sink in front of him -- it was the first time in a month he hadn't had any cameras pointed in his face. His jaw ached from the constant need for a "winning smile". He scowled at the mirror, which was immensely satisfying, which involuntarily made him smile again, which started the cycle over.

A knock on the door dragged his attention away from the mirror. "They're setting up for the first round," came Lazard's voice. "You're needed in the fifth ring."

Zack got to his feet and stepped outside. "What, already?"

Lazard began to lead him back. "Yes, already. Apparently they'd been taking care of the preliminary work over the last day or so. Nothing left to do but start."

Zack took his time making it through the facility -- he spent a few minutes watching Tseng and Lazard hurry around medical, and offered to feed the ten or so rats they had available to them, until Tseng had to shoo him away when he tried to take one out to pet.

He probably shouldn't be getting attached to something that he'd have to watch get dissected, but then that was why he wasn't a biologist.

Another two airlocks led him into the fifth ring, where Angeal and Aeris were already deep in conversation, with Cissnei mediating between the two. Aeris was the first to greet him.

"I don't recognise you from the meetings," she said eventually. "So you're... Zax?"

"It's Zack," he grumbled. "That's a typo. And... yeah. Cosmologist. I was kind of a last minute addition."

"How last minute?"

"Try three weeks. They briefed me on the way over."

Aeris frowned, and he quickly continued. "That big scary room one door over? That was my design." She continued watching him, which he took as a sign to continue. "Partially my design, anyway. They figured, y'know, since I built it, they might as well have me operate it too. So, I'm here!" He waved. "Hello!"

"So how's it work, then?" A test. He hoped it wouldn't be like this the entire time he was working.

"The last one just ripped a hole open in spacetime for stuff to be fed through. It was, uh... brilliant, I'm sure, but wound up with some... casualties," he said, crashing into every single elephant in the room on the way to his desk. "That one just tears the hole at you."

"That sounds lethal."

"Oh, it is," said Zack, shrugging. "But by then you're in another universe. Kills you and brings you back before the laws of physics have time to realise you're dead."

It finally got her to look away, at least. "Well, welcome to the project, Zack."

"You too," he replied, turning back to his own screen and hiding a grin. Test passed, first name basis achieved.

 

---

 

Everyone spoke very little during the first part of setup. Deusericus, after getting set up in the medical room, had joined Tseng in observing everyone else until they were needed. Hewley, thank god, was finally present to help fine tune the calculations she'd made in a hurry and without much sleep, with Cissnei helping to translate the occasional communication or two -- it seemed he understood some English, but spoke very little of it himself. That left Fair hovering over their shoulder, apparently making Angeal nervous.

After a while, Aeris spoke up again. "I'm still sort of surprised they have someone else this young on the project," she said. "I was involved from day one, and I recommended Cissnei. What's your story?"

"Maybe they thought it'd be good publicity or something if they sent someone from Mauna Kea." He shrugged, leaning on the desk. "Genius from a poor family, y'know. Makes a good Lifetime movie. I don't think it's bragging or anything to say I'm pretty photogenic, either."

Aeris frowned. "You're awfully up-front about it."

"Hey, I said that was one of the reasons," he said, looking mildly offended. "You don't think I got my doctorate off a basketball scholarship, did you?"

"Well, you can show me," she replied, and passed him a set of papers. "Help get the overlap signal set up."

Zack looked through them, still looking mildly stung. "What's this from? I thought we'd never done this before."

At this Angeal spoke up, and Cissnei began translating.

"'We've never done this with a human before. We have tested the process on rats, using a weak partial signal. We know it's nonlethal as long as one doesn't choke and drown, and we know some kind of connection has been made, but the rats can't tell us what they're experiencing, what they've seen, or what the process is like,'" she relayed. Angeal then addressed Zack directly. "Ten days, ten rats. All fine."

"How does that work out for you?" he asked Aeris. "You'll be comatose, right?"

"That's what this is for," chimed in Deusericus, gesturing to a large screen that seemed to be more heavily wired up to the tank than the others. "This will be the first test to make sure it works."

"...And if it doesn't?" asked Zack.

"It has to," said Aeris, tying her braid more closely to her head in a bun. "They didn't tell you much, did they?"

Zack shrugged. "They went over the math itself, and the work I'd be doing. And the gateroom. Y'know, making sure anyone that goes in there comes back out in one piece. Not so much about the hell tank."

Cissnei pointed, looking triumphant. Aeris quickly continued, cutting her off.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven," said Zack. "You beat me by a year, looks like." He grinned, and Aeris again for a split second wondered if he mightn't have been an intern.

"Did you want to be here, or did they just send you over?" asked Aeris. "Why are you involved?"

"Well..." he scratched his neck. "I mean, of course I wanna be here. It's really exciting, you know? I wanted to be a part of it. That's why the rest of us joined, right Lazard?" he said, turning to Deusericus for support.

"Something like that," said Lazard, clearly amused at the familiarity. Zack had probably been doing that all through decon. "There are many reasons. The challenge, the honour for one's nation, having something nice on one's retainer..."

"And that's why you're here?" said Aeris, leaning away from the computer screen to let Angeal have a final look.

"More or less," he replied. "There's a suit for you on the examination chair. I'll meet you inside in five minutes for a physical before we start."

Cissnei flashed her another thumbs up as Aeris stood and left the room.

Lazard emerged ten minutes later following the physical, with Aeris behind him. After confirming she was in decent enough shape to not have a heart attack midway through the process, she had changed into what appeared to be a cream-coloured wetsuit, with silvery spots of conductive foil running down the spine. She'd tied her braid back up into a bun (showed them about her ribbon being work-inappropriate), and hauled herself up to sit on the ledge next to the lip of the tank as she watched it slowly fill.

She sat patiently as Lazard enlisted Cissnei's help in attaching electrodes to spots on her head and neck, as well as several more sensors monitoring her vitals. She very slowly slid her feet in -- the fluid itself was slightly viscous, and had a silvery tint to it -- and felt them drag through it with a bit more resistance than water. It had been diluted somewhat, and gallium generally wasn't known for being poisonous, but Aeris couldn't help but think of pitcher plants.

They passed her sealed oxygen mask and helped her secure it to her face. Apart from air, there would also be a mild sedative mixed in, enough to keep her from unconsciously thrashing around and flipping herself over. She and Cissnei flashed another thumbs up, and Aeris carefully lowered herself into the tank. The fluid had been heated slightly, but she still shivered as she carefully positioned herself to float on her back.

"The first set's active," she heard Tseng say from somewhere to her right. "Count down from ten."

Aeris felt her thoughts skip a beat, and she felt as though they were sagging slightly, leaving a small space underneath them. The large screen flickered on.

The sedative began to kick in, and the sagging smoothed out, leaving the space within reach. Aeris focused on it, and began to count.

Numbers began appearing on the screen, neatly typed: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

"Spooky..." she heard Zack mutter. She was sure Cissnei would probably be inclined to agree. 

"Now up from twos," came Angeal's voice. On a new line below the first came 2-4-6-8-10. Ready.

"The screen's online. The main set's coming in two minutes," said Lazard. "Good luck." The lid was closed over her, leaving her in complete darkness.

The large screen was essential for two reasons -- once she'd made contact, she'd essentially have no knowledge of her surroundings, and no way to communicate in the event of an emergency. There would be no way to take notes, either, lacking a presence any more physical than electrical signals, and vital information could be lost due to simple human forgetfulness. The screen doubled as both.

A microphone in the lid of the tank directly over her clicked on, and Zack's voice wafted through, echoing slightly in the confined space.

"We're sending a partial at first, to see how you handle that," he said. "Just keep talking to me until you can't."

"Shouldn't a doctor be doing this?" said Aeris. The sedative had fully set in, and the warm water (well, some of it was water) she was suspended in made it feel a bit like a hot tub.

"Lazard's looking over your vitals right now and Cissnei's on translation duty. Besides, I am a doctor," he replied, and she could still hear the toothy grin in his voice.

"So 'm I."

"Well, then we're fine. You've got twenty seconds. Can you count for me?"

"Nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen..." Spots of light began to appear in her vision. Minor hallucinations, something they'd expected. She made a note of it on the screen for them to go over later. The darkness in the tank suddenly seemed a lot bigger. Zack was saying something else to Tseng, and she could hear them all moving around her. The lights began flashing faster, and she shut her eyes.

"...four, three, two --"

 

---

 

Once, when she'd been four years old, Ifalna Gainsborough had taken her daughter to the zoo. It had been the height of summer, and while Aeris would have likely preferred to stay outside staring at the ostriches all day, her mother had successfully managed to corral her into the indoor deep sea exhibit after she started turning pink. One of her earliest memories was looking through those tanks, and coming across the informational video about dead fish, drifting to the abyssal zone at the bottom of the ocean, where there wasn't any light, until something much bigger and stranger than it snapped it up.

It was unimaginably deep here -- and at the same time, empty. It was absence, and yet she felt something incomprehensibly huge around her, and there was nothing around her at all, because here was nothing. She felt the nothing pass through her, and a low, deep noise began getting louder, like howling wind, even though there was no noise, and no wind.

Suddenly there was something, actually, and she was stunned she had missed it before. She was clearly seeing something, but for some reason her eyes didn't want to focus on it -- because of course, she had no eyes, and she was looking at nothing that existed, as far as her brain was concerned. Everything seemed distorted and distant and somewhat dreamlike.

She was in an enclosed space. That much she could make out. There was ground beneath her, and noises that she couldn't properly hear around her, because of course she wasn't hearing anything, there was nothing to hear.

She was here. She was looking at another world.

She began frantically taking stock of everything around her that she could see, which was not a lot. She wasn't entirely sure where the signal they'd overlapped with had come from, and she found she was unable to look around freely. Maybe an anchored point? That didn't make sense.

There was, at least, solid ground, or something that looked like it anyway -- that was already a promising start. She couldn't "see" particularly well, and every few seconds they plunged back into darkness, but the space around her seemed more or less Euclidean, though she would know for sure when she traversed it herself.

She was interrupted about thirty seconds later with the realisation that her chest hurt. That wasn't right, was it?

The pain got worse, and she made a note of it. Ten seconds later, she saw a tank lid slide open above her with a concerned Lazard leaning over her and offering her a towel. She tore off the mask and took deep breaths of air, even though she hadn't had any trouble breathing before.

She pulled herself out of the tank. Zack was still staring at the screen, looking gobsmacked, as was Angeal, whom Cissnei was translating for in a low, rushed voice. Tseng looked almost ready to express an emotion.

"You did it," said Zack. "You really, actually did it. Holy shit..."

"That's not workplace language," she said.

"We just discovered another planet in another universe," said Cissnei, also busy staring at her notes, "I think we deserve a 'holy shit' or two."

"Feedback," said Tseng brusquely. "We gave you two minutes. Tell us everything you can."

Aeris hesitated for a moment, wiping the accumulated moisture from her face with the towel, getting her words in order. "...It was a bit scary," she said. "I... saw something. Almost definitely objects and not hallucinations. Couldn't move for some reason. It sort of felt like I was choking."

Angeal turned around. "The partial?" he asked. Aeris shrugged.

"Can't think of any reason otherwise. Your head stayed above the surface the entire time," said Lazard.

"There's other issues we need to fine tune," said Zack, finally turning away from the note screen to look at Aeris, thumbing back towards it to direct her attention there. Prominently displayed was

minor hallucinations look like lights

very dark here, spatial distortion or limited human perception

amazing sol4igroundηdid232 lλわooks enclosed struχ24ure cave meれt maybe sign2αλわ111 yos1れ deの twowall 33tΘ1子14 metrρe供 unmer

hurtπ痛ain 6chest mine

Aeris frowned. "That's... not what I wrote."

"We figured as much," replied Lazard. "You're lucky we managed to parse the last bit. That's a safety concern we need cleared up before we try this out in full. Get cleaned up and meet us back here to disseminate our findings."

A couple hours later, they had discovered most of the difficulties had been due to it being a "test run" in the first place. The choking sensation had its roots in the same problem: higher brain functions had registered, leaving the more basic ones behind.

They'd been deemed unnecessary and a waste of power on a test run.

"Maybe you don't need to breathe, but your brain thought you did," explained Tseng. "Just as it had decided you had no nerves with which to move. Easily fixed."

Other issues lacked the necessary data for them to do much more than guess. Strangely enough, the pattern they'd used to get here seemed to be missing parts of it, snuffed out by Aeris's own, yet the signal had been more or less maintained. And there was the matter of her notes.

"I took measurements of what I saw," she explained. "Don't know how accurate they were. There shouldn't be that many numbers."

"We don't know what's making it do that," said Zack. "Shouldn't we -- "

"No," interrupted Aeris. "We're doing the next run tomorrow, and it'll probably clear up with the rest of the issues we had when we do it for real."

"And if it doesn't?" asked Tseng.

"Then we do it anyway. I'll just have to remember everything until we get it worked out." She was met with silence. "Think about it. Do we have any alternative? We've come this far."

Angeal said something else, and it took Cissnei a moment to tear her eyes away from the note screen, realise he was talking, and relay it to everyone else.

"'We keep going. We've made incredible progress, and we're about to make more. Would it be possible to do it with the lid off, and watch you directly?'"

"Probably. Maybe a bit of sensory bleed, but I can keep my eyes shut," she replied. "I'd say we do the next run today, but I don't know if I want to be drugged twice in one go."

Angeal said something else.

"'It's all about finding the path of least resistance. From our end, at least. We have a limited understanding of physics that --' I didn't translate that for you. How did..." Cissnei trailed off, looking between Aeris and Angeal, who sighed.

"I felt it would be prudent to allow you to continue translating. I assumed there was at least one other person in the group that would also require your skills," said Angeal curtly. "Clearly no one else thought the same."

"...You spoke English this entire time," said Cissnei slowly.

"Yes."

"Everyone here speaks English."

A chorus of affirmatives from the group.

"I -- why am I here, then?!" she sputtered.

"I assumed someone else would need the help," said Angeal.

"So did I," added Tseng.

"...If it helps, I know Spanish," offered Zack, scratching his neck. "If you wanna leave, the airlock's that way."

"Well, perhaps I don't!" she huffed. "Perhaps I am going to stay here anyway so you can all continue to spare my feelings!"

"Actually, maybe you have to!" said Aeris brightly. "You already went through decontamination. Going back out off schedule counts as an emergency. It could set off an investigation and stall the project for weeks. Maybe even months."

"...Thank... you?" said Cissnei after a moment, considering whether or not this was a good thing.

"You're welcome," replied Aeris. "The drugs have made me very tired, and I'm going to take a nap." Which was what she did.

The next two days were spent processing their findings and fine-tuning the tank for their first official launch. There unfortunately wasn't much data to go on about the other universe from the trial run, so most of the focus was on Aeris herself and the tank. Lazard had decided that the lid could be opened mid-process as necessary, but that the lights should remain dimmed. Cissnei would be watching the entire time ready to pull the plug at the first sign of distress, a position that she was determined to take very seriously out of resentment. Angeal and Zack would both be working with Aeris herself to focus on refining the overlap signal. Tseng had been largely quiet the entire time. Aeris walked up behind him and cleared her throat.

"Anything we should know about?" Aeris probed.

"Actually, yes," Tseng admitted. "It's not really concrete. More of a guess than a hypothesis, but... the reason we're able to recognise the signal as a familiar pattern is... I think, partially because it's organic in nature. That must have been what the late Dr. Gainsborough was identifying."

Aeris paused to consider this. "How do you know?" she asked.

"Brainwaves. Or something like them."

"...Is it intelligent?"

"That's difficult to say," said Tseng. "It could be an intelligence we lack the scientific knowledge to comprehend, but based off what we know about biology on Earth, no. Very little, if any brain activity. If there was, there would've been interference the entire time. Some sort of animal, most likely."

"Definitely bigger than a microbe, though?"

"Definitely bigger," agreed Tseng, and it was clear he was trying to downplay his excitement.

"How big did you feel?" asked Zack.

Aeris considered this as well. "I don't really know. It was hard to see, and everything was kind of numbed."

"Y'know, if you want someone else to go in for you --"

"You're volunteering?" she interjected, her eyes narrowing slightly. Zack held up his hands.

"Hell no. You wouldn't get me into that thing for a million dollars. Which is maybe how much they're paying you to do that anyway, so a billion. I thought maybe someone else could volunteer, though."

"It's really not that bad," she said. "A bit unsettling, maybe, but it passes quickly enough."

"You can swim in the hell bathtub all you like, then," returned Zack, turning his chair around to face her.

"I will," said Aeris, "and it'll be groundbreaking for everyone, I'm sure. Now come help me compile this. There's something here Angeal says might be a bug, and we'll need to do the next run perfectly or risk falling behind schedule." She opened the container on the counter to her left and tapped it with her pencil.

"Gummy bear?" she offered.

"Thought you'd never ask," interjected Angeal, reaching over the both of them. It was about time, she supposed.

Chapter 5: Zack Gets Really Bored And Thinks About How One X Value Cannot Have Two Y Values

Notes:

Holy fuck people actually commented on this thing, and I didn't even need to put a sex scene in to make it happen! Wow!

Thank you so much to everyone that took the time to leave feedback. You have no idea how much it means (or how much of a shock it was to find out this thing actually has an audience???? but hey I'm always open to being pleasantly surprised). Also thanks to the usual crowd of People I've Bothered About This Story (TM), Raaj, Sanctum_C, Belderiver, limbostratus, materiodic, et cetera.

This and the next chapter were written simultaneously, and I've been very, very excited to post them for a while. I also think (hope) that this is the last major exposition chapter for a while now. I expect the next chapter to go up really soon, too.

Hahaha I don't know how to write intros so everything's in medias res and I pretend it's an artistic decision

The rubber ball hit the floor without anyone catching it and rolled under a desk as an ear-splitting scream sounded from the tank.

Zack was the first one over, abandoning his game of catch and wrenching the lid of the tank off, revealing a flailing Aeris, now thrashing and clutching at her side, her right arm curled into her body. Lazard was there just a moment afterwards, which was fortunate considering her movements had caused her to briefly slip under the surface of the fluid, cutting off her scream with choked coughing.

"Give me a hand," he instructed, a bit unnecessarily, as the entire crew had now crowded around the tank to pull her out, splashing the floor with neuroconductive fluid.

Everyone looked at Lazard, so Zack looked at him too. Lazard seemed to be ignoring all of them, examining Aeris's perfectly undamaged arm. "She's stable, it looks like," he said.

"So how many stable people do you know scream for no reason?" returned Cissnei as she dodged Aeris's other elbow as it flailed at her.

"Not now," said Lazard sharply. "Aeris? Can you hear me?"

 

---

 

"This suit itches," said Aeris, after a moment of consideration, blinking the blinding flash out of her eyes. She awkwardly reached her arm behind her back, pulling at the fabric there with the silver foil at her spine.

"The sooner you get into the tank, the sooner you won't care," replied Angeal without turning around as he fiddled with the camera, trying to fit it back into its case. This one was much fancier than Aeris's cheap polaroid -- these cameras were CERN's own equipment, for personal documentation, and given first contact was about to potentially occur, the public would probably want a photo of the moment for posterity.

"They got their photo," grumbled Aeris, waiting until Lazard finished attaching the electrodes before carefully lowering herself into the liquid, "at the press conference."

"Those were just promos. They don't count," said Zack, who had just come back in holding a couple towels. "Anything we get from your brain is gonna be really grainy and smudgy. So these will have to do."

"Then let's get this done," she said, carefully floating herself onto her back again as someone outside her field of vision lowered the lights in the room.

"So, this is it?" came Zack's voice from the microphone, and also from directly above her, since the lid of the tank was off.

"This is it," she confirmed. "D'you dare me to write 'Aeris was here' on the nearest wall?"

"If whatever space poodle you're piggybacking off of has thumbs."

Aeris pulled the mask on over her face. "Here's hoping."

"Count for me," said Zack, and the note screen flickered back on.

 

---

 

The low droning sound was louder now, which she knew was a ridiculous concept -- there couldn't be any sound because she presently didn't have ears to perceive it, and even if she did, there was no reason it would be louder this time.

It was impossibly, unfathomably deep here, and Aeris felt for one wild, irrational moment that she wasn't supposed to be here, that the emptiness wasn't empty at all, and that somehow it knew she was here.

The first wave of sensation was overwhelming, and washed her clean out of the empty space. Her surroundings swam, and she again felt the choking sensation, and took a deep breath.

The fact that she had just "breathed" suddenly hit her, and she hastily made a note of it as her vision slowly began to sharpen.

The numbness was gone now, and was replaced with an overwhelming amount of information. Her vision was fuzzy and distorted, but there were smells reaching her nose that she had no name for. She felt as though she were standing in a vast hall, the smallest noises amplified tenfold. Her entire body felt tense, as though she were crouched at the starting line of a marathon, ready to spring into motion at a moment's notice.

As surreal as everything looked and sounded, it felt awfully tangible for something being experienced via proxy. She was breathing, somehow, or at least her brain was very convinced that she was. She imagined as though she were awake, and it was simply a very strange dream, and decided to move forward, just one step.

She felt -- actually felt -- herself move, her weight settling as her foot (or at least what she had convinced herself was a foot) hit the ground. She suppressed a small gasp, and actually began to look around properly.

She still wouldn't quite focus on anything around her, as though she were trying to puzzle her surroundings out of a magic eye picture, except for the brief periods where everything was too sharp, and she was forced to shut her eyes and blink it away. Her vantage point seemed to be about a metre and a half off the ground, more or less. She was in some sort of enclosed structure, the edges of which seemed a bit rough -- rocks, she was fairly confident, though the minerals in them would probably remain undetermined for now. There was light coming from a spot to her left that seemed less solid. A hole in the wall, then, with a sun, or perhaps a moon. Looking directly up revealed more of the structure over her head. No good.

She took another step forward, and then another. It felt awfully similar to walking, with a slightly different centre of gravity. She wasn't sure how much of it was her own brain interpreting it into something familiar for her, and how likely it was the creature she was using was actually bipedal. She wondered briefly if she was naked, but as she continued to slowly walk, she realised that there didn't seem to be anyone around to care.

There was a spot a couple metres ahead that seemed passable, the wall lower to the ground, to reveal space in front of it, and she willed herself forward and began to climb. The structure she was in seemed to have multiple layers to it, she realised, as she explored further. Some paths seemed natural and easier to navigate. Others she had to haul herself up, and was pleased to find another set of limbs in the front, just as fuzzy and distorted as everything else, that functioned familiarly enough for her to use them as leverage during her climb.

After spending a while climbing without reaching the top, she concluded that perhaps she was underground and that the light source might not necessarily be a star. She paused, feeling slightly winded, more from occasionally forgetting to breathe, and began to take notes. On her surroundings, the light outside, the way sounds seemed so much louder, the unfamiliar scents, and the way her environment seemed to shift from looking like a Picasso fever dream one moment to a series of sharp lines the next.

She blinked hard a few times, the strange shifting landscape beginning to give her a headache, and then actually considered the fact that she had blinked. She stopped surveying the landscape for a moment and began to very carefully focus on each nerve reporting information back to her.

Four limbs, that much she could tell. At least six or seven fingers -- halfway through counting the world around her suddenly seemed to swim again, and she found herself losing count, and for a brief moment she was certain she was climbing ten minutes ago. She breathed in, and then out again, paying careful attention to the air in her lungs, wondering how much of it was her own mind tricking her into the sensation, and how much of it was real. It certainly seemed real -- made a note of that too, and resolved to ask Tseng how likely it was that another species on another world would have evolved respiration.

What was strange, she thought, was how she was still moving. She wasn't moving. She was standing here, and she had been moving maybe ten minutes ago, hadn't she? The world continued to pinch itself around her, and something moved next to her. Or maybe around her. Or maybe in her. The sky was the ugly red colour of an open wound, and in the distance, there was a second moon, and Aeris was slowly but surely becoming more whole. Older songs leaked in through the gaps, and one of them seemed oddly familiar...

Aeris.

Really familiar. The walls seemed a lot closer, too.

"Aeris."

It sounded --

"Aeris!"

She was lying on her back on the floor, with Zack shaking her slightly and Lazard staring at him disapprovingly. She was still drenched, and everything around her seemed just as unreal as before. She blinked a couple times in confusion and looked between the two of them.

"...You pulled me out?"

Zack nodded. "There was some weird stuff going on with the signal Angeal and I will go over with you in a little bit, but on top of that, uh..."

"You fell asleep," said Lazard, a hint of amusement in his voice. "Actual sleep, not the temporary induced coma. A bit too much sedative. It took us a half hour to notice when you stopped writing us notes."

"You feeling okay?" asked Zack, handing her a towel as Aeris started shivering, the colder air of the room finally beginning to get to her.

"Fine," she replied, wrapping it around herself and getting to her feet. "What about the signal?"

"It's... c'mere," replied Zack, leading her over to one of the computers, where Angeal was seated, frowning at the screen.

"Another bug," he said after they had pulled up chairs. "One we didn't anticipate. Everything we got off you kept overlapping."

"That, coupled with your notes... we figured there's something going on."

Aeris turned away from the screen and looked back at her own notes. A lot of them were measurements, this time clearly in English, as anticipated. Some were sensory information. But they seemed to be out of order -- something she distinctly remembered "writing" towards the end of the jump posted before her noting the light in what may or may not have been the sky.

"It's not just scrambled, either," said Zack, following up her thoughts, "you wrote some of it in backwards. We checked, and it's not supposed to be able to do that."

"We found a specific point in space to use," began Aeris, "but not so much a point in time. It's all out of order -- what we measured the last time and this one." She turned back to Angeal. "That accounts for some of the fuzz, probably."

Zack stared at the screen for several moments. "So we've got our pick of anywhere in... time, basically?"

"Anywhere there's a good frequency for us to use, I'd assume."

"That's -- that changes everything."

"It would," said Aeris, "if we didn't only have one point left with a good frequency... maybe that's what shut off all the others. Maybe they're too far back?"

"That's too many 'maybes' for a project with billions dumped into it already," interjected Angeal. "We should do things in order from now on. Maybe if we know it's safe we'll investigate that later." Aeris didn't bother hiding her disappointment, but conceded that perhaps he had a point. Instead she turned back to the screen.

"Do we have enough data to do that? We've got two points in time that we've chronicled so far."

"Maybe so," he replied. "Only one way to find out for sure."

Aeris nodded and turned on her heel back to the tank before Zack caught her shoulder. "Wait, that's not --"

She pulled her arm away and gave him a stern look. "Why not? We're wasting time."

"Because we just drugged you for four or five hours straight, is why," he said, holding her stare, "and because it won't do anyone any good if you wind up addicted to nox or dead. And because you've been basting in NC fluid the whole time and it's probably a bad idea to spend all day in it."

With this, Lazard stepped over. "As the medical professional on this project, I'd say wait at least a day. Perhaps two."

"...One day, then," relented Aeris. "Don't blame me if we wind up off-schedule." With that, she strode off, taking the towel with her.

She knew it was probably a bit juvenile to let it bother her so much. She supposed by anyone's standards they'd probably already made enough of a groundbreaking discovery to break even on the massive investment that was this project, but for some reason it didn't feel like much. Two bridgings in, and there were already two human errors that could have been easily caught ruining both runs. This was supposed to be the good one, the one that didn't ruin any careers or cause any deaths.

She wrung the NC fluid out of her ribbon and changed out of the jumpsuit. Her fingers had gotten a bit pruney, and her limbs felt stiff. She thought back to how she had felt strangely energised during the bridging, and if it had been her own pent up energy from being cooped up as long as she had.

The warm shower in the medical room provided her an opportunity for her to begin shaking off the effects of the drugs, though the temptation to nap was still great. One day to kill, then. Fine. She could handle one day.

She returned to the fifth ring half an hour later and began to rearrange her notes into something coherent. She kept a copy of the originals as well, just in case. Historic something or other, probably. Zack was still there, as was Cissnei, still looking rather glum.

"A watched computer never compiles any data," said Zack after several minutes of silence from the both of them. Aeris grunted.

"Mine won't, maybe," she said. "You want help with anything?"

"No," said Zack quickly, then added, "No, uh... I'm sort of a perfectionist about this stuff. I'd rather do it myself first. No offense or anything." He scratched his neck nervously. "But hey, if I screw it up, you're welcome to point it out before Angeal does."

Aeris shrugged. "Suit yourself."

There was another few minutes of silence that was eventually punctuated by Cissnei getting out her contraband phone and putting on music again. Definitely early nineties, she decided, before Nirvana killed everyone's careers. A lot of instrumentals.

"...Sorry about this," she said to Cissnei after a moment.

"Don't be," said Cissnei. "It's a fair tradeoff, I think, getting to be here for it. And besides, maybe someone will want a break from speaking English all the time."

"Do you?" asked Zack.

"A little," she admitted. "Though this is maybe a problem the two of you don't have."

"I know a bit of French from school," offered Aeris. "It's probably terrible, though. Last time I was in that class I was thirteen."

"I'm about used to it by now," said Zack, to her surprise. "Picked up English young enough to where I didn't have to think about it too hard."

"I thought you were American?"

"I am now, yeah. My family and I are from Guatemala, though," he said. He looked away again. "I was only half kidding about the basketball scholarship. It... wasn't the one I wound up going with, but they did offer it. Good thing I went into STEM instead, right? I'd hate to think you'd all have never met me." He turned back to Aeris, the cheeky grin back in place. "So, what about you two?"

Aeris shrugged. "Lived here more or less my whole life, if the complexion wasn't a tip-off," she said. "Moved to America for two years when I was eight because my mother had gotten a job there at Harvard. Then we moved back."

"I ran into Aeris at one of her first seminars," said Cissnei. "I was not working as an interpreter then, but both our parents were there for the conference, and we both got dragged along." She tapped her phone a couple times. "No signal here," she said to no one in particular. That seemed to prompt something from Zack, and he got up and walked out of the room.

"You want to help me practise my French?" Aeris scooted her chair closer to Cissnei.

"You know what? Yes," Cissnei turned down the music on her phone and steepled her fingers. "It'll be nice if I'm the one that knows what we're talking about for once."

 

---

 

After making a quick stop at his room, Zack went back out to the first ring, the one that was mostly storage rooms. He brought with him a rubber ball about the size of a tangerine, his own smuggled contraband. The first ring would hopefully be empty enough to where nothing important would be broken if he missed a catch, but he doubted that would happen anyway. It was something he'd grown rather fond of during his brief time at college. It wasn't quite switching off his brain as it was the mental equivalent of flipping the mattress over.

The first throw had the ball resounding off the wall with a sharp thock that reverberated strangely around the curved hallway. Zack turned around and waited -- he'd put quite a bit of power behind his first throw. Sure enough, the ball came ricocheting down the other side of the hall, where he caught it neatly. He threw it back the other way with a short grunt, turned around, and after a moment caught it again.

He continued that way for some time. The facility had been designed for a bunch of scientists to do science in, and not an athlete to remain in shape, not counting the treadmill in the innermost room. Jogging in circles would probably make him nauseous, so this was his alternative. He wished he’d had it during the jump they’d done earlier today. Once the procedure started, there wasn’t much that he could do with his hands in the meantime until the whole thing was over, and that could be at least an hour, maybe more.

Despite the stuffiness, the environment had been a nice change of pace. Nobody had asked him for anything but to do his job. Everyone was a little prickly, sure, but he was confident that would fade given enough time -- everyone liked Zack. And when everyone here wound up liking him as well, it wouldn't really matter whether or not they did, because by then he'd have done his job anyway.

The rest of the day passed slowly enough as they slowly, methodically catalogued what data they'd managed to collect thus far. Zack in particular spent a lot of time checking and rechecking the disc listing their only waypoint. The bug Angeal had mentioned hadn't affected anything they'd been doing so far, meaning either it wasn't a bug, or that perhaps the same mistake had been made in every step of the process, hopefully causing it to cancel out. The effects hadn't been felt so far, but he wanted to make sure they stayed that way.

It took him the entire day and some of the next to go over every single set of numbers Aeris and Angeal had been using, and in the end he found nothing. It was airtight. Maybe Angeal had made the mistake?

Except he hadn't, because when he went back a second time, there was the anomaly, plain on its face. So someone was doing something wrong, and it wasn't Aeris, who'd done everything branching from the data salvaged from the first bridging experiment to setting up the frequency they were using now, and it wasn't Angeal, who had looked over her data and found a glaring mathematical impossibility, and it wasn't Zack, who had checked over both their work three -- no, four times now, and found that they were somehow both correct.

Maybe Tseng had gotten into the files? Unlikely -- from what he'd read, he'd been trying to get in on this project for years, and wouldn't risk jeopardising it over something that stupid. Lazard? He was a medical consultant and wouldn't have any reason to get his patients killed. Cissnei? Maybe, if she wanted to feel like she was contributing... but the bug was found before she'd been snubbed. It had possibly been around for years. Why had no one caught it until now?

He began to toss his ball again, this time straight up in the air, since there wasn't much he could safely bounce it off of surrounded by all these computers. The door to the fifth ring opened as Aeris and Lazard came back in, ready for another round, and Zack groaned upon realising how long he'd spent in this room. Perhaps no one had caught it up until now was because they'd had no data to check it against. Except they did, because that data was what this project was based off of. So what had they found? Drs. Gainsborough and Gast.

He almost asked, but then thought better of it. "Hey so is it possible your dead parents might've screwed something up?" wouldn't be the best jumping off point for him to use now that the team had finally started warming up to him, and neither would accusing someone of tampering with the computers. So instead he set his work aside to share with Angeal later and went to grab more towels for today's bridging.

"You look terrible," commented Aeris as she came in with the suit on, tying her hair back.

"Thanks," mumbled Zack. 

"It's something I have to be concerned about," she said. "Angeal isn't going to be able to run this procedure by himself."

"I'm fine," he said, brushing the hair out of his eyes and sitting up with a groan. "Just frustrated."

"About the bug?" asked Aeris, looking over the electronic dry erase board he'd been using and the scratch paper he'd branched out onto when he'd filled that out.

"That -- yeah, I mean --"

"You shouldn't worry about it. It's been working so far, hasn't it? Any problems we've had up until now have been human error. The numbers are solid."

Zack wordlessly nodded. "I guess so, but --"

"So the problem is on our end, not the process's," she said, climbing back up to the edge of the tank and holding still as Lazard began to attach the electrodes. "We'll get it sorted out once we've finished collecting enough data to sort it with."

"Sure. Sounds good." Zack pocketed his ball and sat by Cissnei.

"You look terrible," she said to him as he leaned back in his chair. Zack looked at her dourly but didn't say anything.

"You could've smuggled in anything and you picked that," she said, gesturing to the lump in his pocket. He fished it back out and shrugged.

"I've got issues with sitting still for hours on end," he said. "And I didn't smuggle it. It's been decontaminated like everything else, including your grubby, germ-infested phone. Why not just bring an iPod or something?"

"Because nobody owns iPods anymore, Zack. They all have phones."

"I'm still here," came Aeris's voice from the tank. Zack clicked on the microphone.

"Ready when you are," he said, rolling the ball between his fingers on the table. "Down from... make it thirty."

"Why thirty?"

"Stronger signal, more to check," grunted Zack. So tired.

A sigh came from the tank, then numbers, which also began appearing sequentially on the screen.

Eventually, the counting stopped, and Zack forced himself to wake up properly and went back to rolling the ball between his fingers and staring at the screen as more data started coming in. Couldn't afford to doze off in the middle of a jump. If something went wrong, which it wouldn't, it'd be immediately blamed on him. Don't screw up. Was that a three or an eight? Don't screw up. Just make it through the next few hours. Don't screw up.

Which is what he spent the next ten minutes repeating to himself before the deafening shriek snapped him out of his stupor.

 

---

 

Something seemed to press against her this time. Or maybe she was the one not pressing hard enough, like trying to submerge a kickboard underwater. She was more acutely aware this time of the sudden pop-in of sensations, the first of which was a blinding light she hadn’t noticed the first two times.

It definitely felt... not necessarily better, but sharper, and not in the painful way. The shapes were a lot clearer this time, but at the same time, they were still blurred. That didn't seem right.

She stared out in front of her, and it became apparent to her that she was a bit chilly. She realised was moving very, very quickly, and marvelled at the feeling of the wind in her hair, though that didn't feel quite right either (perhaps because she might not have had any? Something to be determined this time around).

Something else was wrong -- she wasn't moving herself, but her surroundings, still slightly distorted, continued to rush past her. Her body felt strange and tingly, and there was a deafening roar all around her.

And then she saw something moving at her. She couldn't make out what it was, but it was coming closer, and closer, and she had just a moment to realise that she wasn't stopping, that she couldn't stop, before she slammed into it.

Her vision went white as an agonised scream tore itself from her throat. Her right arm, and much of that side, felt as though they had been crushed in a vice, and her head was ringing. Things were touching her all over in the vast empty space she was in, clawing towards her, trying to get at the cut they'd made, at the organs that were surely spilling out all over the lab floor, and she had just a moment to realise that it was the emptiness itself that wanted in before --

"AERIS! Can you hear me?"

Her eyes snapped open to see Lazard kneeling over her, concern on his face. Her arm still stung, and it was because she realised she had dug her fingernails into her forearm hard enough to draw blood. She immediately relaxed her hand and sat up, giving a confused look to all the shaken faces surrounding her.

"...Why am I on the floor again?" was the first thing out of her mouth as soon as she noticed, replacing the much more obvious question that she was planning on asking. It was chilly here as well, if only because she was still drenched from the tank. A few moments after she began shivering, Cissnei handed her a towel.

The others shared an uncomfortable glance, and before waiting for them to answer she forged ahead anyway. "That was out loud, wasn't it?" She got a nod from Cissnei.

"Are you alright?" asked Lazard, who still hadn't backed off and was now checking her pupils for dilation response.

"Yeah, I'm... fine?" she said uncertainly, which seemed strange in and of itself; apart from the small cuts she'd unknowingly gouged into her forearm, the pain was completely gone, and there was no evidence of any damage, physical or otherwise.

"We didn't get any notes on the screen from you," said Tseng quietly, shaking his head at her first attempt to stand up until she'd been fully looked over. "Everyone assumed the worst."

"I'm fine... I mean, I didn't really have time to take any. Everything happened very fast."

"Explain."

"I was only there for maybe a few seconds. It..." she screwed her face up, trying to remember. "I was... moving. I mean, I wasn't moving -- walking, but I was moving anyway. Very quickly. Everything sort of dragged. And... I hit something." The meaning of what she was saying suddenly clicked for herself. "I was falling, then. Must have been."

"Off of what?" asked Angeal, who quickly ran back over to the computers, with Cissnei following him.

"No idea. Hurt like mad, though, so it must have been from high up." Lazard finally backed up and allowed her to get to her feet, then left to get something with which to patch up her arm. A thought occurred to her as she stared at the droplets of blood welling up at the little crescent shaped nicks, and she looked back up. "Our waypoint -- is it still --"

"I'm checking now," said Angeal tersely. The room went silent. If Tseng was right, and the waypoint was organic, and if it had fallen off of something....

About five minutes later, he nodded. "Yeah. Still running like normal, looks like." Aeris felt her chest unclench. There was that going for them, at least.

"You said it hurt," said Lazard, who had just finished applying the bandage.

"Yeah, it did."

"I want you to submit to another physical, then," said Lazard. "It could be because your mind tricked itself into thinking it did, or you could have nerve damage. We won't know for sure until I check."

"It was clearer this time," said Aeris, "and my head didn't hurt looking at anything. The clearest it's been. We keep going. We're getting closer."
Zack, who had been quiet up until now, let out a quiet breath he must have been holding. Aeris turned to look at him.

“What?” he asked nervously.

“Did you see something?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“...You shouldn’t lie about something like that,” said Aeris, crossing her arms. Zack stood up.

“I’m not lying!”

“Then why’d you say it like that?”

“Because -- I don’t know, maybe I should have?” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t see anything. Maybe I’d have noticed it normally, but... “

“Well… we’ll find out later when we go over things, won’t we?” said Aeris. Zack wilted a bit but did nothing but glance uncomfortably at the computer screen again.

"The sooner you let me look at you, the sooner I can clear you for another run," said Lazard from the doorway, clearly still rattled. Aeris turned to leave, still staring at her arm. It had felt so much more real that time. In fact, if it didn't sound completely mad to suggest it, it almost felt like --

Chapter 6: Cloud Buys A Snack

Notes:

WOW TWO CHAPTERS IN ONE WEEK

Just a heads up:

You know those two warnings I put in the description about graphic depictions of violence and body horror? This chapter is where I start earning those two warnings, because I put those on for a very, very good reason. So be ready for that. It's gonna start getting rougher from here on in, too.

But god damn, I have been looking forward to this moment for a LONG time.

Thank you to Raaj, Sanctum_C, Belderiver, limbostratus, and probably several other people I forgot because I sent chunks of this to a lot of people.

Cloud had been staring at his window for the last hour. It was past 7:30 in the morning. Nothing had woken him up. Nothing had moved. He hadn't heard any whispers. Jenova had resumed its usual buzz in the back of his mind.

He slowly reached back and peeled away some of the paper he'd covered the glass with, and was greeted with a view of the street. He began tearing away more of it, and pulled open his window. A cool breeze wafted in from the street, carrying the scents of the market that had just started to set up a few blocks away. The sharp tang of garlic and some sort of fish sauce made his mouth water, and he resolved to pick up the kebabs he was reasonably sure was the source later on.

The normalcy of the idea suddenly struck him, and he closed his window again and jogged downstairs, snatching his sunglasses off the counter on the way down. Jessie was still asleep in the back room, so he gently shook her, and received a muffled, "...go 'way..." in response.

He considered leaving anyway, but eventually decided against it. The market probably wasn't even set up yet, and showing up an hour early before the food was even cooked would come across as extremely rude at best, and raise a lot of uncomfortable questions at worst. Instead he decided to have a proper shower. It had been longer than he would have been comfortable to admit.

He left his sunglasses in the sink, where he'd hopefully notice them and remember to put them back on, and peeled off the clothes that were probably starting to smell a bit. The boxers and sweatpants were his, but the overlarge t-shirt was something Barret had left on the couch last month that he'd taken to using as pyjamas, since walking around topless in front of potential customers was something he'd been trying to avoid doing lately. The splotchy scar covering much of his left arm and a third of his torso and back was hardly the most gruesome injury he'd sustained, and was one of the few he was actually proud of, to a degree, but given its source... well, best not to scare people off.

The water from the showerhead -- as hot as he could stand, which was usually close to boiling -- eased the knots in his shoulders away, and he leaned against the wall with a tired groan, because he could, because he controlled when the water went on and off, thank you very much. No more rushed public showers, or dunks in a freezing river in the middle of nowhere, or... other things. As a result of all of it, Cloud didn't have much in the way of modesty, but this was just one more thing that was nice to be able to do on his own time.

After his six minute shower (he gave himself an extra minute just because he could, and refused to feel guilty about it), he leaned out of the shower and realised he'd forgotten to grab a towel. Jessie was asleep downstairs, the bar was empty... nobody would see.

He leaned out the door and fixed his gaze on the linen closet at the end of the hall. The door flew open of its own accord, and a few towels flopped out onto the floor, before one in particular raced into his waiting hand and he dragged it inside.

Now that he probably should have felt a bit guilty about. But it was convenient, the hallway was cold, and no one had seen it. Besides, it wasn't like he could do much more than that with it. Ripping apart skyscrapers was undeniably out of his skillset for the foreseeable future.

He dried off, put his sunglasses back on, and went to his room to actually put on clothes. Clean ones, at that.

After that, he was at a loss for what to do. There was nothing to fix, or to fight, and no one had told him to do anything in particular. Instead he just went downstairs to wait for Jessie to wake up.

It was another hour until she did. She yawned, then gave a bit of a start when she realised Cloud had been sitting there staring at her the entire time.

"Don't you have anything you'd rather be doing besides watching me sleep?" she said uneasily.

"No."

"No... pressing appointments?"

"Not anymore." He thought about this for a moment. "...I guess I could go make some."

"Do that. And go outside while I change, thanks. Not all of us are fine with stripping in front of an audience." And with that he was herded back into the hallway, trying not to feel faintly insulted. If he didn't know better it almost seemed like he had made her uncomfortable.

He snatched up one of the server pads from behind the bar and stared at the paper, trying to think of appointments he could just "make". He didn't really know anyone outside of the former members of Avalanche. He assumed more socially adept people could make friends by approaching strangers on the street and striking up conversations about weather, but Cloud liked pretty much all weather, and interacting with strangers didn't really appeal to him. And it wasn't as if he just knew if someone across the city had a broken roof, or a crooked door, or...

A clogged sink. It had been a week already, hadn't it? Perhaps there was something that he knew needed fixing.

He scrawled a quick note to Jessie, stuffed his wallet into his pocket, and left the bar. Street meat first. Then Ms. Suk.

The streets were much busier now that it was sunny, and later in the day, so he parked Fenrir and took a walk through the market to actually buy his kebab. He felt eyes burning into him and looked around, and caught a fleeting glimpse of a pair of eyes widening at being found out before vanishing into the shadows. He frowned, then bought a second, and proceeded into the alley.

As expected, a few metres in and around the corner, he found a child, perhaps around twelve years old. Her clothes were dirty and her hair was matted, and the skin around her jaw and neck was melted-looking. He stared for a moment at the location -- she was lucky to be alive.

His silence gave the wrong impression, and she glared at him. "I was here first. I've been here for weeks."

He nodded. "That's fair enough," he said evenly, then held out the kebab. She shifted her glare to the food, just as suspicious as before, which had been expected. In response, he clamped his own kebab between his teeth and used his free hand to roll up his jacket sleeve, exposing his left arm and the matching scar tissue on it. She stared at it for a few moments, then looked back up at him, not as hostile as before. "I thought grown-ups didn't get the stigma."

"Most can't," he managed to say through his teeth. She looked at the grilled chunks of chicken he was offering, clearly hungry, then quickly snatched it from his hand and sat down against a wall to eat. Cloud sat next to her, taking a bite of his own.

"My friend told me about you," she said, in between bites of food. "He said you lived in the Sector Six ruins. You caught rabbits."

Cloud nodded. "I did, for a little while."

"I thought he made you up." Cloud finished up his kebab and looked up to see the girl peering inquisitively at his sunglasses. "Do you really have -- "

"Would it matter if I did?" he said tersely. She shrugged and went back to eating.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Aya. My friend's name was Denzel. He was outside when the rain came."

Cloud nodded again. What was there to say? "...My name's Cloud."

"It's nice to meet you, Cloud." The girl, Aya, was now looking at him curiously. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-five, I think. Give or take a few months."

"You don't know?" He shook his head. "Well... that's mostly not a grown-up. So I guess I can see why you got it. Were you outside too?"

"Yeah. I could've gone inside, I was close enough. Stayed out anyway. I thought... it'd either kill me, or it'd make me better. I was sick of being... sick, I guess."

For some reason, it was fairly easy talking to this stranger he met in an alley. It felt like talking to Tifa, or Barret -- perhaps because they'd all lost the same things, more or less.

"That's kind of crazy."

"Kind of, yeah. I do a lot of stupid things."

"...I went outside too, though. Because I wanted to be better. So I guess we both are."

Cloud finished picking the last bits of meat off of his skewer and began to snap it into even pieces. "Crazy, or better?"

"Better," she said simply. "It's not crazy to want to not be sick all the time. Even if it did hurt a whole lot either way."

Cloud would have replied, but a noise from behind him took the words from his mouth. Because there was nothing behind him but a brick wall.

He froze, and the noise began getting louder. The alley they were in suddenly felt a lot wider.

"...Is something wrong?" said Aya, suddenly looking concerned as Cloud's eyes fixed on one of the shadows in front of him. It didn't seem to acknowledge her, and was instead slowly approaching him.

"I have to go," he blurted. He jumped to his feet and tore out of the alley, leaving the girl yelling something he didn't bother catching after him.

They were keeping pace with him now as he tore through the marketplace over to Fenrir. He was moving very quickly now, far more quickly than a normal human should be able to run, and drawing all sorts of looks and startled yells from the passersby in the stalls, but none of that mattered more right now than getting back to his bike. He refused to let it happen a third time.

He vaulted onto Fenrir and turned the key, taking off. They were still keeping pace with him, and he felt the edges of his mind begin to fog over again, but the sudden burst of speed he got out of the engine tore himself away from them, and he streaked down the street, even faster than he had been running, and raced onto the nearest overpass.

His victory was short-lived. He was tearing down the highway at well over the speed limit, and yet they were still surrounding him. His surroundings blurred from the speed and from the shadows until he couldn't even tell what he was drowning in anymore.

So he didn't even notice as he slumped forwards on his bike, and then went flying as it tipped him forward and flung him from the seat.

He didn't get to hear the loud honking of every car around him, or the screaming of the pedestrians watching.

He didn't notice the semi truck speeding towards him, far too close to possibly swerve out of the way.

And he didn't get to see everything go black a second after.

 

---

 

There were hands pressing in all around him. The sirens were deafeningly loud, the lights too bright. He wanted to ask them to please turn them down a bit, but for some reason he couldn't move, and everything hurt, and every breath was laboured and excruciating. The faces pressed in around him, and someone put something over his face. A mask, for air.

For the first time in years, Cloud felt genuine fear.

"...don't..." he tried to say, but nobody heard him over their own chatter or the din of the sirens. "...please, don't..."

He knew where they were taking him. He struggled to stay awake, but he still felt nauseous, and dizzy, and the crushing pain in his arm and side were making it hard to stay awake at all.

Don't... he thought desperately, hoping they could somehow hear him.

They were taking him back. They were taking him back, and he never, never,

never

never

never --

 

---

 

-- never getting out of here. The thought came to him suddenly and simply, as though he had forgotten to put away some clothes, or didn't heat up the wash water quite enough. He was going to die here. Either of old age, or because they killed him first, and for everything they inflicted upon him they were always very careful to keep him alive. The realisation slowly settled in, and as monumental as it was, it did nothing to get him to move from where he lay, still drugged, on his side on the floor of his cell. He reeked of dried blood and stale urine, but eventually they'd spray him off with ice water when it came time to dump him back in the mako tank anyway.

At first, when he had woken up on a stretcher, he thought he was in the medical ward. There were tubes running in and out of him, and from what he could glean he had been out for at least two days. He was still too disoriented from everything that had happened in Nibelheim to even notice the cuffs at first. Eventually, his chest began to heal, and when they still didn't discharge him he started to worry.

That was six months ago. There was nothing positive left to hope for from this place anymore.

He'd tried to escape again. He hadn't gotten particularly far; there were too many sedatives in his bloodstream, too many guards surrounding him, too many hallways to make it down before his legs gave out from under him and he dropped the scalpel he'd stolen. He'd been dragged back to the testing not even ten minutes later when the two guards he'd managed to gouge had been cleaned up and the wounds healed shut. Worse than useless. He couldn't even bring himself to feel sad about the foiled attempt, because he hadn't expected much from any of them in the first place these days.

Hojo had almost seemed disappointed he hadn't gotten further.

"I'm beginning to wonder if those security tapes I was given weren't faked, Series 3," he had said coldly. He gripped Cloud's jaw in his hand and forced him to look up at him. "You have made things more difficult for both of us, to no end. All it has done is demonstrate your ineptitude, and believe you me, neither of us are interested in that. Our goals are not dissimilar. If you could get that into your thick skull, we could have this done much more efficiently."

Cloud had doubted that greatly, and informed the professor in a succinct, efficient manner by wrenching his jaw free and sinking his teeth into Hojo's hand as hard as he could manage before spitting out a muffled, "Fuck you." Hojo yelped in pain briefly, then turned to look at Cloud, his jaw set, and Cloud had earned a knee in the gut from the guard restraining him. Cloud didn't care.

Whatever it was they had planned for him had to wait another ten minutes while Hojo checked for contamination and bandaged his own hand (Cloud realised he had managed to break the skin, as small of a comfort as it was), during which time Cloud was forced back into the examination chair. Hojo began putting away most of the surgical tools he had prepared for the experiment Cloud had interrupted, and instead approached him with a pair of pliers, gesturing to one of the lab assistants to take notes.

"At this stage in the proceedings, the subject has been exposed to sixty percent of the mako concentration of a First Class, and has received ten of the first round of fourteen secondary injections, including two of four retroviruses," he had began, readying an alarmingly high number of sample jars. "Tissue rejuvenation and healing rates have shown a noted improvement, as you have all likely noticed, but our tests have been largely limited to partial samples and simple structures that adult stem cells can easily form replacement cells for. The recovery ability of more complex structures, such as major and minor organs, remains untested." At this Cloud felt his heart skip a beat, and even his assistants gave him a questioning look.

"However," Hojo continued, looking mildly irritated that his subordinates had chosen to question his judgement, "to remove a major organ at this stage of the proceedings would be reckless, even for a project that has been largely trial and error. Therefore, we will begin with the removal of several non-regenerative but, ultimately, non-essential structures." And then Hojo had spun around and struck him across the jaw with the full weight of the pliers.

He'd tasted blood, but the professor had struck again, and then a third time, and that time he felt something crunch. A scream escaped him and his jaw hung slack, and Hojo grabbed it again, forcing the pliers into his mouth, and before he had time to register what was happening there was a wet cracking noise as a molar was wrenched from its socket.

Cloud screamed again, a more shrill, guttural sound, and tried to jerk away, splattering blood down his chin and onto the disposable hospital gown they'd previously deigned to give him. He'd promised himself he wouldn't, five months ago, but he couldn't help it. There wasn't any point in not screaming, really -- there was nobody around to care whether or not he did, except for perhaps the professor, who always managed to get what he wanted out of him anyway. There wasn't anything he could prove to himself or anyone else here.

Hojo wasn't done. He dropped the tooth into a sample jar, then returned to Cloud. He removed the molar next to it, then the premolar next to that one, and the one next to that, slowly and methodically, categorising each tooth. Cloud's mouth was full of his own blood, and he coughed, cutting off the agonised noises he was making, because it hurt, he couldn't help it, it hurt so much, and the motion of struggling to keep his airways clear spattered more blood onto those neat, white coats. This elicited another pause, where they checked to make sure none of it had gotten onto anything it shouldn't have. Series 3 was a biohazard now.

After what felt like an eternity, Hojo finally put the pliers down and Cloud had thought that perhaps he was finished. Then he had picked up the scalpel.

That had been two days ago, or maybe three. Now he lay sedated on the floor of his cell, diluted blood and saliva dribbling down the side of his face in a thin rope as he was unable to close his jaw properly, and unable to swallow without a tongue. At some point during the removal of his upper left canine, his bladder had given out, eliciting a disgusted laugh from the guards that were now outside his cell. He couldn't bring himself to move, and simply lay there in his cell, bruised, naked (clothes were a privilege and not a right), occasionally gurgling, his cheeks sunken in now that there was nothing in his mouth but torn, bleeding gums. He was sure at one point he must have been dying, though the thought wasn't entirely an unwelcome one. His throat would probably be sore from screaming later, and his head would ache from dehydration, if he could feel either of those things at all through the pain of everything else. Whatever body fat he'd had had long since wasted away, but the performance enhancers he'd been flooded with were meant to artificially rebuild muscle just as quickly, leaving him gaunt and bony and misshapen. He found himself wishing that none of what they'd removed would grow back, because if what the professor had said was any indication, if they did they'd start cutting off more.

He imagined he looked disgusting, sitting in his own urine, eyes red and puffy, nose running, drooling blood. The guards certainly seemed to think so. The more he thought about it, though, the more he realised this was really a good thing. It had been excruciating and humiliating, but this also meant some other tests, the worse ones, would be delayed for a bit while Hojo focused on physically unmaking him, rather than mentally.

If he was honest with himself, he'd actually come to crave some of the tests. In between sessions, whether they were surgeries or injections or dunks in the mako tank or the other tests, the worst ones that took him apart, Hojo had taken to locking him in his cell for days at a time with the lights off, keeping him on an IV drip so he wouldn't even need human contact for food or water. The silence, the bare white walls, the lack of any scents but his own, were all things he would have killed to have a month into the project, when the mako treatments had begun and the sensory overload was one of the worst things he'd had to deal with. Now he found himself longing to be taken back out and put into the mako tank, brought to the operating room, or even just beaten by a bored guard. Negative attention was still attention.

He had tried talking to himself at first, to fill the space around him with some sort of sound. But after a while, he ran out of anything to say, and eventually voices had started talking back, and now he was afraid to say anything that might be worthy of a response. Within hours, faces would begin to peer at him from the walls, which he was sure were beginning to press in on him, like melted plastic, until they were an inch away from him. Now, hands hooked into his jaw, and the faces swarmed his vision, trying to claw their way down his throat, taking out pieces from inside him, and some of them must have managed it because he could feel his thoughts beginning to break down. Lights appeared, flickering, and he realised it was because the room was on fire. He forced himself to shut his eyes, but his chest felt heavy, because the tiny, confined area was full of smoke, and when he opened his eyes again his mother was leaning over him, gently stroking his face and brushing away his tears with her charred fingers, until she dug them into his face and pulled out his tongue. He couldn't move and she kept digging and digging and digging, and he awoke with a cry in the blackness of his cell, not having realised he had fallen asleep. The eyes around him, his only company, quickly returned and melted the walls in further around him, sharpening their gaze. By the end of it, he would have given anything to see anyone. Even Hojo, who didn't particularly care whether or not he begged.

Hojo didn't seem too fussed either way whether or not Cloud sobbed himself into exhaustion. Why should he? Regardless of how much noise he did or didn't make, the tests still got done one way or another. He had thought, for a moment, about what someone else would think if they could see him now... but nobody else that would have thought anything about him in the first place came to mind.

There was no one. His mother was dead. Tifa, the girl that had spoken to him twice, was dead. There was no one else in the world that even knew he existed. The sound of his crying had echoed hollowly in the near-empty room for the first few hours. Now that he wasn't being immediately cut open and bled, tears seemed a ridiculous prospect. A luxury, even. Though perhaps that's because there wasn't much in the way of fluids in his body at the moment anyway. Maybe the guards had a betting pool, but he doubted it, and wouldn't care much if they did.

No friends would come to save him. No family would wonder where he was. No one would come to him, like in the movies he'd heard everyone talk about but never actually been able to afford to see himself, and tell him that he was strong, that he could make it through anything, that he was anything other than some bastard child from a hick town that never once accomplished anything in his life. No one had ever cared before, and now no one ever would.

Hojo had seen potential in him. Hojo cared if he was alive.

Cloud hoped so, anyway. Because this was all he'd ever have. Until he was dead.

Hojo came back to his cell after maybe another four days, when his tongue had grown back enough for him to swallow if he put his mind to it, which the professor seemed to approve of. Cloud had not moved from where they had roughly thrown him into the cell a week ago, and sores had formed on his stomach and legs. His jaw had already healed crooked, with a chance his molars might as well, and would need to be rebroken and set properly.

He came back for me, thought Cloud. He still needs me.

He allowed himself to be dragged back to the worst procedures, which this time they had begun with a new injection, some sort of black, rot-smelling miasma. When bits of him started unwinding again even faster than before, he couldn't seem to be bothered to hold onto them.

Before, he had dreaded these ones most of all -- they were horrible in a way that was worse than any physical pain Hojo put him through. He would have cut out his own tongue a thousand more times than endure another one of their sessions. Now, he wasn't even sure what it was they were taking apart anymore. Everything -- time, memories, emotions, one day to the next -- began to run together in a confusing blur. He just wished Hojo would tell him what it was all for.

No, he thought, as they unhooked the machines after five minutes, or maybe five hours, and began prepping him for the mako tank again. Not just Hojo. There's the other lady.

There was another head doctor on the project, he'd discovered eventually. Hojo worked for Director Lucrecia Crescent, the founder of the Jenova Project. Every month, sometimes more often, sometimes less, she would visit the facility and examine his progress. Cloud liked it when she visited -- it put Hojo in a better mood, and Hojo in a better mood meant more time testing, and less time in his cell, alone. Director Crescent also seemed to be invested in his progress even more than Hojo was.

"Series 3 seems to be responding very well," she had said at month ten, or perhaps eleven, leaning in close and examining his eyes. They glowed brightly, the blue ringed with green, tendrils of light snaking around in his irises towards his pupils, which contracted into thin, reptilian slits in the light. At first it had been only for brief periods directly after mako treatments from the tanks, but now they seemed to be this way permanently, which had garnered a good deal of interest from the staff. They gave him injections of the rot-smelling substance nearly every week. It made Cloud happy when he got them now. Like a hole he didn't know he had in him was being filled.

Director Crescent turned her back to him to address Hojo. Cloud liked to hear her talk. She had a nice voice. It felt like part of him. He didn't know what that meant, but he knew it was true. "It's surprisingly loud," she said.

"I'm led to believe he's already established contact with Jenova," said Hojo... proudly? "He responds quite readily. He's mentioned quite a few interesting things to us about Her already. Haven't you, Series 3?"

It didn't feel strange to him to hear his designation anymore. He was never addressed by anything else. Cloud nodded, eager to confirm. "I can hear Her all the time now. I don't -- I don't know what She's saying. But I can hear Her." He could. She would sing to him into his blood, and it was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard. He couldn't understand the words, because they weren't words to him, not yet anyway. But they would pull him into Her and make him a part of the tearing, deep, lovely, empty music that filled him up the more parts of him Hojo pushed away. There wasn't really a difference between what he did and what She wanted him to do, not anymore. She was him, and besides, it wasn't as though there ever was much of a him in the first place.

And if there was anyone that cared, more than anyone, whether or not he was alive, that knew him inside-out, that saw him as valuable, as useful, that was with him even when he was completely, utterly alone, it was Mother.

 

---

 

He woke up in blinding pain, which was to be expected. He felt weak and dizzy. Every sound felt like a needle through his eardrums. The scent of antiseptic and blood choked his lungs.

He decided to chance opening his eyes, and immediately regretted it. He was in a bed with pale green blankets, next to a window with the curtains drawn. He didn't seem to have any weapons on him, and he found himself desperately wishing for one as soon as he noticed the many, many needles inserted into his left arm, and his complete inability to move his right. One side of his head was bandaged, muffling his hearing there. He clenched his hand to keep it from shaking. It wasn't working.

The mask was still over his face, and there were an obscene amount of tubes running in and out of his body -- a couple from his torso, another from his right arm, and one which he was fairly certain was a catheter. He tried to sit up and was met with another pang of agony, but he forced himself to anyway. He noticed the electrodes that had been applied to his chest, as well as the tiny clip clamped onto the index finger of his left hand, which was still trembling along with the rest of him.

That's one thing that can be dealt with, he thought, and immediately yanked them off.

He shoved over the ECG machine, which immediately began making a racket that made his headache exponentially worse, and tried to push himself out of bed. No luck -- there was something very wrong with his chest. Nothing he couldn't handle himself, if he could just escape before they --

"Gods above, he's awake," came a voice from the doorway, which was currently positioned behind a crash cart and the six staff members that had been wheeling it in.

He wasn't sure how long they stood there staring at one another. Time felt strangely gluey. They'd probably drugged him. If he could get these IVs out, then maybe...

A hand caught his own, and the lab assistants -- nurses, the nurses began to gently press him back into the bed. He punched one in the jaw, and he must have really been a wreck, because even with his off hand it should have been enough to crush the nurse's skull like a rotten watermelon. As it was, it simply sent him careening back into the wall, while another one began injecting something else into one of the IV drips. More drugs, he realised, as his arm turned to jelly and they began to subdue him.

When he woke up again in what felt like five minutes but what he knew from experience was probably a few hours, he found the mask swapped out for oxygen tubes and his arm handcuffed to the bed, and tears began welling up in his eyes and sliding down his cheek. He was running out of time. He was in no fit state to do magic, but maybe if he shorted out the lights in just the right way...

"Mister... Strife? You've been through a major ordeal," came a voice from his right, and he turned to see one of the doctors standing at his bedside. "We're here to help you, but I'm going to have to ask you to not assault any more of our staff or attempt to leave the hospital, or we'll have to restrain you further."

He quickly fought back his tears and glared at the doctor, which extremely difficult considering how hard it was to keep his eyes open in the first place. He sure hoped she noticed. Whether or not she did, she gave no indication and continued speaking. "My name is Dr. Laughton, and you're at the Edge Medical Centre. You were in a motorcycle accident. You've been in a coma for three days."

Cloud stopped pulling at the handcuff then, which to his credit was beginning to give way, along with the metal of the bedframe it was attached to. The doctor did notice this, and quickly continued.

"Your body was caught between the wheels of a semi truck and was wound around one of the axles. Paramedics managed to pull you out, but you sustained a fair bit of damage. Your arm was more or less detached from your shoulder," she said, showing him a few x-rays. Cloud didn't know a particularly large amount about human anatomy, but everything he was seeing looked pretty much smashed. He now turned his gaze to his right arm, which was heavily bandaged and in a sling.

"Normally we wouldn't have been able to save it, but due to your... unique biology, the tissue was... easily salvageable by the time we arrived in the operating room."

Unique biology... Cloud's hand ripped through the handcuff then, prompting a yelp from the doctor, and flew to his face. No sunglasses. So they knew.

"...We, er... you'll be happy to note your family was contacted. Your... caretaker has been involved in the process, and he's been made aware you've regained consciousness. You were heavily concussed, so it was in question for a while." She cleared her throat nervously as the pair of glowing eyes burned into her. As concussed as he apparently was, Cloud was sure that even dilated the pupils were not as round as they should have been on a human. If she wasn't lying about contacting his family, it also meant they had probably warned her about what he did to the last doctor they left him alone with.

"...The bigger concern was your ribcage. Your first four ribs on your right side were crushed, and one of them punctured your lung. The second nicked your axillary artery which was already, er... severed. Your collarbone was broken as well, and your third, fourth, and fifth vertebrae have sustained some bruising. You're very lucky to be alive, Mr. Strife."

"When can I leave?" he demanded.

"...We would recommend you stay another night, at least," said Dr. Laughton slowly. "It's generally recommended you stay two weeks, but I'm told you live with two trained healers. From what little we know of the Soldier healing process, you will need to come back in after those two weeks to have the screws in your arm and chest removed. That will require surgery, after which we would recommend two days recuperation."

"Did you take any blood samples?"

"...We -- "

"Burn them."

"Mr. Strife, we need to know if you were inebriated at the time of the crash. It will help us with your treatment. Witnesses say you were speeding and fell off your bike. Apart from a check in at a clinic in Mideel four years ago we don't have anything about your medical or legal history on file, so if you have any psychiatric or neurological disorders... Mr. Strife?"

He stared at Dr. Laughton for a few moments, uncomprehending, before the events of what felt like a few minutes ago began to come back to him. For a moment, the fear returned, and he looked wildly around his room, looking for anything out of place.

"Mr. Strife?"

"I'm fine. I fell asleep. Why don't you tell me what you learned while I was out?" He had managed to stop crying by now, and his terror was slowly being replaced with hostility at the thought of these people putting their hands on him, poking through his insides, making note of every little abnormality lurking in his organs by now...

Whether or not he would have risked further injury to himself to inflict a few on the doctor in front of him, he'd never know. At that moment Barret walked into the room looking haggard.

"I'll allow you two to visit. We'll review treatment later," she said, and hastily fled the room.

Barret waited several long moments for the doctor to round the corner before fixing his gaze firmly on Cloud. "Talk."

"...I fell asleep --"

"Cloud, you're being held together with screws and magic right now, so you're gonna tell me what happened right the fuck now! We both know you didn't crash your damn bike."

His bike! "Is Fenrir okay?" he blurted out before he could stop himself.

Barret pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yeah, your goddamn bike is fine. And so's the lady it skidded into and the driver whose truck you gummed up. What isn't fine is you, so better tell me what the hell's going on right now!"

He looked away. He didn't know the answer, and that was one that Barret didn't want.

Barret seemed to notice him shutting down, and he took a deep breath and tried again. "I need you to tell me what you do know. People are afraid, Cloud."

Cloud forced himself to look at Barret, who he realised hadn't taken his gaze off Cloud. There were bags under his eyes, and his metal arm had what looked like dried blood on the back of it that hadn't been cleaned out yet.

"...I think I passed out. I don't really know. It's... this is the third time it's happened. I thought -- " That seemed to make Barret look even more exhausted, and all the hostility drained out of him in lieu of guilt. " -- I thought... if I drove fast enough, I could outrun them -- it."

"'Them'?"

Cloud swallowed. "Can you please turn the lights off? And the screen. They're hurting my eyes."

Barret got up and dimmed the room lights and switched off the television, which did wonders for Cloud's headache now that he no longer had to listen to the high pitched whine the screen was giving off.

"...I've been seeing things."

Barret looked about ready to explode, and he paced in silence for about a solid minute before rounding on Cloud again, doing his best to keep his voice down.

"...You've been seeing things."

"...Yeah."

"For how long?"

"'Bout three weeks."

"And you didn't tell anyone."

"What the fuck was I supposed to do, Barret? Walk into the nearest clinic and go, 'Hey, I know you're all probably looking for an excuse to decide I'm the next Sephiroth so here's some bona-fide proof I've lost my marbles!'?"

"You're supposed to tell us so we can do something before it gets to that point," he growled. "Because one of these days, you ain't gonna have the chance."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means, how much money do you think it cost to have that driver disinfect his truck?"

"That's not what --"

"How long do you think I've been in this building, watching the doctors to make sure they don't do nothin' they ain't supposed to with you? How long do you think I spent here making sure they didn't send you somewhere else we couldn't watch?"

Cloud was quiet.

"Or how about this: What do you think is gonna happen to you when Reeve and I ain't the one calling the shots anymore?"

The soft beeping of the heart monitor punctuated the silence for what felt like an eternity. Eventually Barret spoke up again, and while his tone was gentler, it did nothing to lessen the impact of what he said next.

"There's gonna be a government set up real soon, Cloud," he said, sitting back down next to his bed and looking at him gravely. "These people found out what you are, because they had to. We told them who you were, because we had to. Because you ain't got any papers, any birth certificate, nothing. All they know is you're the last mistake Shinra's got left still alive. They know they watched your damn arm put itself back on in the ambulance over. They know what you can do, and what people like you have done before. Now, maybe Reeve and I will have a place in that new government. And maybe we won't. And if we don't, then there's suddenly a whole lot less we can do to help you when shit goes south. Because then you really will be on your own, and we both know you can't handle that."

Cloud remained silent. The room seemed even smaller than before.

"...Can you please open the blinds?" he asked softly.

Barret got up and opened the curtains. It was night out, but there was enough moonlight for it to be clearly obvious he was looking outside. Then he sat back down.

"See a doctor, Cloud."

Cloud swallowed thickly as his vision began to blur with tears again, and he struggled to turn his head away, ashamed. Barret put his organic hand on Cloud's shoulder and gave it a small squeeze, and they sat like that until both of them fell asleep.

Notes:

And now that the setup is out of the way we enter the story proper. Things are going to start moving very quickly from here on out. (Both plot wise and update-wise, I hope. Mostly for my benefit. Is anyone actually still reading this thing? I doubt it.)

Here we go.

Chapter 7: Barret Falls Asleep in a Bed

Notes:

I SURE HOPE YOU GUYS LIKE FLASHBACKS BECAUSE YOU'RE ABOUT TO GET LIKE FIFTY OF 'EM IN A ROW

Thank you to Raaj, Belderiver, Sanctum_C, and limbostratus for putting up with my pestering.

Getting released from the hospital the next evening proved to be a much greater ordeal than Cloud had anticipated, considering Barret lacked a car and the hospital wasn't willing to offer chauffeuring to him after the earlier incident with the nurse. He wasn't sure why it was such a big deal -- they were right in a hospital anyway, so all they would've had to do was move him to another room to put his teeth back in, but apparently he had been asked not to come back, which was fine by him. Never again.

Barret assured him he'd arranged an escort, and it took several reassurances to the doctor that Cloud could handle the walk home despite having woken up from a coma the day prior for him to finally get clearance to leave. They were nice enough to give him a pair of disposable sunglasses for the time he'd be outside, at least.

When he walked through the door to the Seventh Heaven, he was met with two familiar faces. The first was Marlene, asleep on the couch, who came with Barret during his weeks. The second, to his surprise, was Yuffie.

"Where's Jessie?" asked Cloud, frowning in confusion.

"Hello to you, too," said Yuffie, rolling her eyes. Cloud opened his mouth to recover, but she shrugged it off. "You were out for three days, remember? It's Barret's turn. But she actually freaked out and left two days ago, and I've been covering until he could get out here."

"She...?"

"She'd got it into her head that it was her fault or something. She showed us your note. I told her it wasn't her fault you went and got yourself all maimed, but she's taking it pretty hard." Yuffie shrugged. "I dunno, maybe she thinks this is another Wedge thing."

Barret shot a severe look at Cloud, who turned his gaze to the ground.

"Well," said Barret almost calmly, which made the pit in his stomach worsen, "I'll have to remember to ask Jessie what happened while she was with you, huh?"

Yuffie looked between them uncomfortably. "...Are you two okay?"

"Yeah."

"Yup."

"Well... alright. Do I get a hello now?"

Cloud nodded and pulled her into a hug with his good arm, which Yuffie gingerly returned.

"I asked her to come out here," said Barret. "Kept an eye on Marlene for me while I was at Edge Medical." He turned to Yuffie. "We'll need to have a talk later, about you staying extra, at least until Tifa gets back."

Cloud's blood ran cold, and he spoke up. "Does Tifa --"

"Know you almost died? Yeah," said Yuffie, handing him his phone, which appeared badly scuffed but at least operable. "She offered to fly back early, but we told her Barret was already here. She'll wanna hear from you, though."

"Right... so I guess I'll take care of that lat --"

Yuffie narrowed her eyes. "Call her, Cloud." They watched him expectantly. Cloud took a deep breath, and dialed. She picked up on the first ring.

"Cloud! I'm so sorry, I would've come back but there's only one airship in and out, and -- what happened?! You're okay, right?"

"I'm... fine." He wished Barret and Yuffie would stop staring at him. "I just got home now. Barret and Yuffie are with me."

"What happened? Did someone run you off the road? I don't --"

"I..."

He looked between Barret and Yuffie, who was covering for Jessie, who had left because of him.

"I'll... do you have time to talk tomorrow?"

"...Cloud, what's wrong?"

"Call me back tomorrow. Take care of what you need to. I... we need to talk about -- about what I told you before you left."

There was a period of silence on the other end of the phone, before a very quiet "okay" came through, followed by a click.

He pocketed his phone with some difficulty through the bandages, and turned to Barret and Yuffie, the latter of which who was now glaring at him.

"...I promise I'll tell you tomorrow, okay? I just... I wanna get home. Sit down." That part wasn't really a lie, at least not entirely. Enhancements or no, his legs were about ready to give out from all the walking following everything his body had been through in the last three days.

"Whatever. But Barret and I decided that I'm gonna be staying with you 24/7."

"Fine. That's fine." He staggered over to the couch and slumped onto it, then gently shook Marlene. "Hey. Hey, little girl. What are you doing, sleeping in my spot?"

Marlene yawned and spent a moment rubbing the sleep from her eyes, then threw her arms around his neck, prompting another pained groan from him. "Cloud! You woke up!"

"Yeah. Had a real good nap."

"The doctor said you weren't gonna," said Marlene, sniffling a bit, and Cloud saw her eyes looked a bit red. "She said if you didn't wake up after one day then you might not wake up at all."

"Well, most doctors are full of sh -- nonsense," he corrected at Barret's indignant grunt. "I've shook off worse than that, remember?"

"Papa took me in to see you when you were asleep," she continued as Barret picked her up. "Can you show me your arm cuts?"

"Marlene!" objected Barret. Cloud gave a rusty laugh.

"I wanna see 'em and Dr. Laughton didn't let me!"

"...I haven't seen 'em yet either, actually. If I have a look at them first and it's not too bad, I'll let you see, okay?"

"You're not gonna like what's under there, Cloud," Barret warned. Cloud shrugged.

"I've had worse," he said, which was undeniably true. "We're gonna have to change the bandages soon anyway."

"Sooooo, you're gonna at least tell us something, right?" said Yuffie. Cloud sighed.

"I must've -- passed out," he muttered. Barret would probably never let him live it down if he claimed to have "fainted" in front of him.

Yuffie's scowl deepened. "You needed to wait until tomorrow to tell us that?"

"Just... give me a little time, okay?" Yuffie "hmphed" and sat down on the other side of Cloud. "So... how's Wutai?"

"Y'know. Better. Dad's still pushing the whole succession thing. 'Course, he's dropped it lately. You know, after you almost died."

"I didn't almost die," he said sharply as the smile on Marlene's face faded a bit.

"Well, Dad thinks you did. If he calls you gotta act real sick, or he'll tell me to come back home."

"Did you speak to the Planet again?" asked Marlene, poking a particular spot on his ribs. Cloud winced, and he and Barret exchanged another uncomfortable glance. They'd never really gotten around to explaining much of the events from four years ago to her. They'd have to eventually.

"No. The Planet doesn't really speak to people anymore. We all forgot how to listen. I just had a really good nap, is all."

"Shouldn't you be sleeping now?"

"In a little, yeah. Shouldn't you?"

"Papa said I could stay up for when you came home," she said quickly, "and now that you are, can you arm wrestle me?"

"No arm wrestling tonight, baby girl," cut in Barret. "Cloud's home, so you gotta get to bed. Say good night."

"I'm not tired, though!"

"It's ten thirty, so you'd best get tired as fast as you can."

"But Cloud just got here!"

"Cloud wants you to go to bed so you'll be awake tomorrow," said Cloud, trying not to smile. "If your pa says it's okay, you can teach me another recipe, alright?"

"Fine..." mumbled Marlene, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before trudging upstairs with her stuffed tonberry to Tifa's empty room. Cloud watched her go, hoping she'd grow out of the phase soon enough. The toy was eerily lifelike, and Cloud and Yuffie had mutually agreed to stuff it into a drawer whenever she was out of the house without it so they wouldn't have to look at it.

"I'm gonna head up to bed, too," said Cloud, and carefully got back to his feet. Yuffie followed suit.

"Get some rest," she said to Barret. "You look awful. I'll keep an eye on him."

Barret shuffled into the back room again without a word to the contrary, so he really must have been exhausted. Yuffie began helping Cloud up the stairs to his own room. "Besides, I gotta help you with all that gauze, and I've been using your bed while you were gone."

It was another few minutes before they finally had all the medical supplies laid out on the bed, and another still before Cloud managed to wrestle himself out of his clothes and into his boxers. Yuffie's hands were probably a bit better suited to carefully untangling surgical gauze from a wound, and soon enough the entire mess was laid bare.

His chest was covered in ugly purplish-green splotchy bruises, which Yuffie gingerly placed a hand on and began healing. He'd technically mastered that spell himself, but White magic had never been his strong suit, whereas Yuffie had some innate skill with it. Cloud breathed a sigh of relief after a moment, signalling to Yuffie to move onto another area. If this was how it looked now, he could only imagine what it had been like before the healers at the emergency room had gotten to him. Hopefully, between Yuffie and his own "unique biology", they'd be gone by tomorrow night. Then they took a look at his arm.

When he'd seen the x-ray, he'd imagined that the bone had simply been very badly broken in two, but looking at it now explained why he couldn't seem to move it at all. His arm seemed to have been pinched off from below the elbow, tearing it almost entirely off save for a bit of skin at the top of his shoulder, the only bit that didn't have stitches and what must have been holding it on. It had been sewn back on, with the stitches already having been smothered more or less in his own regenerated flesh. Perhaps he'd go back to the hospital in one week instead, just to get it over with. There must have been a lot of screws in there. He'd had worse. He'd be fine.

Yuffie began healing away the bruising around his shoulder as well, but she was staring at another scar on the other side of his chest -- the one Marlene had poked at earlier, running horizontally just below his ribcage.

Cloud looked up at her. "What?"

"Nothing. Just... they asked a lot of questions about it. They asked a lot of questions in general, but especially about that one. Apparently it's been infected for, like... years."

Cloud shrugged. "I didn't notice."

"Oh. Well, in case you did, it's not anymore."

"Did you say anything?"

"I told 'em about the doctor in Mideel, and he didn't say anything about it. Just mentioned the mako poisoning."

He sighed and relaxed into the wall. It would have to do.

"Did you break any arms this time?" asked Yuffie as she carefully helped him into a clean work shirt and sweatpants that wouldn’t be ruined too much if a bit of blood spotted on them. "Besides your own, I mean."

"...No," said Cloud slowly, conveniently hiding his face in the shirt while he spent some extra time adjusting it. Not for lack of trying, certainly.

"Ugh. Just don't get yourself arrested, alright? Prison's gotta be worse than a hospital."

"Speak for yourself," he grunted, shifting against the wall to try and keep himself upright.

There was a pause as she appeared to carefully put together her next sentence. "...I always pictured that old manor as... y'know. Kind of a jail cell."

"There were a few rooms like that in it, yeah," said Cloud brusquely. He continued when she opened her mouth again. "I'm gonna get some sleep. You should too."

"...Sure." Yuffie scooted herself off the bed and eased herself into the sleeping bag and six blankets she'd brought with her for the occasion. Cloud closed his eyes, still propped up against the wall with a pillow, and spent a while listening to her breathing.

The window was still open, and the stars were out, and his room was comfortably warm...

 

---

 

It was cold in the storage room.

Cloud didn't understand why he was here. There didn't seem to be much of a pattern to the Professor's behaviour. He knew that if he did anything bad there were any manner of consequences he’d wind up subjected to. He also knew that if he was good, they would say how well he was doing, and tell him how great he would be.

The problem was knowing what were the good things to do, and what were the bad ones. Telling them about Mother was usually good. Even things that he didn't think were good, like how Her voice hurt sometimes, or how he felt parts of him were missing, and he wanted them back now, seemed to earn approval. Escaping was always bad, he had learned. Giving the wrong answers to questions, or not knowing the right ones, was bad. Speaking without being spoken to first was usually bad. His teeth and tongue had grown back a month ago, and he knew better by now. Injuring guards was good, but only if he injured them in certain ways, and otherwise it was bad.

He didn't know what he'd done this time that was bad. He had told them about Mother, like he was supposed to. They had nodded, and taken notes, but instead of leading him back to his cell, or leaving him in the tank overnight, they had cuffed his hands and led him into storage.

"Sit facing the wall," they'd instructed. "Don't move from this spot." Cloud sat facing the wall like they wanted. He thought maybe it was another test.

Instead they had brought the Box in after him. Cloud swallowed. He hadn't seen the Box in months, after his fourth escape attempt. It was a steel cube, no bigger than a dog carrier, just barely big enough to fit a boy in his late teens that was a bit on the small side inside of it, with a few air holes in the top. It was if he had done something bad but it wasn't conducive to the project to start additional testing.

"Get in."

Cloud carefully backed himself into the cramped space. No hesitation, because that was bad.

Then they turned out the lights and closed the door and locked him inside.

He didn't know what he'd done. Were they mad? The Professor didn't look mad, but alone time in the dark for a few days was usually because he'd done something bad and they just didn't have time to punish him properly. He thought he'd been doing good.

Maybe this was good? Maybe the Box was supposed to help him. If he wasn't so stupid, he could understand the rules better, and do what they wanted.

"This is good," he told himself aloud. "This is a good thing." Mother seemed to think so too, because there was nowhere to move away from Her in the small cramped space. It was so much louder, in the absence of any other sound or stimuli, and there were so many of them.

Cloud shivered. He hadn't lost clothes privileges, but he had been taken straight here from an exam, and hadn't had a chance to retrieve his shirt. He hoped it would be in his cell when he was let out.

"This is good," he whispered to himself again, blinking back tears. "This is good. This is good. This is good..."

There was another voice. One he wasn't used to, that didn't seem like Mother's, or the howling he sometimes heard that She didn't seem to like, because it used words.

"Who goes there?"

Cloud froze. It sounded like a man's voice. Sephiroth? No, he was dead. It was too deep to be Hojo's. A lab assistant? Perhaps, though he hadn't heard the door open.

"Series 3. I'm here because I need to be here. It's good to be here. Being here will help me be better."

The new voice seemed confused. "No name?"

Not a lab assistant, then. Series 3 was the only designation he was supposed to have and reply to, as far as he knew, and he didn't have a proper number yet. Cloud realised it was another fake voice, the ones he heard after mako treatments, or when he was alone in his cell for too long while they fixed the equipment.

There was no harm in talking to it, then. It wouldn't say anything that had right or wrong answers.

"It's good for me to be here. Isn't it?"

"That depends on why you are here," said the new fake voice, suddenly sounding heavy. "I suppose... yes, it could be good for you to be here."

It sounded almost familiar. Which, perhaps it was. He knew the fake voices were just ones he made up. Sometimes they sounded like the villagers, or that one girl in the blue dress, or Ma.

"That's why I'm here, then. I think...." He shifted uneasily, trying to get into a position he wouldn't regret being in by tomorrow when his arm fell asleep. "I don't know. They don't tell me, and I can't ask."

"Who are 'they'?" the new fake voice asked. It was very deep, and quiet and scratchy like Cloud's was now, as though he didn't use it often. Cloud felt he had heard it before, but not anywhere that made sense. From a dream, maybe.

"The doctors," he said. He tried his best to speak up, because he was badly muffled now, with his cheek pressed against the metal. "They're making me better, so I won't be weak. Then I'll be useful to Shinra. I don't know how."

"Shinra..." the voice said quietly. "My sins have come back to haunt me, even away from my dreams."

And Cloud knew who the voice was then, and smiled.

"Hello, Pale Man."

Cloud remembered the Pale Man then, a memory he dragged out of the green haze so many of them had fallen into over the last seven, or eight, or maybe nine months, or days, or lifetimes. He remembered when he was very young, and he had made believe about a man living in the floor of the old mansion. He was tall, and pale, and had glowing red eyes, and would chase away monsters when Cloud was asleep. Eventually, Ma told him he had grown too old for imaginary friends, and he had to stop exploring, and visiting the Pale Man, and telling everyone at school about how he would come up from under their beds and eat them if they didn't share their toys with him.

He had missed the Pale Man for a long while after that. It was nice to have company, even if it wasn't real. Maybe here in the dark, he'd brought himself back some company on his own.

The silence in the room resumed, and Cloud cursed himself for becoming distracted and making the new voice, the Pale Man, disappear. Then it spoke again.

"...What did you call me?" There was a hint of growing horror in the voice now.

"It's me. It's... Cloud." His name felt strange and foreign on his lips, and a thrill of fear went through him even though there was no one present to hear him say it anyway. "I miss visiting you. I'm going to pretend I'm visiting you now, though." He could almost see the Pale Man now, red eyes peering at him through the air holes through all the other equally fake eyes peering at him through the air holes. Cloud stared back to try and make it all more real, the glow emitting from his own eyes the only light in the room.

"This cannot...." He didn't sound happy. Cloud thought as hard as he could about the Pale Man sounding happy to see him, even though he never really had sounded happy about anything, so maybe it would happen.

"We're here together," he said to the eyes. "Like how I used to visit. I didn't bring any magic rocks for you. Ma says I'm too old to believe in that stuff. Just Mother here now." His voice cracked, and he swallowed thickly, trying to keep the emotion out of it.

He'd missed the Pale Man a lot more than he'd thought.

"No." Not a response. Denial. Fury. Shock. Disgust. "No."

"That doesn't make sense." Nothing made sense anymore. He didn't know why he expected a hallucination to as well.

"No." The eyes vanished into the sea of the rest of them, and then there was a loud slamming of wood on wood. Silence followed.

"...Pale Man?"

The Pale Man had disappeared. It was just as well, he supposed. Mother wanted to speak now, and he obligingly let Her wash over him in the dark, feeding Her more of himself he knew he'd never even realise he missed.

A pair of eyes opened a few hours later, but the thing staring out of them wasn't Cloud. The quiet gasp of pain he uttered was enough to wake Yuffie, who looked up at him from the floor.

"Do you need another heal?" she asked, then frowned when he got out of bed, scanning the room, his eyes landing on the window.

"Cloud?" she asked again, a bit more nervously this time. She then frantically began untangling herself from her blankets as Cloud climbed up on the window sill.

"What the hell are you -- !?" Cloud, who did not hear what she said before, would not have heard the rest of what she would have said anyway, as he had already jumped.

He landed lightly in a crouch, grunting in pain again, then straightened up and began to walk down the street. Behind him, Barret had already pushed open the front door and was yelling something else he didn't hear. He continued looking at the space around him, and began to move faster. In another few moments, he had broken into a sprint, leaving them both behind.

He took a running leap and latched onto the side of a building, hauling himself up with his good arm. He sped across the roof and jumped to another, and another, and another, ignoring the pain in his chest entirely. The landings were clumsy, and he stumbled on the last one and tripped forward onto his knees.

He sat there for a few minutes, then straightened up and turned his gaze towards the sky, which he spent several more minutes inspecting. He didn't even notice when Yuffie had scrambled up onto the roof after him, having finally caught up, or Barret barging in through the rooftop access door, panting from all the stairs he had just sprinted up.

He did not turn to acknowledge either of them at first, even when they called his name, and kept his gaze on the stars, and suddenly neither one of them wanted to touch this strange man that had snuck out in the middle of the night and had fixed his gaze on the sky with an almost hungry look on his face.

Then there was a cool metal hand on his shoulder again, and Barret was towering over him shouting his name, and he suddenly gasped as it hit him all at once where he was, and what he had been doing, and that it had happened again, and that there was no pattern.

Barret looked angry. Or perhaps concerned. It was difficult to tell. Yuffie was still hanging back, still hesitant to actually approach him.

The pain from his recent physical activity began mixing with the nausea and disorientation, and he roughly shoved Barret away from him as he heaved bile onto the bleached concrete of the roof, and knelt there, shivering.

"Cloud, you --"

"I don't know."

"Dammit, Cloud, this isn't the fucking time for your --"

"I don't know!" His throat tightened as the emotion crept into his voice against his will. "I don't know, alright?! I don't know!"

The door to the roof opened again as someone, probably one of the tenants, joined them on the roof. "What's going on here? It's three in the morning!"

"Nothing," said Yuffie, as another two faces peered out from the doorway. "Just a discussion. It won't happen again, and we're leaving now."

The man eyed the puddle of vomit with a look of disgust, and then Cloud himself, sans sunglasses, with an even greater look of disgust, then turned and went back downstairs through the small crowd of tenants behind him, perhaps to fetch a custodian that would also want to know what was going on. Barret spoke up, his fist still clenched. "Let's get outta here."

It took another half hour to walk him at a normal pace back to Seventh Heaven. Marlene, thankfully, was still asleep. They had him sit back down on his bed. Cloud hadn't said a word since the rooftop.

Yuffie brought him a cup of tea and set it down in front of him on his bedside table, and sat down across from him in his work chair, with Barret sitting next to him, probably to keep him on the bed. Cloud didn't really feel like moving anyway.

"...Was it Jenova?" came the inevitable question from Barret after another few minutes of silence. Cloud shook his head.

"How do you know?"

Cloud said nothing.

"Can you hear Her now?" asked Yuffie.

He nodded. It was a stupid question; he could always hear Her.

"What does She want?"

Cloud said nothing at first, then looked up from the cup of tea he'd been staring at and addressed Yuffie.

"Can you hand me my phone?" he said.

Yuffie looked at him appraisingly for a few moments and exchanged a glance with Barret, who looked about ready to drop, then grabbed him his phone off the desk.

Cloud very slowly dialed Tifa's number and waited. The first call went to voicemail, and he cursed himself for forgetting the eight hour time difference. She was probably working. He dialed again, and this time she picked up.

"Hello?"

"...Hi, Tifa."

"Is... is everything okay? I thought you were asleep."

He remained silent.

"Cloud? Are you still there?"

"Please come home."

The anticipated alarm immediately filled her voice again. "Cloud, what's wrong?"

He drew a deep, shuddering breath. If he cried again in front of his family, that would be it.

"...Please come home," he tried again. "Okay?"

"Cloud, what's going --"

He hung up as whatever composure he'd managed to scrape together in the last half hour shattered again. He clutched the phone tightly as tears overtook him again, and he buried his face in his knees so his family wouldn't see that on top of having a high-maintenance deadbeat they had to drag back into the house at 3 am, they also had an unstable high-maintenance deadbeat they had to drag back into the house at 3 am that couldn't keep it together for more than an hour. Pathetic. Absolutely pathetic.

They'd only be able to put up with so much, he knew. Surely there was something he was supposed to be doing at this point to hold up his end of the bargain, but he couldn't imagine what it would be. No one else cried for no reason, or needed to be helped out of bed, or kept company. He couldn't provide parenting advice to Barret. No one, Cloud included, trusted him enough to babysit. Jessie had managed to work through the deaths of Biggs and Wedge on her own. Yuffie mostly screamed her issues at her father and then complained about it to them. Even Tifa was fine on her own for more than an hour.

So he just remained dead weight and sobbed into his knees with Barret pulling him into a hug and Yuffie now sitting on his other side, which just made him cry harder, everything pent up over the last three weeks spilling out for both of them to see -- for both of them to deal with.

He managed to stop a while later with much prompting from Yuffie to drink his tea before it went cold, and found that Barret had at some point fallen asleep sitting on his bed from exhaustion. Cloud leaned against him, and Yuffie against Cloud, the three of them too tired to move. When they'd been on the road they'd had occasions where there wasn't much room to be picky about personal space, and after a while they'd stopped thinking about the piles the eight of them would wind up in. After everyone had settled down, of course, they'd gone back to using real beds, but Cloud had found himself missing them ever since.

He lay there sandwiched between his family, welcoming back the familiar feeling it provided. He didn't really know what to call it. It was warm, but that wasn't an emotion, just a physical state he enjoyed. He supposed it made him happy, but it felt strangely painful, too. All he could think about was how he'd have to go back to feeling the minute they left.

Jenova was so much louder now. He began his "meditation", allowing Her to flood himself, listening to Her music. He pushed in deeper than he had in years, tempering Her voices with the steady sound of Barret's breathing, of Yuffie's quiet snores, weaving them all together as they wove into him. He eventually drifted off to sleep like that, Mother twisting and burrowing into his mind, his family around him, both of them reminding him that he belonged here.

 

---

 

Cloud woke up before Yuffie and Barret, but didn't really feel like moving. Partially because it was comfortable, and partially because waking them would hasten the arrival of the interrogation he knew was coming. He'd said tomorrow, and he had meant it, and everyone had probably been too tired to protest it, especially after chasing him halfway across town. So of course, it would be most practical to discuss it in the morning.

This morning. Now.

When they did wake up an hour later, the first thing they did was decide that this definitely counted as a serious matter and began calling every other member of the family in, which was something Cloud had dreaded happening since this had begun. Now he had an entire audience to upset.

The second thing they had done was herd him into the back room and sit there staring at him. Reeve had been the closest geographically and had arrived before everyone else, and had joined Barret in looking stern, or maybe angry.

"I heard you had something you wanted to tell us, Cloud," said Reeve evenly.

"...I've been hallucinating again, for about three weeks," began Cloud. He was met with silence. He was supposed to continue. "They're... shapes. If I try to look at them they go fuzzy."

"Is it --"

"It's not Jenova," he interjected, cutting off Reeve. "And it's not the Planet, either. At least, I don't think so."

"So, when you crashed your bike, it was because you got... spooked?" asked Yuffie, trying not to sound dubious. Cloud shook his head and paused. This would be the hardest part.

"It, um... it was because I couldn't move. I'll start seeing things, and then I'll... I'll do things," he faltered. "It happened again last night. That was the fourth time. I don't know what causes it, or how to make it stop."

"He jumped out the window in the middle of the night," explained Barret to Reeve, "and we chased his ass across sixteen blocks and found him standing on a roof."

Reeve looked concerned again, and again Cloud cut him off. "I wasn't gonna jump," he said. "I was looking at the sky. If it wanted me to jump it could have thrown me out of Shinra Tower, when it happened there."

"You didn't think about it?" asked Barret. Cloud shook his head.

"I didn't think about anything," he said, and everyone visibly relaxed a bit. "I don't... I didn't mean to crash the bike, either. I just... I couldn't do anything."

"...Would you have jumped?" asked Yuffie after a moment.

"No," said Cloud decisively. "I haven't -- I haven't thought like that in years. I wouldn't ..."

"Well, that's good to know, but it doesn't leave us with a lot of leads, besides the obvious." Cloud leaned away as Reeve turned and leaned in to inspect his eyes, which were a bit more green than they usually were. The pupils were slitted, but then, they always were.

"It's not Jenova," said Cloud, a hint of irritation creeping into his voice now. "Jenova responds to it, and it makes Her louder, but it's not Her."

"That you talking, or is that what that thing wants you to say?" said Barret pointedly.

Now Cloud was the one made uncomfortable, and he looked away. "I haven't... there hasn't been any pull to Reunion. It's not Jenova."

"We can't ignore this, Cloud," said Reeve slowly. "Not your family, or the WRO. This is --"

"I want to visit the tower," he interrupted again. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Cloud --"

"I don't care how we do it, Reeve. If you say no, I'll do it anyway. I'm visiting the damn tower."

No one had been enthused about the idea, but eventually they agreed that Barret would come with him as far as the edge of the ruins, and Yuffie would see him in further, just in case. It really had been a while since anyone had been out there.

It was probably a good thing Yuffie was there with him -- she chattered constantly, always stopping to point out an interesting bit of rubble or a potential shortcut, or to complain about her father. Cloud appreciated the conversation, as usual, and that was more or less how she usually was, but he did notice her endgame as well -- it would be a lot more obvious if something were to happen if he suddenly stopped responding.

The climb to the sixty-eighth floor was much slower this time due to his injured arm, and several times Cloud had to stop on the way up to look around. He found what he was looking for eventually, in the remains of a decorative garden in what was once a lobby.

The sixty-eighth floor wasn't so much of a floor as it was a collection of rubble on top of the sixty-seventh floor, as a result of the more recent fight Cloud had had two years ago. In spite of that, there was a small bit of unbroken floor behind one of the larger rubble piles, and on that spot stood a knee-high pile of rocks.

Yuffie stood back out of respect. Cloud wouldn't have minded if she wanted to pay respects too, but he supposed it would have been awkward. After all, she had never known him.

Cloud approached the pile of rocks and sat down in front of it.

"...Sorry I couldn't make it out earlier," he told it. "Things have been really busy." He took a deep breath. The sixty-ninth and seventieth floors were strewn about the rest of the ruins, and the floor simply opened up to the sky above, which was still choked with grey, but less so than it had been before. The sun even managed to occasionally peek through.

"Tifa finally got more people to work at the bar," he continued. "It lets her go out of town a lot more often. I miss her, but she likes to help." He clenched and unclenched his hands nervously. "I got into a car crash. I'm okay, but it hurt a lot. I got to punch a nurse. Knocked out two of his teeth." He smiled a bit. "I... I want to think you'd have been proud of that."

He reached into his pocket and took a deep breath. "...I, er... I brought you another magic rock." He withdrew the object he'd retrieved from the garden -- a round, smooth stone. He set it carefully on the pile.

"Make a wish," said Cloud. "Maybe it'll come true."

He sat like that for a few more minutes. He wondered what had happened to the "magic rocks" he'd brought him in that basement. He'd thrown them out after Cloud had left, most likely. He always was hard to read.

Eventually he stood up, his legs still unsteady, but feeling calmer than he had this morning. He signalled to Yuffie that he was ready to leave with a nod, and she climbed down from the rubble pile she'd been sitting on.

"I've gotta go. I'll try to come back sooner next time." He took another long look at the pile of rocks in preparation for the long climb back down.

"See you, Vincent."

Chapter 8: Cloud Has Another Longer Conversation

Notes:

Between the really long conversations about life in general and the gratuitous violence and swearing and the out of sequence nonsense, I think I've pretty much turned into Quentin Tarantino by this point. All I need now is the foot fetish.

Alternate title for this chapter: Cloud Has No Fucking Life Skills And Would Probably Have Died By Now If It Weren't For Avalanche.

Thank you to Raaj, Sanctum_C, Belderiver, and limbostratus for spotting all the times where I had someone get up from a chair four times without ever actually sitting back down in between. It's chairs all the way down.

There was an incessant scratching at the entrance of Seventh Heaven. It migrated to the windows, gradually increasing in volume, before going back to the front door. It wasn't until it was accompanied by an indignant, "Really!" that Cloud actually acknowledged the noise and allowed Nanaki inside.

"The back door was unlocked. You know that," said Cloud, who'd been sitting in the empty dining room in a booth and took his seat there again.

"And what's wrong with me going in the front door?" replied Nanaki, hopping up onto the table and allowing himself to sprawl out on it.

"The claw marks, mostly," said Cloud. "I'm gonna have to sand those out now."

"I thought you enjoyed fixing things."

"Sanding off claw marks isn't fixing things," said Cloud, but began giving him an ear scratch by way of a greeting anyway.

"How's your arm?" he asked, leisurely stretching out to allow Cloud better access to his neck.

"It's fine. Marlene thinks it's neat."

"You showed her?"

"She asked. She wanted to know if I was gonna get a prosthesis."

"Is she here now?"

Cloud nodded. "Yuffie's volunteered to keep her upstairs while we're... talking."

It was late afternoon, and the bar had been closed early due to "a family emergency". Said family emergency had been waiting for everyone to show up, his anxiety gradually mounting as more and more arrived. Jessie had been the first to arrive, and hadn't made eye contact with him as she walked past him and upstairs to visit Marlene. Cid had been next, having the easiest access to an airship and not being beholden to anyone in particular about it. Nanaki had arrived just now and had been receiving appreciative head pats for the last ten minutes. So that just left --

"Here she comes," said Nanaki as soon as they noticed the frantic footsteps and the panicked swearing outside, before the door was pulled open with just a bit too much force.

"You're alright?" asked Tifa, dumping her bag on the floor next to the table and hurrying over to him. From the way she had asked it the question seemed less a status update and more marvelling that he wasn't rolling on the floor frothing at the mouth.

"Yeah. Fine. Easy on the ribs," he said as she went in for a hug. As they pulled apart he noticed she looked about as bad as Barret had on the first night back from the hospital, the bags under her eyes prominent.

"Who's left?" she asked. Nanaki stretched himself and then hopped down off the table.

"You're the last one," he said. "I'll go gather the others." He slunk off to the back without another word, leaving them both alone together.

"...How was your trip?" asked Cloud eventually.

"Fine. Sort of cold, I guess."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I got to shoo off a dragon. Adolescent bull. Really cranky." She sat herself down in the booth across from him. "Reminded me of you."

Cloud rolled his eyes. "I'm not cranky."

"You're almost 100% crank. Barret says you're banned from Edge Medical now."

"Not a big deal. Yuffie's good at healing, and I'll take care of whatever she --" He paused. "Wait, he called you?"

"Yes. A few hours ago when I landed."

He frowned. "What else did he say?"

"That you weren't immediately dying and that I could come straight home instead of visiting you in the ICU," said Tifa. "You scared the shit out of me, Cloud, you can't just... call me and say something like that and hang up without explaining. I thought you might've..."

"Might've what?"

"...I don't know. Had a really bad episode. Maybe... maybe you might've hurt yourself."

"I wasn't going to -- is that what everyone thinks of me?" said Cloud, his voice rising in anger.

"We're worried about you!" she said, matching his tone. "We're worried about you, and we have every right to be! You said to come home, we all came home! You can't just turn around and try and brush off the fact that you called me up at three in the morning crying your eyes out now that we're actually here!"

Cloud took a deep breath and looked away uncomfortably. "...Is this about the stigma?" he sighed.

"Other way around. The stigma is about this. You can't just --"

"But I'm fine now, so what does it matter?!" His hands were gripping the table now, digging into the wood slightly. "Why can't it just be okay that I'm fine now?! Why can't you all just appreciate --"

"Don't none of y'all get the party started without us," came a voice from the doorway as Cid leaned against it with a wry look on his face. They turned to look at him, Cloud going a bit pink. "No, go ahead, don't mind us."

Cloud unclenched his hands from the table and picked a splinter out of his thumb. Tifa sat back down, having apparently stood up at some point without either one of them noticing.

Cid detached himself from the doorframe and took his place at a table, with everyone else sans Yuffie following behind him. Jessie sat the furthest away from the group and refused to look at Cloud. He suddenly felt very tired.

Nanaki hopped back up onto the table and gave him an insufferably smug look (at least, as smug as someone with a muzzle could look) upon seeing what Cloud had done to the table. Cloud made a face at him when he wasn't looking, and then turned back to Reeve, who cleared his throat and began to speak.

"Alright, everyone's here. As nice as it'd be for this to be a big family reunion for its own sake, this is... an emergency meeting for an issue that we're going to deal with now before it becomes too big. Cloud?"

Cloud took a moment to steel himself before getting to his feet. It had been years since he had played the part of leader. It should be easy enough.

You're not having a crisis, and they're not here because they have to deal with that crisis, he told himself. You're noticing warning signs, and they're here to help pinpoint what they mean. It's just another mission, and after this we're gonna find someone and kill them and that'll make it all stop.

In theory, anyway.

He relayed the whole story quickly and quietly, about the shadows in the morning, the bike crash, the roof... and eventually, under Cid's suspicious prodding, the kitchen, with Jessie. Everyone immediately turned to her. Jessie swallowed.

"You kept that a secret?" said Reeve incredulously. "Jessie, this is something we needed to know about."

"He didn't want you to know, and he asked, and it was his business, and I thought --" She had bent nearly double, rocking herself.

"It's not her fault," Cloud said quickly. "I shouldn't have asked that. I'm sorry."

"Why did you ask her that, Cloud?" said Tifa, peering closely at him. Cloud looked away and said nothing.

"...Whatever the case, it's something we have to deal with now." Reeve pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm gonna have to tell people about this."

"The WRO?" asked Cloud. Reeve shook his head.

"Higher than that. This is now a federal problem."

Cloud jumped to his feet. "What? Why?"

"If my understanding of the situation is correct, there's a sizeable risk that --"

"What he means is you're dangerous," said Cid, glaring at Reeve, who sighed heavily.

"...Alright, yeah, that's what I mean," he said resignedly. "Even if this isn't Jenova -- which I'm not convinced of -- you have lost control of your actions to an outside force four times so far, and we don't know any way to stop it. This time it was just a car accident. Next time we might not be so lucky."

"'Just' a car accident?" interjected Barret.

Reeve leveled his gaze at him. "Given the scale of what we know Cloud is capable of, yes. Just a car accident."

"I haven't --it hasn't made me attack anyone." The inside of Cloud's mouth was dry.

"Neither did Sephiroth. Not right away," said Nanaki, who was now sniffing him curiously. "Perhaps whatever this entity is is simply testing the waters."

Tifa spoke up again. "...Can you hear Jenova saying anything about this?" she suggested. Everyone turned to look at her now. "You can hear Her. Understand some of what She wants, right? As long as you have it under control, it's a resource, just like before."

Cid looked at her incredulously. "You're actually suggesting he --"

"She can't do anything to him. Not with all of us here." She looked at Cloud again. She looked incredibly nervous, but she kept talking anyway. "Do you think you could do it?"

He considered this for a moment. Jenova didn't have as much power over him as She once did, true, but the damage to his psyche had been done years ago, and he was potentially clay in Her hands if he wasn't careful.

"...I think I could, yeah."

"It's a lot to ask," she added. "You don't have to if you don't want to."

He shook his head. "I want to. I can handle Jenova better than I can handle... whatever-it-is."

Tifa nodded and placed a hand on his arm. "I'll spot you. Fifteen minutes and I'm gonna cut you off."

He sat back down and tried to pretend everyone wasn't staring intently at him, and that Barret's arm hadn't just shifted back into a gatling gun, and that Jessie hadn’t just shut down again. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

He barely had to reach for Her before She snagged him and pulled him away. It was dark here, but he knew that it was far from empty. A million million voices scratched at the fragile scrap of self he had left. He had nothing left to fight against them with -- what little he might've had before, five years alone in Nibelheim had destroyed what was left of it. Rather than wasting energy trying to maintain himself against Her, he allowed Her to overtake him, gathering as much of Her voice into himself as he could while he still had the presence of mind to.

Eventually, his will crumbled entirely, and he was awash in that deep space for a second, or an hour, or a century. Part of the music, and the depth. Part of Mother.

He was suddenly jarred back to reality and found himself slumped in the booth with an aching jaw. He stared at the ceiling for a while with vivid green, inhuman eyes as who he was slowly began to put itself back together. Everything felt distant.

"...you hear anything?" That must have been Tifa. Maybe she had punched him.

He nodded numbly. "Heard Mother."

"What did She want?"

"She wants out. She wants to be whole."

There was a motion across the room, which got him to notice Cid. He was here now too. That was nice.

"Anything we don't already know?" he asked. Cloud turned his head and fixed his eyes on Cid and earned a small shudder from the latter. He couldn’t seem to make his eyes focus on anything.

"She wants out. She wants to be whole. She's waited to be whole. Her children will make Her whole."

Cid rolled his eyes. "This was a waste of twenty minutes."

"Her children will make Her whole. Her children will bring Her Reunion."

"Well, looks like he's checked out for the day," he heard Reeve say as Barret retracted the gun back into a hand. "We may as well consider our options and call in what reinforcements we have."

Cloud felt a wet nose press into his arm. Nanaki. It was his friend Nanaki. "Is he going to be alright?"

"I'll take care of it," said Tifa, who moved somewhere he couldn't see and carefully picked him up with a grunt. "Maybe he'll mention something else."

Words kept happening from his mouth on the way up the stairs. He could hear them discussing them in the dining room. Reunion, children, whole. Their words and Her words that weren't words, not the way humans knew them, and his words, the ones in between the two, kept blending together all the way to his room as Tifa set him down on his bed and sat down next to him, squeezing his good hand.

After a moment it occurred to him that perhaps he was supposed to squeeze back, but for some reason he couldn't really move. Mother hadn't given those parts of him back yet. Still, there it was. The thought was strangely comforting even though it wasn't a part of them.

She was saying words now, to him. Tifa, not Mother. He tried to respond, but the words he wanted to make himself wouldn't stick together long enough for them to be said. There were only Mother's words now. Tifa kept talking, though, so he had another chance, and another, and another. Eventually, he managed one.

"Sorry."

There was a pause in her speech, and she said something back. "Me too."

"Didn't mean to yell."

"I know. I'm sorry I didn't trust you."

It was another few minutes before he managed more: "Didn't want anyone to worry."

"We're gonna worry about you. That's something we chose to do anyway. That's part of how having a family works."

"Don't leave."

"I won't."

After what felt like another eternity, Cloud finally managed to make his fingers contract. About time. She might've left.

Tifa let out a sharp hiss of pain as he very nearly broke her hand, and he loosened his grip and turned to look at her properly. It was easier to write his own words in now.

"You get anything good from that?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Same old crap as usual. Bit weird that She's mentioning children again, considering they're all dead."

"You think there's more? Remnants, maybe? Another experiment that got out?"

"Nanaki thinks there could be. I think he's wrong. There's nothing left, right? You checked about a hundred times after... after the stigma." She clenched her fingers nervously.

He nodded. "Nothing. Not even any samples."

"Well... no news is good news, right?"

"Right."

She leaned up against him, careful not to bump his arm. Another thing he'd missed. At least it was easy enough to convince Tifa to sit with him. Half the time he couldn't work up the nerve with anyone else. They could say yes if he asked. But they could also say no, and that would hurt almost as much as if he never asked at all and just went about his business not being lonely all the time like an adult was supposed to be.

Tifa didn't want to say anything, obviously, but a quick look out the window told him it was already night. He must have been sitting on his bed with Mother -- Jenova, for hours. Maybe five or six. It had gotten worse again. 

The worst part of it all was that even after all this time, it wasn't really unpleasant. In fact, it felt wonderful to be "whole". It was as though he'd been choking, and he was finally permitted to breathe, this basic function of his mind and body that he denied himself so he could keep his individuality. The fact that one day he might not want to refuse was yet another thing he was terrified of.

He curled up against Tifa a bit closer. She'd have to bail him out if that day ever came. He hoped she would want to. 

"So... why fire?" came the question after several moments of silence.

Cloud looked up at Tifa from a bit of skin he'd been picking at on his left wrist with his teeth, confused by the question. "You must've mastered about ten spells by now," she clarified, "and fire's always your go-to. Why?"

"It... it's easy to use," he said. He reached through to the Planet on a path he now knew by heart, gently coaxing a small flame into existence and staring at it as it ran through his fingers, as though it would look different now that he was considering it properly. "It's pretty similar to what I can do innately. Does big explosions just as well as quiet arsons. It's got a lot of useful non-combat applications, too."

Tifa shook her head. "No, I know, just... it doesn't bother you, in fights?" There was another period of silence. 

"The smell, I mean," she added quietly.

He looked up from the fire at Tifa again, who was staring at it with a distant expression on her face. "We were both at Nibelheim," said Tifa. "If -- if you saw anything close to what I saw... smelled it... I don't know how you stand it."

The flame in his hand flickered and went out. He knew exactly what Tifa was talking about: had stepped over the mangled bodies in the streets and sprinted frantically to their cabin; had run back in for his mother, maimed and screaming as the flames claimed her; had to be dragged back out by Tifa's sensei when he succumbed to the smoke, too lethargic to do anything but watch her burn. The mako had seared away many things from that day that he'd had to win back, but the scent of charred flesh and burning hair had not been one of them.

Eventually he spoke up, still staring at his empty hand. "I, er... I sort of got used to it. From before Nibelheim."

Tifa frowned, fixing her gaze on him. "Before?"

"Nibelheim was only unique because it wasn't planned and they didn't have a coverup story ready to go," he said, failing to keep the bitterness out of his voice. "I worked for Shinra for two years before that. It's what they do."

Tifa was quiet. Cloud continued, the words coming easier the longer he talked. He didn't know if she actually wanted to hear it or not, but he was loath to interrupt a clear memory, especially if he managed to recover something else. "Three houses in the Sector 1 slums, I remember doing. And in Wutai, when they were cleaning up after the war... whole villages, along the southern half of the main island. Little villages, even smaller than Nibelheim."

He leaned back against the wall, staring out the window. "They weren't in the news. Nobody cared about those villages. Nobody cared about Gongaga, or Corel... and nobody really cared about Nibelheim, either." He glanced nervously at her. She was looking at him. He held his ground. "I never felt like that smell was a part of Nibelheim. It was just... a part of fighting, I guess. Had been for a while."

She looked at him for a while, then nodded. "It was tricky for me, at first. Almost wasn't let in to Avalanche at all. They took me on the first bombing mission, and after it went off things got a little... intense for me. So they stopped taking me."

"You came with me for the run on Sector 5," said Cloud.

She nodded. "Yeah. And that was the first bomb run I'd been on in years since then. I volunteered, and I guess Barret was too surprised to say no."

"Why'd you volunteer?" asked Cloud, and while she didn't smile, he saw Tifa's expression soften a bit.

"Had to keep an eye on you, Mr. Soldier First Class," she replied. Cloud let out a quiet huff of laughter. "After the bomb went off, it was a little easier this time, since it had been so long, and I thought maybe I'd started moving past it... before Sector 7, anyway."

There was another period of silence as Tifa quietly clenched and unclenched her hands. She didn't really have any mastered spells that she could cast in such close quarters -- it was rather like cracking one's knuckles, something Tifa found thoroughly unappealing.

"I thought maybe Barret dealt with it easier," she said, "but then I remembered Corel. I don't know how he does it."

"Maybe he's not bothered by stuff like that. Maybe he's got different stuff that gets to him," said Cloud eventually.

"He's right in the other room. You could ask him," said Tifa.

"No point," said Cloud. He'd rekindled another flame, smaller this time, and wove it between his fingers like a pen. "He'd tell me to stop asking. He's probably only afraid for Marlene's sake. I can't really picture anything getting to Barret like that, can you?"

Tifa shrugged. "Well, let's check." She raised her voice. "Barret, can you come back in here for a moment?"

She reached out to his flame as Barret stepped in through the door, scooping it out of Cloud's hand and sculpting it with her own mastered spell, Flare, and it violently flashed out of existence in midair with a deafening crack, causing Barret to jump and yell a string of words that prompted a loud, ugly laugh from Cid in the next room.

"Is that all you called me in here for?" he said, clearly unamused.

"Yes, and you've been a big help," replied Tifa politely as Cloud struggled to keep a straight face. "Really," she added, as Barret's scowl deepened.

"I'll let everyone know he's awake. Good to know y'all are taking this seriously," he said, and closed the door to Cloud's room again.

"Loud noises," said Tifa after Cloud allowed himself a brief chuckle. The strange static aftermath of a magic discharge hung heavy in the air. "See? He has a gun for an arm and you can still startle him."

"I guess so," said Cloud after a moment. "It's... maybe he's got something else that it means to him."

"Yeah, maybe..." said Tifa. There was another moment of silence as the unspoken thought passed between the both of them; who had Barret watched burn before Corel?

"...He probably wouldn't tell us what it was, though," said Tifa eventually. "But maybe when all this is over, we should ask anyway."

Cloud nodded. "Maybe we should."

There was a knock on the door. “Are you okay? I heard something loud.”

Cloud quietly swore under his breath. He’d forgotten about Marlene.

“We’re fine,” said Tifa, opening the door. “Is Yuffie still with you?”

“She went downstairs for drinks.” She looked nervously at Cloud, whose eyes probably still weren’t quite right. “...Can you come make me a float?”

“Yeah, alright,” replied Tifa after a moment. She turned back to Cloud briefly. “You’re okay here, right?”

He nodded. “Gonna stretch my legs a little, actually. Everything still feels weird.”

He watched as Tifa went off with Marlene, then let himself downstairs as well to find Cid and Reeve still talking in the dining room.

“Do we have a plan yet?” said Cloud uneasily, pulling up a chair. It was so much easier when they could just go stab whatever the problem was.

Reeve shook his head. "Not a lot we can do for now. The WRO is a volunteer group. It'll take time to get a response from anyone with any real power."

"I thought you were in charge?" asked Cloud.

Reeve shook his head. "I'm in charge of a large relief organisation that doesn't have any real authority over any particular sovereign nation or city-state. Edge wants to be one of those city-states. I can apply for a leadership position just like anyone else, but..."

"I thought you'd be a shoo-in. You're pretty much the only politician left alive, right?"

"Not necessarily. And people... don't really like former Shinra staff, as I'm sure you've noticed by now. The WRO's come under a lot of fire over the years for having my name attached to it."

"You're trustworthy, though. You --"

"-- helped you kill every other member of Shinra in what was unarguably a coup, even if it was a coup for the right reasons." Reeve sighed, watching Tifa disappear up the steps with Marlene holding a root beer float. "I knew I'd have to get out of this game eventually. If I'm not a part of the process anymore, now is as good a time as any."

"...Well, if I was allowed to vote, I'd vote for you," he said eventually. He got up from his chair and walked behind the bar, doing his best to make drinks with just one hand. "If you're voting on anything, anyway. Is this a vote?"

"It's a vote, yes. And your support's appreciated," said Reeve, then looked over at Cid sharply. "You're not supposed to be smoking in here," he said in response to the lit cigarette he now had between his fingers. Cid held up another finger on the hand he wasn't using and took another drag.

"Tifa's gonna put that thing out on your face," warned Cloud through his teeth as he bit the cap off an opened bottle of brandy they had in the fridge.

"Just like she's not gonna mind you're pouring yourself a drink," returned Cid, gesturing to the third cocktail he'd been making. Cloud waved him off.

"She doesn't care if I drink. It's not like there's a rule against it."

"You can't have booze with pain meds, Strife," drawled Cid. "They shoulda told you that on the way out of the hospital."

"They told me a lot of stuff," he replied offhandedly, slowly screwing the cap back on after topping the glasses off. "Doctors say shit all the time, and it's never important."

"Actually, that's not quite --" began Reeve before he was interrupted for the fifth time that night.

"You're gonna put yourself in another coma and we just got you out the last one, dumbass."

"I've had worse," said Cloud, and went back to his seat with his drink.

"I hate it when you do that, you know," said Reeve. "You can't just shut down every conversation about your health."

"Can and will." He took a sip of his drink, and Reeve just shook his head and echoed Cid's "dumbass” sentiment but let the conversation drop anyway.

"What, we don't get any?" asked Cid, then stopped as he noticed the two glasses float over and set themselves down in front of each of them. Cid snatched his up and gestured pointedly at Cloud with it. "I thought you said you were gonna stop doing this shit."

"I have one hand, Cid."

"So take trips," said Reeve, now also frowning. "It's one thing if it's an emergency. Casual use of this kind of thing is gonna make this a lot harder to deal with. Especially now."

"It's convenient and it's not hurting anything."

Cid narrowed his eyes. "If someone sees you doing that --"

"Look, just... everyone already saw my eyes, probably. Barret told me about the arm, and I got spotted on the roof. Damage done. The mobs'll probably be here in a day or two," said Cloud, his face falling a bit as what he was saying suddenly hit him. People knew now. Someone would have told someone else. Everyone would know that there was something living in Seventh Heaven that wasn't human.

"So it's not like it matters," he finished quietly after a moment. He took another few large swallows of his drink.

"...You can stay at my place if you want, 'til things blow over," said Cid, taking a swig of his own drink. "Couch is yours for as long as you need it."

Cloud nodded. "Thank you." It still sounded insincere. "I can..." Pay him? Fix something for him? Give bad relationship advice? Cid could do all that himself.

"You can make me drinks," said Cid. "'Cause this is damn good and the bar back home is shit."

"I didn't come up with it. It's Tifa's recipe," he said, shifting in his chair. Cid shrugged and took another drink anyway.

"You have as much right to be here as anyone else," added Reeve. "You don't need to move unless you want to."

"Dumb fuckin' assholes'll never know what you did for 'em anyway." Cid drained his glass and Cloud moved it back into the kitchen and into the sink with a small jerk of his wrist, just to bother him.

"You goddamn smartass --"

"Is Cid smoking in there?" came a voice from the doorway. Jessie had come back out of the back room. "Tifa's gonna kill you."

"Not if you don't tell her," he said, flicking some ash off his cigarette.

"I won't have to. That stuff smells. You know that, right?" She let herself into the kitchen, then turned to see Cloud drinking and scowled at him. "Sure, why not? Let's have you run the dishwasher and use the oven while we're trying to think of more ways to piss Tifa off." Cloud's face went furiously red.

"It was one time --"

"It was four times for the first and six for the second and you know it."

"He's been doing not-magic, too."

"Reeve!"

"Gods, I was joking. Anything else?"

Cloud stood up again. "If I make you one too, will you shove off?"

She shrugged. "I guess so. Make sure it has an olive on a toothpick."

Cloud slunk off behind the bar as they continued talking. It had been easy enough to take the compliment from Cid, but really he hadn't done anything for them. Well, perhaps that wasn't strictly true. They'd taken out Shinra together, killed Sephiroth together. He'd helped dig through the rubble of Midgar for survivors, too. He'd been one of the few people on-site with any sort of first aid training and mastered White magic, and definitely the only one capable of lifting massive chunks of downed buildings off civilians. But he'd had help with that too. He wasn't the strongest healer in their family, let alone in that volunteer group. And he'd helped dispose of the bodies. But Cid probably wouldn't bring that up to try and lighten the mood. The man wasn't that tactless.

Cloud knew exactly what Cid had been talking about, and that was something Cloud was absolutely sure he hadn't done. He couldn't have. No one, not even the man that killed Sephiroth, could do something like that, could they?

It was, by definition, impossible. Magic had rules.

There was nothing he could do about them being convinced it was him, though. If it was something they thought he'd done, he'd let them keep giving him credit for it. Another lie onto the rapidly growing pile, but it wasn't like he had a lot of purchase in this group as it was. He needed every edge he could get.

After getting Jessie her drink (and hovering it over to her while looking Reeve dead in the eye), he went back upstairs to check on the rest of his belongings. His sunglasses were smashed. The temporary ones he'd been given by the hospital wouldn't stay on his face because they were too big, and not because he was too small. He'd have to send someone out to get new ones, not that it would matter much anymore. His phone was badly scuffed, but still seemed to work alright. His wallet only had eighty gil in cash and a couple condoms in it in the first place, and both were still there. He made a mental note to put something else in it with his phone number on it in case it got lost, since it wasn't like he had an ID. His radio was back to producing nothing but static.

Guess I can't give this back to her now, he mused, and began to leave his room.

He stepped out the door, and the static faded into music again. He froze, and then went back inside. The music lapsed back into static.

He glared at the radio and snatched it off his desk, then jogged back downstairs with it. He dropped it unceremoniously into Jessie's lap and hauled himself up to sit on the bar a small distance away.

"Can you fix that thing for me?" he asked. Jessie looked at him strangely. The radio was playing music again.

"Seems fine to me," she said, shrugging. She tossed it back over to him, and as he snatched it out of the air, the music shut off again. Cloud stared at the radio, and now Reeve was staring too. He quickly switched it off.

"Yeah, probably. I'll deal with it later," muttered Cloud, and finished off the rest of his drink in one go, just in time for Barret to walk in and scowl at him.

"...What?"

"Did you listen to a damn word the doctor told you?"

"Nah. Are you gonna ride me about the booze too?"

"Your dumb ass is gonna wind up with another seizure."

"I don't do seizures anymore." At least, he was pretty sure. It had been years since the last one, and there was almost nothing left to set them off anymore.

"There's a difference between your episodes and poisoning yourself. And Yuffie can't heal either one, so you'd better --"

"What am I not doing?" Yuffie had peeked her head into the room curiously, then frowned when she noticed Cloud with his empty glass, and she gestured with her own. "Can I have one?"

"You sure can," said Cloud, giving the smallest smirk. "Barret, do you want one?"

Barret grunted, which was probably the most graceful "yes" he was gonna get out of him for the time being.

"What are we getting?" said Nanaki as he trotted into the room after her.

"Cloud's making drinks," said Yuffie. "You want any?"

Nanaki cocked his head to the side, then shook it. "I'll have a sip of someone else's. I don't know if I would like alcohol."

"Is he above drinking age?" objected Jessie.

"I'm fifty-two. Is that sufficient?"

"Isn't that like... twelve for you?" said Yuffie.

Nanaki's tail bristled, and the fire on the end of it sparked briefly. "Fifteen at least! And it's fifty-two!"

"I'm making two drinks," said Cloud decisively. "And one of you better share."

Might as well ask Tifa if she wants one too, he thought. And as the notion occurred to him, she came walking down the steps, her mouth drawn in a thin line. He braced for the inevitable conversation but pressed onward anyway.

"Hey, Teef, do you want... Tifa?"

Instead of also lecturing him about why he shouldn't be allowed to have a nice drink to take the edge off things, or even making Cid put out his cigarette, Tifa walked right past him without looking at anyone and out the front door.

"Tifa?"

Tifa was already off down the street. Cloud looked guiltily at his empty glass. Maybe he shouldn't have been drinking.

Marlene peeked down from the top of the stairs after her, looking a bit guilty. "...Did she leave? Was it something I said?"

Barret set his drink down and shifted enough to allow her into the booth next to him. "What's wrong, baby girl?"

"I made Tifa mad."

"I promise you didn't," said Barret. "Tifa couldn't be mad at you."

"I found a box under her bed, and it made her mad."

Cloud quickly shot Barret a significant look. After a moment a look of comprehension settled onto his face and he turned back to Marlene again.

"She's not mad at you, baby. She was worried you'd get hurt. There was a gun in there."

"Tifa owns a gun?" The skepticism was clear in her voice.

Barret nodded. "It's a gun. You remember back when Shinra was around, and we had to fight them?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, we had to buy a lotta weapons to fight them. We still have some of 'em around, just in case something else bad happens."

"Like your arm?"

"Like my arm."

"So why was she mad? You aren't shooting everyone." Marlene tapped the back of his metal hand, which looked for all the world like another prosthesis, albeit a very fancy one. Reeve had called in a couple favours after his original gun had been crushed when the Highwind crashed and he’d been pinned by rubble.

"She wasn't mad," said Barret wearily, clearly regretting this particular story already. "Guns aren't safe to touch if you don't know how to use 'em. It could go off and hurt you."

"...So, can you teach me how to use a gun?” asked Marlene. “So Tifa won't be mad."

"Look, why don't we go see Tifa, and she'll tell you she ain't mad," said Barret. "Alright?"

"I'll get her," said Cloud, heading for the door. He'd been anxious to anyway.

"Glasses," said Nanaki rather firmly.

Cloud grunted and stepped back from the door again. "Someone's not getting a drink."

"If you'll recall, I didn't ask for one."

"I'll go get her," said Barret. "You too," he added to Nanaki. "Gonna need someone with a nose on 'em to find out where she went."

"What about Marlene?" asked Cloud. It was almost definitely past her bedtime. Marlene looked at Cloud hopefully.

"...I'm making an exception just this once, 'til we clear this up," said Barret uneasily as Marlene's face lit up. "Keep an eye on her." He knelt and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. "Be back soon, baby girl."

"Thank you!" squealed Marlene, the earlier conflict all but forgotten at the prospect of staying up late with everyone else. The minute Barret and Nanaki were out the door, she rounded on Cloud.

"I wanna do an arm-wrestle contest!" she said. Cloud shrugged, then winced at the action. His shoulders were definitely not up for shrugging for the time being.

"Alright, but go easy on me," he said. "I've gotta use my bad arm." Marlene immediately ran off to get paper to write up tournament brackets and scores on.

Cloud had no idea what time it was, and the alcohol was making him a bit dizzy, now that he really thought about it. Marlene pinned his arm five times, and then had to stop because one of those pins (the one where he'd decided to give her a bit of a challenge and she'd responded with using both hands and shoving his arm at an angle) actually managed to elicit a genuine cry of pain from him as it twisted a muscle he didn't know was still sore. Yuffie got out a deck of playing cards and did a few witch's tricks, since she was always good at the sleight of hand stuff, then began trying to teach Marlene how to do one of the easier ones. Reeve went upstairs to take a phone call. Cloud went out back to his bike and removed his swords, just in case. Cid took off his shirt to compare scars and wound up falling asleep in his chair. Jessie fiddled with the portable radio, trying to find that third station that was rumoured to have started up lately.

Through it all, Cloud kept glancing anxiously back at the door to the Seventh Heaven, because he could have sworn that on the way out there had been something clutched tightly in Tifa's fist.

Chapter 9: A Repeat of the Previous Chapter in a Move that Could Conceivably Be Called “Lazy”

Notes:

I'm still taking suggestions on better titles for this thing. I pulled "To Live" out of my ass in five minutes after I realised I was literally right about to post the first chapter and still had the .rtf file saved as "This Was A Mistake". Nietzsche quotes sure are abusable out of context, huh?

Thank you to Raaj, Cat, Belderiver, limbostratus, and Sanctum_C for dealing with me pestering them about this shit.

She had been stroking his hand for the last five hours. Any minute now, she'd tell herself. He's fine. He's stayed together through worse. Any minute now.

She could hear the buzz of conversation downstairs. Cloud wasn't quiet, either, softly murmuring about Mother, and Her Reunion. She was pretty sure he hadn't blinked once, which was one of the less eerie things she'd seen him do tonight. She quietly reviewed the conversation she'd had with Barret on the way off the airship.

"He's in a bad way," he'd said, and she'd immediately feared the worst. So technically speaking his present state was a pleasant surprise. He was still alive. He hadn't had any relapses of the conditions he still refused to see a psychologist for. He hadn't run off to go die alone in the Wastes.

Cloud hid too much, was the problem. He somehow managed to both trust them implicitly and not trust them at all. Tifa thought that after four years he would have loosened up about it, but if anything he'd gotten worse. They'd been as patient as they could, since having a social life outside of his mother (either one, really) was a new experience for him, but Cloud seemed to be cottoning onto this. Any help offered seemed to make him wary, as though it were a trap.

He would never talk about himself unless very directly prompted either. In fact, the very concept of doing so seemed to send him into a mild panic. She didn't remember much about the boy from Nibelheim she had thought was a bit creepy when she was young, but she was certain he hadn't been like that. Cloud never talked about what had made him that way, either. They weren't sure he knew himself.

She decided to try talking to him again, to see if that prompted anything. She'd run out of conversation at hour three and didn't know if he'd remember she'd been repeating herself over and over again, so she opted for a story instead. A very old one, about a barren woman who made a bargain with the mountain for a child from the fey, and the horrible things it had done to her neighbours in the name of fleeing its mother and repaying its debt to the gods in the earth, until one day she was forced to drive a spear of mage-cast iron through its heart. She'd always been fond of that one when she was little, and had once spent an entire week drawing different kinds of dresses the mother might have worn, and different kinds of spears she would have used to kill the bargain child. It was one of those stories that hadn't quite aged well, in the same way that "cock" used to just mean "rooster" once upon a time. Not that there was anyone left alive that would catch the double-entendre.

Perhaps an old story in Nibeli wasn't the best thing to be reciting to Cloud right now; he barely remembered the language, and had all but lost the stories of the gods. (The proper gods, the ones that stoked the hearth and shaped the black earth around flame, not the twelve they worshipped here around Midgar.) It was just one more bit of culture Shinra had buried that they'd never get back. He probably didn't even remember getting his ears pierced.

Eventually the slitted pupils twitched, and shifted, and he turned to look at her -- not in the right way, not in a way a human would ever move, but he couldn't have known that. She gave his hand a squeeze.

"Sorry," he'd said, and was confused for a minute before remembering the fight they'd had over five hours ago. It had likely been minutes from his perspective.

They had talked for awhile, and things had almost felt like they had before, when they'd been travelling. It had been months since they'd had a good spar. Cloud had been giving her casting pointers, and she'd been teaching him hand-to-hand in turn. He was a fast learner. She'd have to see how much he remembered.

Marlene knocking on the door jarred her from her train of thought.

“Are you okay? I heard something loud.”

Next to her, Cloud muttered "fuck" in a voice that might have been slightly too loud, and she shot him a look before getting up and opening the door to Marlene.

“We’re fine. Is Yuffie still with you?”

“She went downstairs for drinks," said Marlene. Of course she had. It was long past ten. “...Can you come make me a float?”

Tifa considered it for a moment. It was absolutely past her bedtime, but this was a special occasion, and she probably wouldn't get much sleep knowing something was wrong with her family and they were talking about it in the other room. “Yeah, alright."

She said, before turning back to Cloud. “You’re okay here, right?”

Cloud nodded -- gods, she hated it when he moved after getting like this -- and scooted himself off the bed. “Gonna stretch my legs a little, actually. Everything still feels weird.”

Marlene led her back downstairs to the kitchen and eagerly dug a notebook out of the bag she'd brought over for her stay. It said "RECEPIES!!! by Marlene Wallace Age 5 6 7 8" on it in bright orange highlighter, and Nanaki had brought her pressed lilies from an entire continent away for her to glue to the cover. Tifa hoped one day she'd be able to take Marlene to see live ones.

Marlene flipped the notebook open to a new page and began taking careful notes as Tifa poured her root beer from the tap at the bar, then scooped ice cream into it. She presented it to Marlene, who held up a hand and climbed up on the counter, digging through the spices available until she found the cinnamon, then sprinkled a few liberal shakes into the glass and began to stir it.

"It's a new one I came up with right now," she said proudly. "They make vanilla cinnamon candies, so they should make vanilla cinnamon drinks."

Tifa decided not to clue her into the existence of lattes just yet and nodded as Marlene finished stirring and took a drink. "It sounds really good."

"It tastes good, too," said Marlene, licking a bit of ice cream off of her chin, and Tifa didn't doubt it. They'd had her making hard drinks for them at one point, after all. Tifa had begun teaching her tricks she could do with the cups. "Can you help me make a new one with meat?"

Tifa nodded, then glanced back towards Reeve, who was now discussing the election. "Sure. We can do it upstairs if you promise not to spill your drink."

She led Marlene back up to her room, where she'd been staying for the night, and she briefly considered sleeping arrangements before resolving to deal with it later. If worst came to worst they could all just pile into one or two rooms together. They'd all dealt with worse.

They spread out blankets on the floor, and Marlene upended a box of markers she'd brought with her next to her notebook.

"So, what kind of meat?" asked Tifa.

"Chicken. There's this food cart in the market that has it on a stick, and they cook it so it doesn't even taste like chicken. But not in a bad way. I wanna do something like that."

They spent the next few minutes alternating between discussing ingredients and drawing pictures of kebabs in her notebook, stealing sips out of her root beer float (which was, in fact, delicious). Marlene's stuffed tonberry leered at them from the corner. Tifa tried not to look.

"Where's the green?" said Marlene at one point. "I want to draw the spices."

Tifa felt around for the marker on the blanket, then carefully stood up. "Scooch up for a second," she said, then began to shake out the blanket. After a moment, they heard a quiet clatter, then the sound of something rolling before settling against a hard surface with a click.

"I'll get it!" said Marlene, and began to squeeze herself under the bed. Tifa could hear the sound of her rummaging, and a moment later returned out from under it with a marker and a wooden box.

Marlene began to undo the latch, and Tifa sprung from where she'd been standing, staring blankly at what was happening, and snatched it out of her hands. "Don't touch that!"

It had been the wrong thing to say. Marlene's eyes began to fill with tears, and Tifa quickly knelt by her. "Hey, no, don't -- it's fine, it's just..."

"I didn't know," said Marlene, her face beginning to screw up. "I didn't see what's in it, I swear!"

"It's not..." Tifa was staring at the box in her hands. The wood was like ice in her hands, in contrast to how its contents had felt when she'd first discovered it, almost burning hot. Her thoughts quickened.

It was insane. There was nothing this would accomplish, surely. Maybe it wouldn't do anything at all. Maybe...

"Stay here, alright?" she said, and gave Marlene a quick hug before snatching the white materia out of the box and quickly heading downstairs. Cloud said something to her as she passed him, but it barely registered. She left the bar and began walking briskly down the street.

There were four spots she knew would probably work. The little town in Mideel was too far away, as was the Candle. She was never, ever going back to Nibelheim. So that left the old broken down church.

The walk into the ruins was fairly long, and her phone rang twice on the way there. She ignored it -- she would call back as soon as this was over and done with.

The inside of the church was still warm, at least compared to the outside. There was still a little spot on the floor that had been cleared of dirt where Cloud had set his bedroll two years ago. Tifa looked at it for a moment, and knelt in the dirt in front of the pool of water.

There was a spot in the dirt, too, that showed signs of disturbance -- the spot where she'd buried her medal. Tifa stared at it contemptuously. A medal, of all fucking things.

It was the closest she'd get to being able to bury all those victims of the stigma. Victims she'd killed.

She clutched the materia tightly in her hands and tried desperately to find the knowledge of how to use it that it had placed in her head. As before, it was nigh-impossible. It almost seemed designed so that one couldn't use it.

Tifa still didn't know what the materia was meant to do. She knew what it did, but it was impossible to tell if that was the spell working as intended. What was even more unfathomable was the entity it put her into contact with in order to use it. She sat there, and she reached, and reached, and reached...

The sky was choked with grey. The infected were in the streets, their eyes like Cloud's, empty and inhuman, staring towards the swirling mass of shadowy matter above the city. Loud crashes could be heard, even in the distance. Tifa ran towards the source, dodging the people that cried out for her to help, and the claws of things that sprung out of the earth to rake at her legs. She would help. She would help them all.

The white materia clutched in her hand almost seemed to buzz, and she felt it pulling her through the ruins to a specific spot. She followed, even as the world seemed to shake apart above her head. It was drawing her towards a building -- a ratty old church, long since abandoned.

She burst through the doors, looking around for what led her there, and the air in the building seemed to thicken as she caught a flash of something in the pile of dirt towards the front -- a luminous green thread, vanishing as soon as it appeared. The Lifestream. It had led her here? The men at Cosmo Canyon two years ago had said it would destroy whatever was a threat to the Planet. There was certainly a threat to the Planet, and it wasn't in some old abandoned church.

She stood in front of the dirt, gripping the white materia as tightly as she could, as though that would make it work more. Something was different about her using it here; the wall she seemed to have to punch through seemed thinner, or perhaps she was just closer to it. She centred herself, trying to not force the memories, to let the spell come to her, and then something caught and pulled her in, and she Saw.

Humans had long since forgotten how to listen to the Planet. They are not meant to speak to it. The consciousness at the centre of the world, of all things, the force that had lent her a spark of itself that would one day be washed back into the fathomless ocean it had sprung from, was vast, and old, and furious. What it knew was years, and depth, and anger; and for the first time, Tifa, a human, saw it all. And it saw her.

She steeled herself against it. Try. She had to try. If Cloud had survived this, so could she.

It spoke to her then, and its voice washed against her, threatening to drown her out. The white materia burned in her hands.

She didn't know if it knew words, but she began to talk anyway.

Jenova is here, she began. The Calamity from the Skies. It came here two thousand years ago, and it's poisoned you and it's poisoned us. We can't fight it ourselves.

It roiled against her. A response would have been nice. She felt herself drifting, and she tried to remember that she was standing in a church in what was left of Midgar, begging for the lives of humanity.

We need help, she told it. Help us. The stigma, it's -- it's killing both of us. That's... you need to help. If you won't give me that power, you'll need to use it yourself. Help us.

Silence again. The air around her smelled like burning ozone. Far above her and in the distance, she felt a discharge of magic -- an enormous one, if she could feel it this far away. The kind she'd seen combatants let loose on death's door, a blade in their heart, their life dripping out onto the ground.

Her heart sunk into her stomach, and she thought of Cloud, still wasting away, fighting an opponent that was stronger than ever. She thought of her friends, still trying to evacuate the city as things made of black rotting smoke clawed their way into being began ripping apart anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way. She thought of how, even if they won, Cloud would have a month left to live. Perhaps two. That they might have six, or twelve, until they were eventually claimed by the stigma as well. She thought of how this man had died once already, and would continue to manifest again and again as long as there was a single drop of Jenova left. She thought of the decrepit remains of the world and the families they'd fought to preserve. She thought of how there was nothing she could do about any of it.

The materia in her hand began to glow. The spell gradually faded from her mind, until it locked itself behind the wall again. She stood there, defeated. She hadn't managed to cast it after all.

And then the Planet unleashed its fury.

It had been festering there, for almost two thousand years, and had been building more and more over the last hundred. It had built towards the humans draining its life away and the parasite burrowing into its veins. It was two thousand years of pain and anger on an incomprehensible scale. The white materia would summon a force to destroy whatever threat remained to the Planet. Before Holy, there could have been Weapons. And before Weapons, there were the Cetra. The Weapons were dead, and there were no Cetra left alive to shape the will of the Planet, to temper and channel its force. Tifa had reached the Planet, but Tifa was only human.

By the time they'd discovered the damage done, it was far too late to stop it.

Holy burst from the patch of dirt in a torrent. When it arrived in the form of a violent maelstrom that lasted three days, it burned away Jenova with the wrath of the world She and the humans She had infested had destroyed.The rain sank into the sores of anyone unfortunate enough to be caught outside, and the flesh sizzled and disintegrated upon contact. Tifa watched, her clothes drenched, as it carved away at their bodies. One child had a patch on her arm that looked like a particularly bad rug burn. Another was missing a chunk of his forehead and part of his eye, and was unmistakably dead and stigma free. The injured-but-alive took cover inside the buildings, while anyone carried those who couldn't walk inside.

As the storm continued, she began to observe. Some were stepping out into the rain, deliberately. She watched it mangle their bodies. She watched more and more pour out, as it became clearer what the rain did. There were even more on the second day, and more still on the third.

All this she watched in complete silence. She set about moving the bodies somewhere they wouldn't be washed away.

They found Cloud eventually, when the rain finally stopped. He had been lying on the remains of a skyscraper in the ruins, his left arm and chest bloodied from the rain and from the multiple stab wounds all over his body. It had taken him another day to wake up, but he was somehow still alive. He kept looking at his arm and doing something with his mouth that she thought might have been a smile. She thought he was delirious from blood loss at first, until she noticed, exactly, what part of his arm he kept looking at, and what parts of his flesh the rain had removed.

Most people had not been as lucky as Cloud. Most people had had the sores on their faces, rather than their arms.

Tifa did not speak to anyone for a while after that. How could she? What was there to say? Few had recognised her, fortunately enough -- she had been drenched. They had aired a televised service a few days later, formally thanking her for the cure. She didn't say a word during that either.

Cloud didn't say much to her during that time, either. Or maybe she didn't remember him saying much. He seemed afraid to, she assumed. Barret had stayed at Seventh Heaven another month, joined at the hip to Marlene, who he frequently checked for sores on her arms. He would often sit by her at the bar. "You did your best," he'd say. "You did the only thing you could do."

That had been the part that hurt the worst. "The only thing you could do".

It seemed that was all she'd ever been able to do.

"Tifa."

Tifa turned to see Nanaki and Barret standing behind her. She looked at them. Barret looked back and saw the white materia in her hands. He looked back up at her face incredulously, and Tifa threw the white materia into the pool in the church in frustration.

"Didn't work anyway," she said, looking away from them.

"What in the world were you --"

"Nothing. Look, I chucked it," she continued, cutting off Nanaki. "I shouldn't have been keeping it under the bed anyway, we should've known Marlene would find it. We're lucky she hasn't gotten to anything else."

"...What were you trying to do?" Nanaki sat down and watched her patiently.

"Something isn't right." She could feel her hands shaking slightly as what she might've almost repeated caught up to her, and she clenched her fists to keep them still. "You know he wouldn't just snap like that. We know something's wrong, and we're all just..."

"You can't fight this one away, Teef," said Barret, sitting down on one of the pews. Tifa sat next to him. "Cloud can handle it in the meantime."

"Sometimes he can't," said Tifa. "He probably wouldn't accept help anyway."

"You ain't his caretaker," said Barret. "And not the world's, either."

"We used to be," she said, and there was an uncomfortable silence for several moments.

"...I am not sure the Planet would know what this is to begin with," said Nanaki. "But thank you for trying."

"No. I know that. I threw it out. We're done here." She stood up, then paused. "...Don't tell Cloud. Alright?"

Nanaki cocked his head to the side. "And what are we supposed to tell him, should he ask?"

"Not this. It'll just make everything worse. You know how he... how we -- you know how it’ll go."

“He’s rubbing off on you,” said Barret. “Thought you had more sense than that.”

“Let’s just go,” she said, and strode out the door, leaving the white materia behind, like she should have done in the first place.

She returned back to the bar and found the front room empty. She checked the back and found Cid and Jessie camped out in the back room. Jessie was asleep, but Cid was lying against the couch, smoking a cigarette. Tifa stood in front of him, cleared her throat, and waited.

Cid put out his cigarette. “What the hell kinda bar doesn’t allow you to smoke in it?” he growled.

“The kind that I live in,” she said. “The whole place is gonna smell now.”

“Think I’m entitled to one fuckin’ cigarette, lady.” He stood up and stretched. “Everyone else went to bed.”

"What time is it?"

"'Bout one in the morning. Mind tellin' me what you ran off for?"

"I thought I had a lead," said Tifa uncomfortably.

"...And?"

"And I didn't."

Cid continued to stare at her.

"It was nothing," she said, a bit firmer this time. "I wish it wasn't, but it was."

"This ain't gettin' to you, is it?"

Tifa shrugged. "We've dealt with worse and come out--"

"'Cause if it is that's nobody's business but your own, but you're gonna rip yourself apart trying to pretend everything's fine when it's not. Just look at your boyfriend over there." Tifa shifted uncomfortably at the word boyfriend, and Cid rolled his eyes. "Fuckbuddy, then. Whatever you two are callin' it."

He got up and stretched himself out with a pained grunt. "No shame in admitting you're outta your depth. Shit, we've all been that way for four years."

"...I want to help," she said after a moment. She suddenly felt very tired as the events of the day began to catch up to her.

"Ain't that the fuckin' statement of the year," muttered Cid. "I'm heading out back for a smoke. Your bed's probably full by now. No one likes Cloud's piss-poor excuse for a mattress." Cid disappeared around the corner, and a moment later she heard the screen door swing open and then shut.

Tifa removed her boots, which were still a bit muddy from the church and the half-melted snow slush up north (she'd been there earlier today, hadn't she?), and quietly crept up the stairs. She made a quick stop to her room to change into sleep clothes (which were really just some of Cloud's "civvies" she'd decided were comfortable), stepping over a sleeping Barret on the way over. It seemed nearly everyone had filed into her room. It was slightly larger, which left more space for blankets. A quick headcount indicated Nanaki was the only one missing.

She left a quick peck on Marlene's forehead before leaving. She probably owed her that much.

She checked Cloud's room and found him and Nanaki curled up against one another in his bed. If it could be called a bed, anyway. It was really more of a cot: the mattress was only a few inches thick, and there was a single blanket and a single pillow for comfort. No, that wasn't right -- there were two pillows now. One of them was hers. She wasn't sure how she'd missed it before.

She'd have to see about buying him something warmer when he wasn't looking. She knew from experience he wouldn't accept it as a gift. Cloud didn't do gifts. If anyone got him anything, he'd wind up either "paying it back" or "working it off". The actual chair for his desk had been an uphill struggle as it was. They could barely get him to do birthdays, and not just because he didn't quite remember when it was.

Tifa carefully slipped in behind him, since Cloud was already using Nanaki's stomach as a pillow -- Tifa shook her head in exasperation -- and slipped under the blanket. Cloud jerked awake and twisted around to look at her. He was still using Barret's shirt, it seemed -- he was practically swimming in it.

"It's me," she whispered.

Cloud stared uncomprehendingly at her for a moment, then nodded and rolled back over. She wasn't sure if it was because he didn't remember her leaving, or was too tired to know what was going on. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt toward the latter.

She hooked an arm over his shoulders -- partially to keep him from jumping out the window again without her knowledge, and partially because she wanted to. He relaxed into her grip, and a moment later she heard his breathing even out.

For a moment, Tifa wondered if he actually needed air.

She scolded herself for considering it. Of course he needed air. You probably couldn't genetically engineer someone to not need air, could you?

Perhaps you could. It was possible to genetically engineer someone to be able to walk through walls, after all.

It would be so much easier to deal with if they just knew what it was they'd spent five years splicing him with. What kind of thing Jenova was, what the world it had come from was like, if it had come from one at all. Cloud had a lot of issues understanding the passage of time -- perhaps She experienced it differently? Anything that had been preying on planets for an unfathomably long amount of time would have to. And She would have to be a predator, naturally, because she couldn't think of any bigger predator out there that would eat something that already ate the Lifestream. Maybe there was something lurking out there that ate galaxies, and Jenova was just the space equivalent of a rabbit. She certainly seemed to spread like one.

Sometimes she'd find herself thinking of Her as a disease Cloud had -- other times, as a person. When they'd been fighting Her on the ground, they'd thought of it as more of an animal. She wasn't really sure which one was more correct.

On that day four years ago, though; the sky filled with fire, the low roar of something immense entering the atmosphere, of Meteor hanging in the sky, seeming like more of a living entity than a chunk of rock as it began tearing through Midgar to reach the earth below it... she wasn't sure what to think of it then.

The noise it had been making was the worst. She wondered if it was anything like the music Cloud claimed to hear. She'd asked him to hum the tune once, but he'd just shaken his head. "It doesn't have one I can make," he'd said.

She wondered how much time he spent listening to it that they didn't know about. By the time she managed to get to sleep, the sky had already begun to lighten.

A noise roused her from her sleep. When she opened her eyes, the bed was empty. She heard the mumbling, crackling chatter of a poorly-tuned radio. Perhaps Cloud was fixing it? Then she heard a low growling, and she sat up.

Nanaki had backed up against the opposite wall, ears flattened and teeth bared. Across from him was Cloud, who was sitting at his desk wheezing faintly.

She got up from the bed and slowly approached his chair. "Cloud?"

Cloud didn't respond. The distressed look on his face quickly faded away to one of indifference. He looked hollow.

The last time Tifa had seen that look on his face it had been four years ago on the Highwind, when he'd tried to slit Barret's throat.

Then his head tilted towards her and the eyes focused on her, and a new expression appeared that looked wrong on Cloud's face. He seemed inquisitive, in the same dry sort of way one would look at an interesting bug. His arm moved.

Tifa had seen enough, and immediately ripped him from his chair and pinned him to the ground with a loud thud, twisting his good arm behind his back and applying pressure to his throat with her other hand to partially restrict his breathing. No human could match the strength of a Soldier (or something very like one) no matter how strong they were, but Tifa had the element of surprise and, unlike Cloud, eight more years of experience than him from the tuition of a trained professional. She wasn't sure what kind of training the thing using Cloud had, but she'd gone toe to toe with Soldiers before. It would have to do.

She heard Cloud grunt involuntarily as he hit the ground, but he didn't do anything to free himself. She kept contact on him anyway.

Nanaki crept into place beside them, still on edge. "There's something wrong. It shouldn't be here."

She looked sharply at him. "What shouldn't?"

Nanaki just paced anxiously. "...I don't know."

Cloud began to struggle against her then, and she braced herself against him more firmly as Nanaki prepared to pounce if necessary, but then she paused. His movements were all wrong -- not a former MP attempting to break himself out of a hammerlock. He didn't even try to blast her off into a wall; it was just uncoordinated thrashing.

"Shh... shh, c'mon, it's okay," she said, doing her best to sound soothing while maintaining the pressure on his neck. "It's okay... wake up." Could he even hear her like this? He'd never been straightforward with her about the whole thing. Might as well try anyway.

By this point the noise from their struggling and Nanaki's growling had gotten attention, and a moment later five more people burst through the door into his room. They stared at her. Tifa stared back. Cloud continued thrashing.

"Don't just stand there," she snapped, as Cloud gave a particularly spirited thrash and she was flung off, prompting Nanaki to pounce on him instead.

It took the combined efforts of Tifa, Barret, and Cid to wrestle him back into the bed. They were probably a bit rougher than they should have been, given he was a bag of broken bones at this point. She'd apologise to him later.

A few moments later, he stopped moving entirely. Tifa very carefully released her grip on his arm, panting heavily, and saw with a brief flash of relief that he quickly pulled it towards himself but made no attempt to leave the bed.

Everyone was quiet for a moment.

Tifa took a deep breath. "...You --"

"I know." He sounded tired. "I remember."

Tifa looked away and turned to the others. Barret let go as well, looking worried. Marlene was now peeking in through the doorway, her eyes wide and her face drawn. Reeve just looked grim.

"That's what that was?" she asked again.

Cloud closed his eyes. "Mm-hm."

"You in any pain?"

"Yep. You gonna break my legs next, too?"

Well, at least he was coherent. Yuffie sat down on the bed next to him and ran a weak healing spell through him. There probably wasn't much point in getting him to take anymore pain pills right now.

Barret stood up. "Marlene and I are gonna have a chat," he said firmly. Tifa nodded. Cloud rolled back over into his pillow, causing Barret to simply shake his head and walk out the door.

"...What time is it?" asked Tifa after a couple minutes of silence.

"A little after eleven," said Reeve. "We would've woken you up, but we thought you'd both appreciate a bit of a lie-in." He sank into Cloud's chair and sighed. "A good thing, in retrospect.

"I wouldn't have let him leave," said Nanaki. "I was watching."

"He could've run off anyway. It's not like you could've barred the door or anything," said Yuffie.

"I shouldn't have slept in," said Tifa curtly. "That's really all there is to it."

"I'm right here," muttered Cloud into his pillow, and everyone went silent again.

Eventually, they all filed out of the room. Tifa got up to leave as well. Closed the bar might be, but she still had dates to check and product to rearrange. Cloud caught her arm on her way to the door.

"I'll just be downstairs. Alright?" she said.

"What if it doesn't stop next time?" he said. "What if I wind up like that again, and it doesn't go away?"

Tifa glanced back at the door. What could she possibly say? She'd long since run out of fodder for lies to keep him stable.

"If I did... you'd kill me, right?"

She turned to look at him sharply. "Cloud --"

"I don't want to wind up like that ever again. I'd already be dead anyway, right?"

"I'm not killing you." He looked away at the anger in her voice, but this wasn't something she'd back off on. "You'd still be alive, and we'd find a way to fix it. But I'm not killing you. You..."

"But if there wasn't anything left to save, then --"

"There would be. And I'd -- we would find a way to do it. And you're not convincing me any other way, so you might as well drop it."

How dare you ask me that? was what she also wanted to say, but didn't. How dare you ask me that after everything?

She hoped he knew it anyway. He ought to.

She stood there for a moment, trying to come up with something else for him to reply to.

"...Why don't you come with me downstairs?" was what she came up with eventually. "You can help me check dates, and we can talk."

"Your customers aren't gonna like that I've been around your food," he said flatly.

"They don't..." She hesitated. They would know now, wouldn't they? If Cloud had been outside with no glasses, or if the paramedics had talked about what they could've seen...

"...Fuck 'em," she said eventually, with more confidence than she felt.

Cloud let out a short huff of laughter. "That's bad form. What if somebody heard that?"

"Nobody's gonna hear it."

"Well, I heard it."

"Guess you did. C'mon." She offered a shoulder, and he got to his feet with a pained groan and hobbled his way downstairs. She glanced at his swords lying by the bar and sighed. One thing at a time. At least they weren't in his room.

They spent the next few hours combing through their inventory. She talked to him for a while about the cave she'd spent several days clearing out. He'd asked a few questions every now and then, mostly about what kinds of things she'd punched, but otherwise kept quiet. Yuffie stopped in at one point, and by the time Tifa remembered she was supposed to be yelling at her for skimming thirty gil off a register she had already slipped out the back door again. She eventually got Cloud started chopping vegetables, since he at least knew how to handle a blade. He seemed to enjoy it... probably. It was always hard to tell. She didn't think she'd ever seen him properly smile once.

Come to think of it, she wasn't sure when she'd last smiled either.

Chapter 10: BCAAE

Notes:

I've been Da Vinci coding your collective asses this entire time and no one noticed. This entire fic is numbers. The words are numbers. Everything from here on out is numbers. This was all an elaborate ARG. Everything is code. Blonde, brunette, readhead.

Just to be clear, that's what you guys are reading this thing for, right? The fucking awful jokes?

Speaking of code this thing was a nightmare to actually format and might look wonky on mobile. I didn't want to fuck with image embedding because I couldn't find a good host site but I might have to. Fuck.

Thank you to Bel, Sanctum_C, and limbostratus for looking this over.

It took Aeris a moment at first to figure out whether or not she was dreaming.

She was certainly lying down. Perhaps she'd simply dreamt getting into the tank?

She sat up and looked around -- definitely still hazy. Her arm hurt like mad, too. Maybe not dreaming, then.

Still, her surroundings were a bit clearer. She was in the enclosed space again, and this time there was a light coming from somewhere across from her -- a hole, perhaps. She stood still for a moment and took stock of the sensations she was experiencing again. She moved her left thumb, then her forefinger, and then her middle finger. They definitely felt like fingers. She opened and closed her hand -- was it a hand? Maybe she just wanted to believe it was one.

She noticed something else that she hadn't before, perhaps because she wasn't quite convinced she was awake. Her muscles felt tense, as though she were crouched at the bottom of a pool, ready to push off. As she walked over to the hole, her body felt strangely light.

She reached forward, and found more space behind the hole in the wall; it was an opening after all. She heard a noise behind her, and it suddenly occurred to her that the hole had been a perfect rectangle, but she had already hauled herself up and her momentum carried her out the window and onto the ground below. She was surprised at the ease with which she landed. She'd certainly never been that physically able on her own two feet.

She had two feet, didn't she? Two something, anyway.

Flat. It was almost perfectly flat. It could have been a natural migration trail but for the structures lining it on either side. The sky -- and it had to be the sky, the space above her was so large -- sprawled out before her. It was spattered with stars.

This was more than she could have hoped for in a thousand years. She hoped they'd finally gotten imaging sorted out. Zack would probably lose his mind at what she was seeing, if the notes she'd been making hadn't gotten everyone riled up already.

The structures were blocking her view, though. She'd have to find somewhere higher up.

She took a few steps forward. Apart from the pain on her right side, she still felt strangely energetic. She cautiously broke into a careful jog.

It felt incredible. Aeris wondered if maybe that was why people ran for their own enjoyment, if it felt this good. She went a bit faster, and the ground seemed to fly under her feet, every movement effortless, the kind of running she'd only experienced in dreams, when she'd been able to will herself to wherever she wanted. She was certain she couldn't run this fast herself.

She still felt light. Perhaps the gravity was lower here? Only one way to find out.

Aeris ran another few steps and leapt into the air.

She must have sailed about five metres up, and for a moment she was certain about her gravity theory until she began to fall again at about the speed she was used to on earth. She felt her heart abruptly jump into her throat as the ground hurtled towards her. She twisted about in mid-air, trying to get her bearings and managed to stumble onto her feet atop one of the structures as her weight settled again.

My legs are like a bouncy castle was probably not the most scientific note she could have taken, but she wrote it out anyway. She broke into a run again, noting the perfectly flat surfaces she was sprinting across. It all felt so effortless.

Aeris reached the tallest building she could find and turned her gaze skyward. There were so many stars here -- the kind of sky she'd seen once or twice out in the country, far away from any light pollution. She began focusing intently on a particular patch of the sky, making a note for them to retrieve an image. The quality would probably be terrible, but anything for them to study would be worth straining over a grainy, blurry picture compiled from brainwaves from several hours. She began categorising each patch of sky, making her own observations about what she could see. The world continued to sharpen painfully and blur around her at the same time, but she was certain she saw something move out of the corner of her eye...

Then that something was in front of her, towering over her and filling her vision. Whatever it was, it was big.

OUT PLEASE NOW, she wrote. A moment later, the lid was popped to the tank and she was pulled out of it. Zack joined Lazard in helping her out. Both of them looked ecstatic.

"We got visuals!" he blurted out. "I mean, they're not done rendering yet, but we finally got something! If we can get a few more for comparison we could get a lot of info about the orbits of --"

"Forget the orbits," she said, tripping out of the tank. "And the sky and everything. I saw one."

Zack stared at her. "Saw what?"

"...No idea. But listen -- I think -- I think there's people over there."

Tseng left his place at the desk and approached the three of them. "How do you know?"

"You saw my report, didn't you?" she said, gesturing frantically to the screen. "I'm telling you, there were buildings -- I have hands, I'm almost certain I did."

"We found aliens?," asked Zack, whose eyes had somehow managed to become wider. "Like, alien-aliens? Not just a bunch of animals?"

"I don't know what else it could be. We have to --"

"It's entirely possible you could be anthropomorphising your data," said Tseng. "You're walking on what you've called legs, and running down what you wanted to call a street. A dog isn't smiling when it bares its teeth."

"Yeah, well, if you're so smart why don't you tell me what it is? I'm doing my best. I still can't see anything properly," she said, suddenly trailing off. "Maybe whatever I'm looking through doesn't see very well." She allowed Lazard to hand her a towel and began to pat herself dry. "I ought to ask."

"This seems a whole lot of conjecture," said Angeal, who was the only one that didn't look impressed. Zack made a derisive noise in the back of his throat.

"Man, did you leave your sense of adventure back in Germany or what?" Zack gestured wildly to the screen. "Aliens, Angeal!"

Aeris gestured to Zack pointedly. "See? Someone gets it. Besides, I know what I saw. Look, I'll show you -- "

"Tomorrow, you'll show us," warned Lazard. Aeris grunted.

"Fine, tomorrow then."

"...I do believe you saw something," Tseng added. He had gone back to staring at the screen with an intense look on his face. He left the room without another word.

"Do you think the reason your chest hurts now is because something laid an egg down your throat?" added Zack.

"I haven't seen that movie," replied Aeris. "And if you're going to make fun of me..."

"I'm not," he said, and he sounded serious. "Just... first contact. Man." He shook his head. "I didn't think we'd get this far."

"I did," said Aeris. Zack turned to look at her, and she shrugged again in response.

"My parents were willing to stake their careers on getting this far," she continued. "It had to have been for a reason."

"Is that what you believe?" he asked.

"Of course it is. I didn't have any reason to think they'd be wrong, and I especially don't now. Do you?" Aeris stood up as well and yawned. "Need a nap."

She shuffled off to the showers, feeling Zack's eyes on the back of her head the entire time.

 

---

 

This time felt different. The strange "blackout" she'd experienced, she'd attributed to her brain making up stimuli where there were none. She quickly posed a question to Tseng about it in the notes, because she wasn't sure if the human brain could conjure up the sudden cacophony of millions of voices whispering into her ears. It was gone as quickly as it came. Anything was possible if you were hallucinating, she supposed.

Her weight was supported by something, and the area she was in was well-lit. A brief glance around seemed to indicate it was the same area she'd been in the day before. She then turned and looked to her left.

There was something there, undoubtedly. About the size of... actually, she wasn't sure what size she was here, but whatever it was, it was as big as her. She made another note to begin compiling images as she studied it herself. It was making some sort of noise, or perhaps the noise was coming from behind her. Its face -- and she immediately scolded herself for calling it a "face", because that was an assumption she didn't have much evidence to back up, and of course humans naturally wanted to see faces where there weren't any but she could have sworn -- was moving. It was almost definitely alive. It was close, too; she could have reached out and touched it...

...and then it reached out and touched her. Her world tilted around her as it seemed to grab her and flip her over itself before slamming her into the ground. Hard.

She felt her arm (which she had definitely decided was an arm) being twisted up behind her back, and for split second she almost asked them to pull her out again. Then she hesitated.

This was for real. There were actual sentient lifeforms here that she was actually (literally) in contact with, and she was the only one in a position to gather information about them. If it was worth billions of euros in investment, it was certainly worth a bit of danger as well.

Her resolve faltered slightly when whatever it was behind her settled its weight on her back and began limiting her air supply. She began to struggle against whatever it was -- it seemed fairly light, but it was clamped onto her quite firmly, and the pain she was presently in didn't seem to be helping.

Perhaps she'd leave this bit out of the report until she was done fighting for her life. If her team pulled her now, who knew when she'd get another look at them?

There was more noise around her, and then several more of them appeared nearby. She reared back to throw the one on her back off and flipped over, getting a good look at each one.

You're safe, she reminded herself. Whatever happens to you here you'll be fine. But the pain she was in felt quite real, and the things that has just began to fan out around her were definitely bigger than her. Another thought occurred to her as she felt herself being picked up, and the noise around her increased: would they kill the one she was using? It was still injured from whatever it had fallen off of. Perhaps it was being culled. If it died, that was the end of the project.

She began to struggle harder now, and found herself surprised by how easily she was able to tug herself out of their grasp. Perhaps they weren't very strong. Or perhaps they were a different sort of thing than she was.

Then she noticed the surface she was on. It was soft, and as her hand latched out she grabbed onto something that sturdy and woven and --

Woven. It was fabric.

Upon further consideration, it occurred to her that she seemed to be wearing clothes.

This settled it.

Any plans of escape were immediately put an end to when one of them got their hand into her other arm, the one that was still unusable.

The pain was incredible. The closest thing she'd felt like it was when she was eight and she'd fallen out of a tree and gotten a dislocated shoulder for her trouble. Someone on the other end clearly must have noticed, because the next thing she knew she was waking up in the tank, still sputtering and thrashing.

She shoved a very worried Lazard away from her and blurted out, "I found a blanket!"

There was a moment of stunned, and probably confused, silence.

"Or a -- or a coat, or a toga, or something. They've figured out textiles. They're intelligent. They have to be." She was breathing heavily. Whether it was from the psychological effects of being choked or excitement, she wasn't sure.

Tseng was the first to speak up. "Are you sure?" he asked severely. "Are you absolutely sure?"

"I know I am," she said. "It has to be."

"Did they say anything?" asked Cissnei.

"Might have. I don't know, my hearing's sort of funny. I think they might've been angry."

"Hostile, you mean?" asked Lazard.

"I don't know yet," she said. "Maybe they're panicking. Maybe we did something culturally unacceptable."

"Have you tried to say anything yet?" asked Cissnei. "Do you know if they use a verbal language at all?"

"You keep mentioning fingers," pressed Tseng. "How many? How do you suppose your bones are arranged? You've mentioned bipedal locomotion a few times. How is your balance affected by it?"

"We can't use it," interjected Zack suddenly. Everyone turned to look at him.

"We can't really prove it's a blanket," he said glumly. "All we have is your word of mouth, and some blurry pictures, and whatever meaning you apply to anything you find. No one's gonna believe it if we try to publish this."

She glared at him. "You think I'm --"

"I believe you. Everyone here probably believes you. But you don't have to convince us."

She looked around at the others, NC fluid still dripping from her hair.

"...We did it, though," she said, and there was an edge to her voice now. "I saw them. We -- they can't just throw out that much data. We found aliens, Zack."

"No, like, I know, and that's really cool, and we're all really happy, but --"

"He's right," said Angeal, speaking up. "All we have is things we've gathered on our own. What we need --" and with this he stood up and approached the board, "-- is a message back."

He picked up a marker and began making writing two lists: THINGS WE CAN GUESS and METHODS WE COULD USE.

"Let's think," he said. "We want to send a message to an unknown party. We cannot use symbols of any kind, because they may not recognise them. What do we know about this party?"

"They have eyes," said Aeris, "assuming our contact point has similar biology to them. I'm the same size, about."

Angeal marked "VISUAL MEDIUM" in the GUESS category.

"You said they might be mad, right?" asked Zack.

"Almost definitely mad," said Aeris. "I was attacked. I think."

Cissnei looked at her incredulously. "What in the world did you do?"

"I don't know yet. If we figure this bit out first we can ask."

Angeal reluctantly wrote "HOSTILE (?)" under GUESS, then added "TEXTILES" as an afterthought. "I think that's about it. Any methods we could use?"

"The hydrogen line," said Zack immediately. "That's always the go-to, right?"

"It would be," said Tseng. "But those were always broadcasted as a signal, to be used in another signal. We also have no way of knowing what that is. It's another universe, with potentially another set of natural laws entirely. Perhaps a three here is a two there."

"...Something like that could explain the bug we keep finding," Zack admitted. "But we still can't nail down what it is. Figuring out the laws of physics of an entire universe we've had limited access to could take months. Maybe years."

"We're not thinking about the content of the message, either," said Aeris. Her teeth were beginning to chatter from being soaking wet and cold for so long, but she ignored it. "We need something more than the hydrogen line if we're to avoid my being choked again the next time we visit."

Lazard looked at her in alarm. "You were --"

"I'm fine, let's stay focused," she interrupted, causing Lazard to shake his head in disbelief. "Primes, maybe. Though I suppose that could have the same problem as the hydrogen line."

Angeal nodded and wrote down "SPIN-FLIP" and "PRIME #" under METHODS. It reminded her a bit of a teacher in a lecture hall, until she realised that was almost certainly what he'd done at some point in his life.

"Anyone else?" asked Aeris. "We'll take anything we can get."

There was a pause, and then Cissnei whistled five notes. That got a brief chuckle out of everyone present except Tseng. Perhaps he hadn't seen the movie, or maybe he just didn't "do" jokes.

"It's not a terrible idea," mused Aeris. "There's mathematical basis in it. Five hundred hertz is still five hundred hertz whether it's on Earth or on Saturn, so a B is still B."

Cissnei leaned back in her chair and smiled. "Thank you. I try."

"Only within the same universe, though," said Zack. "We're back at the hydrogen problem again."

"We haven't even figured out how we're going to convey this either," added Lazard.

"Or what we're going to convey," said Angeal, nodding. "Something that potentially tells them about who we are without it being construed as a threat."

They continued throwing ideas back and forth across the next fifteen minutes. Aeris and Lazard unconsciously found themselves humming the five notes, and then blaming Cissnei for getting it stuck in their heads. Cissnei looked more than a bit smug by this point.

Eventually she found herself thinking about the song itself. It hadn't just been the five notes, had it? There had been the rest of the conversation. And if an alien culture had picked music as its medium, it was perhaps a very prevalent part of their culture. A good way to send a message that would be understood while telling the receiving party about themselves... assuming they had ears, or any concept of what "sound" was. Would a B be a B in a different atmosphere? What about an atmosphere with different gravity? Was five hundred hertz still five hundred hertz in another world? Was she breathing oxygen? Was oxygen the periodic element with eight protons?

She frowned. It would have to be, wouldn't it? Because...

She got up, and walked to one side of the room, and counted the steps. Then she turned around and walked to the other, heel to toe. Then she went back the other way. Fifty steps. And then fifty steps. And then fifty steps.

"...What are you doing?" asked Zack, which got her to look up and realise she was being stared at.

"Walking. I've been walking."

Zack turned to look at Cissnei uncomfortably, then back to her. "...Yeah. That's -- yup."

"No, you don't understand; I've been walking."

Another period of silence. Aeris rolled her eyes.

"Movement is consistent from point A to point B, every time. I can take twenty steps in one direction here, and I'll be twenty steps away from where I started," she explained. "It's the same way in the other world. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to navigate at all. I'd find myself walking backwards, or not moving even if I was moving.

"Therefore," she said, quickly snatching up another marker, "a one is still a one. And so a two has to be a two, because it's two ones, and a three has to be a three. But let's focus on one, the thing that we know exists."

"So hydrogen is is hydrogen because it's gotta be," said Zack quickly, picking up what she was saying. "Because hydrogen is hydrogen because it's the element with one proton. If it had two it would be helium."

"Binary is an option, then," said Angeal, and immediately wrote it down. "Is and is not are non-negotiable states."

"That still doesn't tell us what we're sending," said Cissnei.

"Yes, it does," said Aeris, writing furiously. NC fluid dripped onto the board several times, and she wiped them off on Angeal's uniform and received an indignant glare in response. "Because there's another constant that's found in nearly everything in the world, and if one is one and two is two then it'll be in theirs as well. Any intelligent species with a basic grasp of mathematics -- there!"

Aeris took a step back to allow everyone to admire her handiwork. Simple, to the point, and (hopefully) posing a question that required a response.

"You think that'll work?" said Cissnei, who also seemed to recognise what she'd drawn.

"If they keep off you long enough for you to convey it, it should," said Tseng. "Only do the first part for now. See what happens."

"Get some rest first," said Lazard, throwing her a towel. "We'll try again in twenty-four hours."

Aeris did take a short nap due to the sedative, but after it began to wear off she found she was too wired to actually sleep. She lay in bed, still trying to come to grips with everything they had discovered over the last several hours. If she was right about what it all meant, anyway.

Apparently she wasn't the only one lying awake, because there was a knock on the door to her room.

"It's me," came Zack's voice through the door.

"And Cissnei," added Cissnei. "We were talking and I told him you had snacks."

She opened the door and gave them both a questioning look, then sat back down on her bed. Cissnei sat next to her, and Zack took his place on the desk, rather than using the chair right next to it.

"Tired?" he asked. Aeris shook her head.

"Me either," he continued. "You'd think we would be since we've been at this basically nonstop."

"There is too much to think about," said Cissnei. "What do you think it will be like?"

Aeris pulled the blanket closer to her. Even after the shower she still felt a bit chilled -- it seemed 90% of her time here had been spent soaking wet. "There would be a big cultural exchange. Everyone always thinks it'll lead to... I dunno. The end of racism. One-nation world, or something."

"Not if they want to start a war," said Zack. "We could be contacting something that wants us dead."

"They already know we're here, though," said Aeris. "So the best we can do is run damage control."

Nobody said anything for a moment. The prospect that they had just potentially started a war was not a pleasant one.

"...If they have weaving," began Cissnei, "then do you suppose they have art?"

Aeris shrugged.

"Why does that matter?" asked Zack.

"Any culture that has art is good, isn't it?" Cissnei looked at the floor nervously.

Aeris considered this, then nodded. "Definitely. So it'll be fine."

Zack scratched the back of his neck. "'Good' is kind of a complicated concept..."

"Not when it comes to starting a war," said Aeris.

"Maybe, maybe not," said Zack. "Killing is bad, right? Unless death isn't a concept to you, so you have no frame of reference to why it wouldn't be right. It's wrong to have sex with someone when they don't want to, unless your whole species mates passively with... spores, or egg piles, or something."

"...Do you notice anything on your body that could have been used to lay eggs?" said Cissnei after a moment.

Aeris shot her a look. "That's disgusting. I wasn't exactly paying attention."

"Maybe you should have," said Zack. "Important scientific documentation. Someone's gonna have to write this stuff down. Tseng would have a field day." He looked at the drawer under the desk curiously. "Next time just rummage around downstairs for an ovipositor or something."

"You don't have to be that lurid about it," she said sharply. "And that seems extremely rude."

"What, you think it might be in your mouth instead?"

"I brought you in here for snacks," said Cissnei quickly, before Aeris had a chance to reply.

"Snacks. Sure." Aeris reluctantly scooted herself out of bed and got out the two containers she'd brought in. "I have licorice allsorts and gummy bears."

Zack went for the gummy bears, as predicted. Aeris had a few more of her allsorts before putting the container away -- the restocking period was coming, but until then she wanted these to last.

"The UN is gonna lose their shit," said Zack, who appeared to be strategically de-limbing his bears.

"We'd have to come up with laws for this too. Currency exchange, if they have money. Who gets to say what to them. Whether or not you can legally have sex with them." Aeris shot a look at Zack for the last part.

"I'm not gonna stick it in an alien," he said, popping the remaining gummy bear torso into his mouth and crossing his arms. "Probably, anyway. Are we talking green ladies, or...?"

"This isn't a professional conversation to be having," said Cissnei.

Zack smirked. "Methinks the lady doth protest too much. You brought it up."

"Actually, you did too," said Aeris. "With the spores."

"I was trying to make a philosophical point and you know it."

Aeris sighed. "We should be asleep. Especially you," she said, nodding to Zack. "If everything goes well and we haven't started a war, it'll be up to you to make sure I don't die of radiation poisoning when we finally use that room in the middle."

"...No manches, this is really happening, isn't it?" he said quietly.

Aeris handed him the tub of gummy bears and climbed back into bed. "Here. Try not to eat them all at once."

Zack nodded. "See you tomorrow, then. Or whatever counts as tomorrow in here." He left the room, leaving her alone with Cissnei. Cissnei gave Aeris a quick hug, then left as well, still in a daze.

Aeris stared at the door for a moment longer, then turned out the light.

 

---

 

The entire room was buzzing with excitement as Aeris climbed into the tank. They'd spent a few hours prior going over the "photos" she'd taken on her last excursion. She begrudgingly admitted that perhaps they weren't the best evidence. The images were extremely grainy and rendered in greyscale, and more reminiscent of bad photos of the Loch Ness monster than anything else.

The data was more useful, though the persistent bug that was present in nearly all of it was starting to become a problem. They wouldn't be able to present a good deal of their findings if the scientific community considered it inaccurate and flawed.

Aeris thought she had been finally getting used to the process, but when Zack began to count down again she found the nerves catching up to her again. She didn't have much time to dwell on it as she was flung through that strange deep space and opened her eyes.

She had a split second to process that she was still surrounded, and that she could move her right arm again, before something pressed up against her neck. It felt sharp. It was being held by, or attached to, one of the figures to her left. Most of them had been slightly larger than her, but this one appeared a bit smaller.

She moved very slowly, keeping her eyes on the room itself. She would have made eye contact, but some species on Earth considered that a threat. She didn't want to take her chances.

She began to feel around the room. The figure moved with her, keeping its... whatever-it-was nearby her throat. She was surprised at how soft everything was here. Perhaps it was all plant fibre.

She found a large flat surface with nothing clearly on it that gave easily under her fingers. Perfect.

She wrote her message into it, neatly and deliberately. The figure next to her was making noise, and as much as she strained to listen to it, she couldn't really make out much more than that.

She stepped back, admiring her handiwork with a small smile. She documented a picture of it as well. Then she requested an extraction.

They pulled her out of the tank and dried her off. No one left the room just yet. Everyone was silent. Zack was nervously rolling the ball around on his desk. Tseng kept tapping his fingers on his chair. Aeris picked at the towel, and tried to think of something to say, and failed, and picked at the towel some more.

There was nothing left to do but wait.

 

---

 

"Fucking --!"

"Sorry. Y'know, if you held still it wouldn't hurt as much."

"I am holding still."

"No, you're not. There!"

Yuffie stepped away from him with the cast and the tray of cut stitches as Cloud gingerly tested out his arm. It still looked awful, but the bone had healed almost completely, and the only thing left on his flesh was another jagged scar -- one of many at this point. It felt stiff, and he couldn't raise it above his head without him forcing it with his other arm, but it was nice to have some degree of independence again.

"You're gonna be all lopsided now," said Yuffie, gesturing to his left arm. Cloud shrugged, and again regretted doing so.

"I'll get a good workout in later. Maybe grab lunch first, though." He glanced out the window and blinked in surprise. It was pitch black outside.

"Or not. I didn't realise it was so late."

Yuffie stared at him. "...It's not, Cloud. It's... what are you talking about?"

"I -- look, it --" He gestured to the window again, and froze.

The black was seeping in through the window now, and from the roof, and up from the floor, which seemed to empty into an abyss below him. He looked around in a panic and immediately went for the knife under his pillow as Yuffie just stood there staring at him, shouting his name as he could feel his thoughts being smothered.

He dropped the knife a moment later. He stood there motionless, swaying slightly.

Yuffie snatched up the knife and put it to his throat.

Cloud looked down at the knife, and very slowly, purposefully proceeded to his desk. Yuffie lowered the knife again, puzzled, and said his name. Cloud was long gone, and didn't respond.

He began carefully touching the things on his desk -- the papers, the wood itself. An empty beer can crumpled in his grip, and Yuffie raised the knife to his throat again. His hand eventually landed on the wall above his desk.

He flattened a hand against it, as though testing something. Then he raised it again, and began to engrave something. Yuffie stood there, and Cloud looked at her once or twice, seeming more or less uncaring.

The whole thing was over in about thirty seconds. Cloud suddenly crumpled into a heap on the floor and groaned.

He curled himself up, pulling his head down to his chest. He had tried that time -- really, really tried. But he hadn't been able to fight off Sephiroth, either, so he didn't know why he'd expected to be able to fight this. Too weak.

It had happened again. It was going to keep happening. There was nothing he could do to stop it and it was going to happen over and over again until it got him killed or he just lost it himself.

Yuffie bent down to help him up, and he shoved her roughly away from himself. "I'm fine," he snapped.

She crossed her arms and sat down on the bed angrily. "Whatever. Get up on your own time."

She likely would have left if she could, Cloud realised. They'd started stationing people with him to watch him constantly. Because he was a danger to himself and the people around him, probably.

He bit a splinter out of his finger solemnly. It had him punching holes in plywood now. None of this made sense.

He looked up at what he'd been made to draw, frowning slightly. It looked like aimless scribbling to him. Yuffie was looking at it now too.

"What's --"

"Dunno. So don't ask."

Yuffie stuck her tongue out at him as Tifa and Jessie burst through the door. They looked at Cloud, and then Yuffie, and then what they were staring at.

Cloud raised a hand to blow the entire wall to shreds, and Jessie caught it. "Wait."

"For what?" he spat. "For it to come back?"

"Cloud, look at it. Actually look."

He reluctantly lowered his hand and looked. And looked, and then shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "Just looks like they wanted me to wreck my bedroom."

"I've seen that before." Jessie was now looking at it intensely. "I can't put my finger on where."

"It's probably something I've drawn before on my paperwork," muttered Cloud, glancing at all the unfinished forms on his desk. "Kinda looks like an electrical diagram, a little. If you squint."

Cid leaned in the doorway just then. "Did all y'all come rushing up here for any reason, or...?"

"Get in here and look at this," said Tifa, ushering him in.

"Did he lose his shit again?"

Cloud glared at Cid in response. "Fuck off."

"Just asking. So, what..." he trailed off, as his eyes landed on what Cloud had engraved in the wall.

       o
   oo
oo oo

 

He turned back to Cloud quizzically. "You put that there?"

Cloud shook his head. "No. Whatever it was did. That's all it came here to do, I think. It left after."

Cid stared at Cloud, then turned back to the drawing.

"Fuckin' hell," he breathed. Cloud looked back up at him.

"...You know what it is?" asked Yuffie. Cid nodded.

"I know what it is, yeah. If I'm right. Which I am."

Cloud's breath caught in his chest for a moment. "What is it? Is -- will it help me get rid of them?"

"Probably not. That's a message in a bottle, and we're gonna throw it back."

Cloud looked between the wall and Cid. The man looked... excited. It unsettled him.

"Cid, what --"

"Back when I was in the space program, we'd use to send out messages like that via satellite," explained Cid, who was now inspecting the wall closely. "Nobody thought we'd ever get anything back, but it was to let the universe know we existed. Prime numbers was one of 'em. That there's another one -- the golden ratio. Identifiable patterns that would exist everywhere no matter what."

Tifa looked at Cloud. It was good to know she seemed just as lost as he did -- neither one of them had finished school. Perhaps this was something they'd have covered.

"Get back up, kid. And put some gloves on. You're gonna pick up where they left off."

Cloud retrieved his gloves from under his bed where he'd tossed them carelessly a week ago, and under Cid's instructions, added a few more dots.

 

         oo
       o  o
   oo
oo oo  o

 

"...I don't want to talk to it," said Cloud after they finished. He sat back down on his bed and went back to picking wood out of his hands. "I want it to piss off."

"Well, tough goddamn titties, because it's made an effort to talk to you. You think it'll stop if you ignore it?" Cid sat down next to him. "That'll have to do. We're gonna run out of space if we do more of it."

"...It's gonna come back," said Cloud. "It'll keep happening, won't it?"

No one said anything. Cloud swallowed thickly.

"Everything just... stops, when it -- when it shows up. It's like being dead, but you're still there."

Cid put his hand on Cloud's shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze. No one really felt safe leaving him with just Yuffie now. Jessie went downstairs and fetched the others, just in case it happened again.

As it stood, they didn't have to wait long. An hour later, Cloud seized up again, and began to stare at the wall.

 

---

 

The room was absolutely silent as they watched the screen, waiting for a reply from Aeris. The cameras had been set up, though there wasn't much for them to look at, and none of them really knew much about framing a shot anyway.

Zack fidgeted with the ball at his desk. He exchanged a nervous glance with Tseng, who had gone back to tapping on his chair. Angeal stood stock still directly in front of the screen.

Numbers began to appear on it.

1

1

2

3

5

Zack stopped breathing and clutched the rubber ball tightly enough to leave marks in the surface.

8 -new

13 -new

The room was silent for a moment longer. Then Zack jumped violently as Angeal let out a triumphant yell that sounded like something out of a drill sergeant. Cissnei grabbed him and shook him.

"We did it!" she screamed.

"I know!" he yelled back. "I know, we fucking did it!" He felt himself shaking from sheer giddiness. He looked back over towards Lazard. He was applauding quietly. Tseng had turned away from the group to get out of the view of the cameras, but Zack was pretty sure he was crying.

"Look!" shouted Angeal suddenly, and pointed at the screen. There were more numbers coming in.

 

---

 

Cloud had been staring for ten minutes before he raised his hand again. He put a few more holes in the wall then: 21.

Someone took his hand gently and guided it to another part of the wall. Cloud seemed to understand, and punched holes where his hand was moved. They were bunched together more tightly to save space, but the next one was 34, and then 55.

Cloud pulled his hand away and wrote another on the very edge of the wall, reaching from the floor to the ceiling: 89.

Then his hand dropped. He stood there until someone placed something into his hands. A pen, and a piece of paper.

He sat down on the ground and began to draw, mangling the pen as he had the wall, but not before he managed a very crude silhouette of a naked man and a woman, their hands raised in greeting. There were more marks then -- one dot beneath a number 1, and two dots beneath a 2, all the way to nine. A circle -- a 0 -- was positioned over no dots at all.

He began to write something else, but the pen was mangled beyond the point of use at that point. He stopped, and went very still.

Cloud let go of the pen, staring at what he'd drawn. There was ink all over his hands. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes again, and he forced them down. He'd already cried twice in front of his family, and that was well over his allotted amount of times of never.

He handed off the drawing wordlessly to Reeve, who had come up behind him now. Reeve stared at it, then handed it off to Cid. The two of them were now muttering to each other, but none of what they were saying made any sense to him. Cloud leaned against the wall he'd ruined and opened his mouth to ask what any of it was supposed to mean.

Before he could ask, there was a loud crash as shards of glass came raining down over him. He managed to duck his head to avoid the worst of the damage, and everyone scrambled away from the window that had just exploded next to him, and then from the cloud of fire that sprayed out from the centre of the room. Cloud barely managed to reach out to the flames and shape them inward in time to keep the whole room from going up, and Tifa had to smother the rest of the fire with his blanket. When she had finished, she lifted it up, and they all turned to stare at the remains of the Molotov that had been flung in through Cloud's window.

Chapter 11: A Good Old Rousing Round of Bad Decisions

Notes:

Fuck this took a while. I mean I don't regret sitting on it for as long as I did because it's an important one and it needed work. And also because I wanted to focus on Sanctum C's Aeris/Cloud week and I dropped the ball really hard on that too LOLWHOOPS

Thank you to Belderiver, Raaj, Sanctum_C, materiodictable, limbostratus, Cat, and probably another two people I had look at this because I need this one to be PERFECT.

Cloud leaned out the window and looked out into the street below him. He promptly got a rock to his face for his trouble, and he quickly ducked back inside as more followed them.

"About what I expected," he muttered. A mob assembled in two days wouldn't have more than Molotovs and rocks, right?

"There's a lot of them," said Jessie as she risked a quick look out the window. There wasn't a person left alive in Edge that hadn't lost something to Meteorfall, or Shinra, or Soldier, or all three.

"I could probably take 'em out," said Cloud. His sword was downstairs, if he'd even need to use it. Even if anyone present had access to materia, it was a safe enough bet that they wouldn't be as good as he was.

"Don't," said Reeve sharply. "I've already contacted the authorities."

Cloud rolled his eyes. "And what makes you think they aren't gonna join the mob themselves?"

"Because I know their boss. Cloud, if you kill anyone..."

"I'm not gonna kill anyone. Just scare them off a little." Truth be told, he couldn't really blame the mob outside. He'd certainly taken measures on his own time to find a few employees he'd discovered had worked for Hojo. The world was better off without them.

"Someone else should do it," said Cid. "Don't wanna give 'em another reason for them to think you're a threat."

"Dibs," said Yuffie quickly, and began to hurry downstairs, but was shoved back into the room by a furious Barret on his way up, Marlene trailing behind him. Neither one of them managed to get a word in before he leaned out the window himself.

"You motherfuckers best clear out!" he bellowed. "You set foot in this bar and I blow your damn head off!"

"See? Barret's got the right idea," said Cloud, as the mob quieted ever so slightly and Reeve pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Are they here to kill us?" Marlene managed to squeak out. "Do we have to leave?"

"It's okay. They're only here to kill me," said Cloud. This was not as comforting as he thought it would be, as Marlene stared at him in horror. "And it's not gonna work," he quickly added.

"Let's just find somewhere without windows and wait it out," said Jessie.

They all piled into the kitchen, where Nanaki was already waiting, anxiously pacing. Marlene was quietly hyperventilating now. The last time she'd experienced anything like this would have been years ago, waiting in the basement of the original Seventh Heaven during a raid. She'd been just old enough to understand that there was danger. Now she was old enough to understand why.

"They don't like you very much," said Nanaki as Cloud perched himself on top of an oven.

"I'd guessed," said Cloud, who was absently watching Yuffie trying to distract Marlene with more card tricks. He and Nanaki were probably the only ones present who could still make out what the mob was saying from the kitchen. "Shinra's murderer" was one of the more polite ones. "Freak" and "abomination" were some of the more dramatic ones. And one of the older terms he hadn't heard in a while, "dead-eye".

"I could take 'em. Just saying," Cloud grumbled.

"Don't," said Tifa. "If you retaliate they'll just see that as you proving them right." She sat down next to him on the counter. "Even if they have it coming," she added with a small smile.

Cloud almost reached out for her hand, then paused. His own palms were still covered in ink from the pen the thing had made him crush, and it was beginning to dry into a sticky mess.

"What did any of that mean?" he asked quietly.

"What did what?" asked Nanaki.

"I smashed up my room with tic-tac-toe or something," said Cloud.

"It was binary, dumbass," said Cid.

"Binary tic-tac-toe, then --"

Cloud heard another crash, and the crackle of flames. Someone had thrown another Molotov, this time through the front window.

"Right," said Cloud, and slid off the stove and ran out the door before anyone could stop him.

A few people were already beginning to widen the hole in the glass to climb in through. The minute they saw him, a cry went up through the crowd, and they backed off from the hole as Cloud raised his hand, claiming the flame that was already consuming a couple tables for his own before snuffing it out. He saw people readying weapons: some had kitchen knives and crowbars and shovels; another two had guns, though he couldn't make out whether they were traditional projectile or thermal; many were unarmed, but that didn't discount the possibility of materia on their persons, or even mastered spells.

The one in the front, he actually recognised; it had been the man from the roof, and he was looking at him with that same expression of disgust, only now he was holding a shotgun -- definitely projectile. More easily dodgeable than thermal, but a hell of a lot more destructive if he couldn’t.

Cloud stared them down as the reality of what they had come here to do seemed to settle in for them.

"Go on," he spat. "There's a hundred of you and one of me, right? I'm a danger to everyone in the city, right?"

He snatched up his sword from where it lay by the door and stepped outside, and he saw the people nearest to him flinch. One woman spoke up.

"You took my daughter from me." The contempt in her voice was overlaid with grief. "You people took her away."

"You're fucking crazy," yelled another one. "You all are, it's just a matter of time."

More people began to speak up.

"You people firebombed Angola!"

"My son was left to die! You promised him a new life and you left him to die!"

"Justice for the real Junon!"

"They should have euthanised Sephiroth and you both!" screamed the man from the roof, and the din of the mob picked up again, emboldened by their own righteous anger.

"I had nothing to do with that!" shouted Cloud, but it was lost in the roar of the crowd, which seemed to have gained enough confidence back to start calling for blood again. He began to scan the crowd again, trying to tally up how many he could take out before someone pulled a trigger or had time to get off a spell. The one in the back with the rifle, maybe not. The man in the front from the rooftop as another story -- he had a clear shot, and all the motivation to do it. But if Cloud could get to him first...

One of the braver ones clawed their way to the front, and the next thing Cloud knew there was a man throwing himself at him.

He sidestepped it easily and delivered a quick jab to his back with his elbow. Before the man had a chance to get up Cloud delivered a firm kick to his ribs, shoving him back towards the rest of the mob as Tifa came out of the kitchen and joined him outside by the doorway.

"Get the hell off my property!" she yelled. "I already called the cops! Clear out! Clear the fuck out!"

It was too late -- the rest of the mob surged in towards them both. Tifa dropped into a defensive stance right away, but Cloud had already taken a swing at the nearest citizen with his sword.

It had been with the flat side of the blade, of course, but the woman it connected with went flying into a news stand and crumpled against it, gasping in pain. A fist sank into his gut, and a hand grabbed his leg and yanked, trying to throw him off balance. He lashed out with the other foot, kicking the closest thing he could get his leg into. He heard a dull crack as someone's kneecap gave out, and a scream. Good.

Beside him, he heard Tifa having a similar experience -- there were already six people limping away from her as she body checked a seventh into a wall. While none of them had any broken bones (probably), the crowd seemed more and more willing to at least leave her alone. A crowbar impacted the back of his head the second he looked away to watch her, and he rounded on his assailant and grabbed his arm, ready to snap it like a twig as he heard the cock of a shotgun behind him --

A bullhorn cut across the din and Cloud let go to clutch at his ears in agony -- it was so much louder for him, and inside he also heard Nanaki involuntarily howl. Someone in a uniform began shoving him and the mob apart, and Tifa grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him back inside the minute they were both free.

Tifa just gave him a look.

"They attacked me first," he said. "I swear to you."

The back of his head itched, and he reached up and found it wet -- the skin had already healed, but his hair was still damp with his own blood. Tifa had a busted lip but was otherwise untouched.

"It doesn't matter anymore," said Tifa. "They got what they wanted, even if they didn't realise it."

He looked out the window, and the glass and burned furniture that was now in his home. The air smelled like smoke and blood and awful cologne.

"Now what?" said Cloud.

Tifa shook her head. "...I don't know."

He watched the crowd disperse over the next half hour. He let Tifa do most of the talking to the authorities. He quietly swept up the glass and the ashes. He nailed boards over the broken windows. He did his best to wash the blood and ink and soot from his hands and hair.

He went back to his room, and he sat in front of his boarded-up window, and he imagined looking out at the sky.

 

---

 

Aeris was probably just a little bit drunk. They'd had a small party in the fifth ring with their ration packs, Aeris's candy, and a bottle of champagne someone had had the foresight to include with them, probably for an occasion just like this one. Zack was still over the moon about the whole thing, and was grinning from ear to ear as usual, but there was something different about it this time. He'd always looked slightly bitter when smiling, now that she thought about it. But this one looked real. Angeal and Lazard had decided to abstain from drinking, and were somewhere in the fourth ring going over the medical equipment. The chance that it might get used had suddenly gotten a lot higher.

"So -- what now?" asked Aeris. "We could send back '144' but it wouldn't get us any closer to communicating with them. Not really."

"Don't worry about that right now," said Cissnei. "Worry about what we're gonna tell the rest of the world."

"...Are we going to tell the rest of the world?" asked Tseng.

"I mean... we've gotta, right?" asked Zack.

"What would we tell them? We don't really know much ourselves," said Aeris. " That could cause a panic, too."

"Well, we're gonna have to tell someone. The board of directors, probably, when they ask what the hell we've been up to all this time."

"So, they just get to decide whether or not the world finds out about any of this?" asked Cissnei.

"Probably." Aeris turned back to Tseng. "We'll be on the panel though, right?"

"Also likely," said Tseng. "As for Cissnei, I am not sure. Officially she's here as an ambassador."

Cissnei looked up from her empty cup. "If they say no, am I supposed to just take this to my grave?"

"Hope not," said Zack. "But it's possible." That fact didn't seem to be doing much to dampen his mood. Perhaps he was drunk as well.

"Well, maybe I can get one of them to write a speech for me," said Aeris. "For the aliens."

"If they understood it," said Cissnei. "Or if you could get the message out."

"I don't see why I wouldn't," said Aeris. "If I can get a word in..."

Oh.

"I suppose we know why they're mad now," said Aeris. "If they're intelligent, I've just been walking one around."

"That's not possible," said Tseng.

"How's it not possible?" she replied.

"It makes sense, doesn't it?" said Zack. "If they're the same thing as whatever Aeris has been using, then we've been broadcasting right into them."

"That's true," said Tseng. "But it isn't possible. We picked up brainwaves, I believe. The human mind is complicated. So is the mind of anything else intelligent, I would assume. What we picked up was either an animal, or near brain death. Aeris shouldn't have cancelled it out entirely."

"But we don't know that." She stood up suddenly. "Maybe their brains work differently. If they have brains. Maybe it's like octopi --"

"Octopuses," cut in Tseng. "The root is Greek."

"...however you say it," she said, giving him a look, "and they've got decentralised nervous systems."

"We can find out," said Zack. "Next time we do this, why don't we just run the signal we found and yours at the same time? We can do that, right?"

"...In theory," said Tseng slowly, looking at Zack as though he were surprised he'd suggested it. "I would have to ask Lazard if that was advisable. It seems unsafe."

"There would be a risk of seizures," said Aeris. "I can guess that much. But I still say it's worth it."

"We will figure that out tomorrow," said Cissnei. "We have earned this. Pass me the champagne."

Somehow everyone managed to get themselves back up the next... morning? It had been a while since she'd seen a window, and time had more or less lost all meaning. Officially it was 5:00. That was morning enough.

They had forgotten to clean up the ration packaging from last night, so she wound up picking most of it up herself. She was just about finished when Zack walked in.

"Oh -- shit, sorry. I can, uh..."

Aeris shook her head. "It's fine. At least no one's hung over."

"Cissnei is, a little. I let her sleep for a bit."

Aeris nodded. "That's fine. She's..." She tried to search for a polite way to say "nonessential personnel".

Zack was nice enough to save her from the end of that sentence. "Yeah. Anyway, we're gonna have medical on standby for you, just in case."

"I'll be fine. It's for science," she said, smiling a bit. Zack frowned.

"You're... really invested in this, huh?" he asked.

"Yes. Aren't you?"

"Yeah -- I mean, I am, yes, but... what's your stake in this?"

"You already know. Nearly everyone does."

"Just... that's their reason, isn't it?"

Aeris turned to look at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

"What about you, huh?" she asked, crossing her arms. "Why are you really doing this?"

Zack's face hardened. "Because I need it. I need to be doing this."

There was something in his voice that almost sounded like anger. It was quickly gone again.

"I mean, just think of the tv deals we'll be getting from this," he said, and he was back to the other grin. The punchable one.

Aeris shook her head as Lazard walked in the door. "Guess it's time," she said. "Wish me luck."

Zack just shook his head. He still seemed preoccupied with something when the time came to count her down, given he'd given her the count of "three hundred I guess".

"Really."

"Look, there's a lot of stuff me and Angeal are doing. Just try to relax."

The hallucinations were beginning to creep in again. She shut her eyes, but she could have sworn she was hearing whispers as well. They were a lot harder to tolerate for this long.

"How much longer is this gonna take?" she asked. Zack didn't reply.

"Zack?" She opened the lid of the tank, and fell out into the dark emptiness.

It felt much more like falling now, too, until suddenly it felt like being dragged. She reached out to catch herself on anything, but suddenly everything she was falling through wanted to catch her, grabbing and pulling at her with a thousand hands made of nothing, and she absolutely didn't want to be caught. She felt herself falling again until she landed hard.

She looked up, and for a moment she was certain she was hallucinating again -- she was sitting on the floor, in a rather dingy little room. Looking around, it was fairly utilitarian -- no nicknacks, no odds and ends. A single cupboard with one of the drawers half-open, containing unfolded, wadded-up boxers. A tire sitting against the wall, and an office chair, and a desk. And above the desk, an unadorned wall with --

          oo
        o  o
    oo    
oo  oo  o

Her breath caught. There was no distortion. She could hear muffled conversation in the distance, and soft breathing in the room besides her own. The room was pitch black, but she found she could somehow still see. On the bed above her was a very large man, built like a truck and with the most expensive-looking prosthetic arm she'd ever seen, and next to him was a girl with her hair in a plait that looked about seven or eight.

Humans. They looked human.

She looked down at herself, then, and saw a hand. She could see every detail on the surface that she'd missed before -- five fingers. Heavily calloused, pockmarked with scars. The palms were stained a dark blue with... paint? It would explain the dampness she'd experienced towards the end. She flexed it experimentally. It still felt very sore.

It had never looked this way before. She hadn't been able to see much of anything.

Unless it wasn't her seeing any of this.

She sat there for a moment, staring at her hand. Not hers. Someone else's.

She took a deep breath and did the first thing that came to mind.

 

---

 

Cloud lay on the floor of his room, still awake. It was about six or seven in the morning. The mob had dispersed. They had originally been planning on stationing Reeve in his room to keep tabs on him, but Marlene was still convinced Cloud was going to be killed and demanded that she and Barret be there instead. Cloud hadn't felt right having Marlene sleep on the floor, and as much as Barret resented his "tiny-ass army cot" Cloud had managed to convince him it was better than the floor. That left Cloud with his old bedroll, which still smelled of grass and diesel and woodsmoke. Outside he could still hear the rustle of garbage left by the mob. Cloud had helped Tifa clean up the bar, but he refused to fix anything outside. That was their mess.

Marlene sniffled in her sleep. This had been the exact thing he'd wanted to avoid and he'd walked headfirst into it anyway. Though he wasn't sure what the solution would have been apart from putting bars on his window. He had about as much now, with the board he'd had to nail over it.

Something moved above him, and he thought for a moment Marlene had woken up. He turned to ask her what was wrong.

He tried to, anyway, but perhaps he was still half asleep, because nothing happened. There were more moving things now, on the ceiling. He began to hear the voices again as the world blurred around him. It was here again.

He tried to get a word of warning out to Barret, but that didn't happen either. He couldn't move, and though he could feel the fear flooding him already, his breathing and heartbeat remained steady.

It suddenly occurred to him that he was still aware, and that his vision and thoughts had cleared. There were no more shadows, and no more whispering, but there was still something there, watching him. He tried and failed to warn Barret again. He was completely paralysed -- it didn't even feel like he was breathing anymore; rather, that someone was breathing for him.

He felt himself sit up. He raised his hand, or maybe his hand was raising itself. He struggled again to scream, to lie back down, to just blink on his own terms, but whatever it was wasn't even fazed by his efforts.

Marlene was in the room. Marlene was in the room with him and this thing and he should have never allowed this.

The thing knew he was here, though -- he could feel its thoughts twisting in around his own, and he frantically strained against it as it burned itself into him, and lowered its hand, and took a deep breath, and spoke.

Hello, it said.

He was stunned for a moment, and didn't respond. He felt himself shift into a more comfortable sitting position against the side of the bed.

Hello? it repeated. Then he felt his lips part, and it said it out loud, very quietly. "Hello?"

What do you want from me? he thought.

He felt himself smiling, which sent another thrill of fear through him.

Oh! Ah... It sounded surprised. Or rather, it sounded like he was surprised, with that voice-that-wasn't-a-voice he'd think to himself with. Greetings and well-wishes on behalf of my team and our civilisation. We come offering friendship, peace, and a future of prosperity with one another.

Cloud took another moment to process what he was hearing. He had about a thousand questions whirling around in his head.

What? was the only coherent thing he managed to get out of any of them.

It seemed to contract in around him further. If his struggling was doing anything, it didn't give any indication that it noticed. None of them ever did. Not Sephiroth, not Jenova, not this thing. We --

Who's 'we'? What... I don't...

...My name is Aeris Gainsborough. He -- it -- was staring fixedly at his sword, leaned against his desk. My colleagues and I have spent a long time trying to meet you all. It's an honour to finally speak to you.

He felt himself stand up then, very quietly. His gaze landed on Marlene and Barret. It raised a hand, and Cloud's heart nearly stopped.

Don't! he pleaded. She isn't -- she isn't a threat to you, none of them are -- you're here for me, right? Don't hurt my family. Please.

He felt his hand lower, and now it was the thing -- Aeris's -- turn to be confused. Don't... what?

I don't understand what you want from me, but you can have whatever you want. Just... leave my family out of it. They haven't done anything.

There was a long period of silence. He sat back down on his bedroll and steepled his fingers.

...What's your name? it asked.

I'm -- I'm Cloud , he thought. Cloud Strife. I'm Cloud Strife. Please don't hurt my family.

We're well met, Cloud, it said. I won't do anything with your family. I just want to talk to you and look around. Is that alright? The voice was calm and soothing now. The way Mother -- Jenova would be, to lure him in.

It was so much stronger than him, though. He hadn't fought off Sephiroth's influence head on, either. It would take some doing.

Alright, he relented. Please don't hurt anyone. They haven't done anything.

I, er... I won't, it said. It seemed deeply uncomfortable now.

He felt himself stand again, taking another curious look at Barret's arm.

So... who would you say you are, Cloud? He looked down the hall and began examining the door to the closet there, and the towels inside it.

I --

He didn't understand the question. And if he didn't understand it, then he could give a wrong answer. And if he gave a wrong answer, Aeris might not be open to negotiation anymore. But no answer was a wrong answer too.

I-I'm a mechanic. I like to fix things.

There was a pause. It didn't seem angry, yet. It turned around and went down the stairs. ...A mechanic? For what?

Just my bike. Sometimes I fix engines, if anyone around here has one. Or... or doors. Old pipes. Leaky roofs and things.

It looked around the bar, the area where he'd first passed out when Jessie was here. It felt like years ago.

So you're a mechanic as a hobby, and a carpenter as a job? it asked, as it looked at the board that had been nailed to the windows, and the scorch marks on the walls and ceiling from the fire.

Yes. No. I -- sure.

It began to walk to the door, where he could make out a figure lurking nearby. Without thinking, he blurted out, Stop! You can't.

...Is it not safe out at night?

Not for me. The mob left a few hours ago. And I lost my sunglasses in the crash, so I can't...

Aeris looked at a bit of glass on the floor that he'd missed sweeping up. Mob?

I crashed my bike.

And suddenly he felt a sudden surge of anger, because now he finally understood.

You made me crash my bike. I was supposed to die in that crash, but I didn't, and they saw me live and more people saw me when you made me run off in the middle of the night, and then they came here and tried to -- you did this. You did this! The whole time I thought I was going mad, and it was you! I -- gods, I can't move, I can't --I --

It was quiet for several moments. He could still feel it there, though, and he still had no control over his body.

...I didn't -- please don't hurt my family. I said it, not them, please --

I'm sorry, it said. I'm -- I'm so sorry. If we had known...

Cloud said nothing. Aeris carefully picked the bit off glass off the floor, and went looking for the garbage.

I owe you an explanation. My team and I, we're doctors working with an organisation trying to make contact with extra-dimensional life. It's a very big project, funded by almost every...

Cloud had stopped listening. There was a faint ringing in his head. He dimly felt himself slip the glass into a bin under the sink.

No. It wasn't fair. He'd fought all this time for so long, and it wasn't fair. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no --!

"No!" He screamed the word out loud and fell to his knees as the nausea began to overtake him again. "God fucking dammit, no!"

He scrambled to his feet and ripped one of the boards off the window frame, flinging it into the street with a roar and eliciting a startled yelp out of whoever was lurking outside nearby. He grabbed another one, but a hand caught his shoulder.

He turned around to look at Tifa, and at everyone else that had come rushing downstairs. He swallowed as his throat began to constrict, but he refused to cry again. He had done enough crying.

"What's wrong?" she asked. He opened and closed his mouth a few times. He was still shaking with fear and rage.

"Take a wild guess," he said bluntly. "I'm going back to bed. You all should too."

They all filed back up the stairs. The figure by the door cleared its throat. “This something I should know about?”

Cloud whirled around as they stepped into the light. He was surprised he didn’t recognise that awful cologne earlier. “Reno?”

“Attaboy. Think your girlfriend will let me have a drink for once? As payment for services rendered.” Reno leaned against the doorway. His voice was casual, but his posture was tense and alert, and he didn’t actually dare set foot in the bar.

“No. I think you shouldn’t push your luck on whether or not we might try getting even, to make up for lost time,” said Cloud, casually flexing his fingers to get the point across.

“Is that any way to thank someone that’s risking his life for you?” said Reno, feigning offense, and for the first time Cloud noticed he was wearing the same uniform as the group from earlier.

“You’re a cop?” he asked incredulously.

“Well, it’s not like my old job’s viable anymore,” said Reno, shooting him a look. “And besides, I already got the skills for this. Might as well use ‘em.”

“Like mass murder?” Cloud said bluntly.

“Like knowing how to follow the orders of a superior officer,” retorted Reno. “And a good sense of self-preservation. I’m hardly gonna announce the Turk thing publicly, am I? Don’t wanna wind up like you.”

“They had to have known. You’ve got records.”

“Yeah, but they need manpower. Besides, they’ll let just about anybody be a beat cop no matter how much they might or might not suck,” said Reno with a smirk. “Right, Spikes?”

“Don’t call me that,” said Cloud icily. “That isn’t my name. It’s Cloud.” He had taken a step towards Reno without realising it. The world seemed to fall away at the edges. It absolutely wouldn’t do to be called something that wasn’t his name.

Reno appeared to recognise he’d crossed some sort of line, and stepped away from the door. “Look, I’m just here for crowd control, yeah? So ease up off my ass about it. I’m here for your benefit, Cloud.”

“If you weren’t such a shitheel in general I might actually believe that.”

“Look, a job’s a job,” said Reno, sounding faintly annoyed as his facade began to crack. “Killing people the company doesn’t like and putting bodies in wood chippers and throwing people out of strip bars and keeping you alive for the night pays bills the exact same way. And right now, it makes sense for me to follow orders. Got it?”

“...Whatever you say,” said Cloud eventually. Mutual need was a surprisingly powerful driving force. Stronger than a lot of things he wished it weren’t, in fact. “Have fun electrocuting civilians.” He turned to leave.

“Have fun thinking about how empty everyone’s lives are now!” shouted Reno at his back as he ascended the stairs.

Cloud did not reenter his own room. Marlene and Barret were in that one.

Instead, he went to Tifa’s room and nudged her by way of permission. She looked at him questioningly. He was too tired to explain himself and gave her a blank look before slipping into bed next to her. He pressed his face into the pillow to give himself time to collect himself, then curled up against her.

He didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

 

---

 

 

Aeris allowed Lazard to help her out of the tank and sat on its edge, wordlessly staring at the screen where she'd been keeping a meticulous transcript of the entire interaction. Don't hurt my family. She read the words again, and again, still in shock.

She didn't think it would go this way. She didn't know how she thought it would go; maybe there would be a diplomatic exchange. Maybe they'd learn a lot about one another's culture. Maybe they wouldn't learn anything at all and they'd just spend several minutes having communication issues. But she hadn't expected the pleading, and the fear, and the raw anger.

She'd still had hope for all the former things at first. It had been strange enough that she'd been able to understand it -- them. (Him? It certainly seemed male, if she was going by her own understanding of humans in her own culture, which admittedly might not apply here.) They had allowed her to look around the dwelling they were in. There was plumbing and electricity. There were engines, though what kind, she wasn't sure. There was glass and trees for wood and refrigeration for perishable food, which was part of the local cuisine. She'd caught a glimpse of the remains of a computer in the room she'd started out in, which looked like something out of the seventies or eighties. Next to it seemed to be a pile of mechanical detritus, which seemed to be in line with the claim they had made about being a mechanic. Next to that, bafflingly enough, had been a sword -- an enormous one, nearly as big as she was. Perhaps it was ceremonial in use; it looked fairly elaborate, and if they'd figured out electricity they almost certainly had weapons technology beyond that.

The pictures they'd be getting off her would be usable. The entity they were in contact with was open to communication. But now...

Worst case scenario, she'd expected crushing disappointment -- that it was just a bunch of space monkeys on the other side after all. Nothing like this.

She turned to Zack, who was still reading her transcript.

“We’re gonna have to shut down the project,” he said.

"You say that as if it's your decision," said Lazard after a moment.

Zack rounded on him. “Well, do you have any other suggestions? I’m pretty sure we’re getting slammed up the ass with a human rights violation once this is over no matter what we do.”

"You're just head of the post-bridging operation." Lazard sank into an empty chair, looking exhausted. "CERN is the head of this project. How do you think they'll feel about us closing down the entire operation after getting concrete evidence of extradimensional intelligent life?"

"They'd realise what we were doing is wrong, obviously --" began Zack. Lazard shook his head.

"They'd either demand we continue with the greatest scientific discovery of the century, or they'd assign someone else," he said. "This is happening, with or without us."

"You said it was an animal," said Aeris, cutting across both of them. She turned to glower at Tseng now as well. "You said it was just an animal. That the brainwaves --"

"It was," snapped Tseng. "That was not and is not human brain activity. It's barely animalistic brain activity. This... this shouldn't have happened."

"What am I supposed to do, then? Just keep scrambling its brain until another mob catches up to it?"

"Yes. That's exactly what you're supposed to do." Lazard wasn't looking at Aeris anymore. He'd gone back to staring at the "signal disconnected" message on the screen. Aeris shook her head in disgust.

"This is wrong," said Zack. "What about all that bullshit I had to memorise about the betterment of humanity?"

"Arguably it's human nature to trample all over whatever indigenous culture happens to be in the way in the name of discovery," said Angeal dryly. He handed Aeris a towel. She snatched it out of his hands and threw it at him.

"This is the situation we're in," he said, handing the towel to Zack. "Until you come up with a way to change it to another one, we just have to make the most of this one." He headed for the door.

"What do you think?" she asked Cissnei. Cissnei shifted uncomfortably.

"Well... what do you want to do?"

"This isn't about that. Is this about doing the right thing, which we've all decided isn't a priority anymore!"

"You don't have to yell about it," said Cissnei, crossing her arms. "I am trying to help."

"Well, you're not," she said. "None of this is any help!" She trudged off to the showers without another word.

She didn’t go back to her room right away -- they’d all be looking for her there. She paid a visit to the rats she wasn’t supposed to be getting attached to and sat in front of their cages.

The first ten rats from months prior -- she supposed he would have encountered them too. She wondered if they’d also seen out of his eyes. He hadn’t mentioned them, but they would have had to, wouldn’t they? She wondered briefly how it would feel to have rats living in your brain for nearly two weeks.

So, here was the greatest scientific discovery of the century, maybe even in the course of human history, and it was already tainted. There was a very good chance she’d be removed from the project, of course, not to mention the inevitable public outcry. At least the whole project wouldn’t be dismissed as pseudoscience by anyone that wasn’t dismissing things like the curvature of the earth and global warming and landing on the moon.

That had been the biggest concern, going into things. “Oh, you’re that girl with the parents that blew themselves up doing that starkers Heaven’s Gate thing, yes?” they’d surely have said. “I’m sorry, but we’re not interested in new age sciences. Though I’m sure Worldview would love to have your work.”

But they hadn’t. Because obviously she had the numbers to back it up, and everyone had recognised that, and not long after sharing her research there had been several government-funded groups all vying for her attention.

She’d been doing the research for quite a while, but with the funding came a new realisation -- what the research would actually lead to. Or more specifically, her part in it: for the first time, she would actually get to do something.

And by and large, she’d done nothing. She had gone to school, skipped several grades, gone to other, more prestigious schools, finished those… and then would go on to study more things, perhaps, until she died.

Between dying surrounded by more research and dying alone on another planet (and with a jolt she realised that it was now a very real possibility; the “another planet” part of it at least, ideally the second half of the project would contain little to no dying), she’d take the latter in an instant.

Several hours later after she had retreated to her room to sleep off the sedatives, she received a knock on the door to her room.

"What?" she grumbled.

"It's me," she heard Tseng say from the other side of the plexiglass.

"And have you come here to ease my conscience?"

"In a manner of speaking. I've come here to ensure this doesn't distract you from your work."

Aeris stood up from her bed and yanked the door open, glowering at Tseng. "Excuse me?"

Tseng held her gaze. "The project is continuing. You know it, I know it. The least we can do is ensure it isn't for nothing."

Aeris flopped back down on her bed. "And you're doing this out of the goodness of your heart, right?"

"Of course not. I have my entire life tied up in this," said Tseng, shutting the door behind him and sitting down at her desk. "It only benefits me to continue. But I am not the only one."

"What -- you think I want this?"

Tseng shrugged. "Not this specifically, perhaps. But I doubt I am saying anything surprising when I say that you clearly did want this basic circumstance in some way or another."

"That doesn't matter," said Aeris.

"It does matter. Especially when the project hinges on you wanting to keep going."

"Of course I want to keep going!" Aeris snapped. "It's a problem that I want that at all!"

"But you do, and it's required that you do," said Tseng. "Ride that as far as it takes you."

"Is that what you're doing?"

"It certainly is now. Are you or are you not dedicated to --"

"Yes. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Only if you mean it. I am not the one you have to convince. That would be the board of directors." Tseng stood up and gave a polite nod. "I look forward to completing this project with you as painlessly as possible for everyone involved."

Aeris watched Tseng leave, then rolled back over on her bed. She was unable to sleep much that night. She spent most of it writing -- they’d probably want a detailed log of everything she’d seen, beyond the pictures they could get. She took a deep breath and started going through it all, piece by piece. Just data. No pleading, no near-death experiences.

She dwelled on the arm she’d seen, the prosthetic one. If it was prosthetic, anyway. Perhaps it was a covering? The detail and motor control it appeared to offer was incredible. She wondered if it was standard fare for someone to have an arm like that, or if this was simply a very wealthy family. It didn’t seem to be. There were three people piled into one room. She had been on the second floor of a modest-looking diner. It was all a bit shabby, but nothing that would indicate they were destitute.

Then there were all the other people in the building -- and at this she paused, because how would she know there were other people? She couldn’t have. Yet she felt certain there were: at least five, maybe more. It seemed, now that she thought back on it, that she had heard them breathing, but that seemed unrealistic. She’d have to check… well, later.

The sword, too, had been a point of interest. It wasn’t behind a glass case, suggesting it wasn’t particularly old. The various gears and catches along its length suggested it had moving parts, though why a sword would need moving parts was beyond her. And it was massive; something like that would require two people to carry it, assuming it was made of real metal. It looked like it was real metal… sharp metal, at that.

The wood on the door… there were trees that were used as a construction material. She wondered what trees they used, and where they were available. Something seemed strange about the street she’d gotten a glimpse of, but she couldn’t place her finger on what it was.

It was night out, it seemed, but the moon must have been several orders of magnitude brighter than their own because she found she had no difficulty seeing in the dark. Or, she considered, perhaps the native species, while clearly human-adjacent in many ways, had better night vision.

And, of course, there was her. Or rather, “him”. The person she’d been marauding around in. The scars on her hands… some of them looked like bites. From what animal, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps Tseng would know.

From what she could tell, she seemed about the same size as she did on Earth, assuming the entire world wasn’t scaled up or down as well. Young male, more on the small side… a bit of an anxious disposition. Or perhaps he was just anxious because there was something reaching into his skin and plucking at his nerves and throwing him in front of cars. She kneaded her eyes with the heels of her palms. Moral concerns later. Record the facts.

Her senses seemed to be working more or less properly now, but there was still something that hadn’t faded from the earlier runs: the dreamlike quality of movement. Every step came easily, and the world seemed strangely soft around her. She still felt the energy coiled in every tendon. She still felt as though she could have jumped ten metres into the air if she wanted to. She realised with a start that perhaps she had. And gravity still felt normal -- she’d felt the blood rush to her head as she’d bent down to pick up the glass, and had watched it fall into the bin under the sink as it would have on Earth.

There were so many things she couldn’t figure out on her own, and there was only one person that could give her answers. Apparently she wasn't finished running damage control just yet.

 

---

 

"...It spoke to me."

He'd gone right to Tifa the next day. This almost definitely didn't qualify as stupid, and everyone else save her and Cid were downstairs keeping an eye out for any troublemakers (and in Jessie’s case, to glare daggers at Reno and make vaguely threatening motions with her beer). The WRO was expected to arrive in two or three days. He wasn't sure why it had taken as long as it had, but the mob appeared to have finally forced their hand.

He was restless -- he hadn't left the bar in three days now. Tifa had suggested they spar, but there wasn't much any of them could do that wouldn't put even more holes in the walls. Cloud had been doing diamond push-ups for the last half hour, with Cid sitting in his office chair, angrily chewing on an entire pack of gum.

Cloud had been working up the nerve to bring this up to her all night, and throughout this morning. He wasn't really sure why -- they knew he wasn't crazy by now. He supposed it was still one of those mental blocks in place from the labs. It was stupid. He was stupid. He should be over this already. That's what he told himself over and over again, between each push-up. You're over it. You're over it. You're over it. You're over it. You're over it.

"Last night, I mean," he added. "Before you found me downstairs."

Tifa froze in the middle of one of her crunches and stared at him.

"Cloud, you probably shouldn't --"

"No," he interjected. "I mean, it spoke. With words. Said something about friendship and prosperity."

Tifa glanced at Cid, who suddenly seemed very, very interested. "And... that's not something it normally says."

"It doesn't normally say anything. Not that I can remember." Cloud pushed himself to his feet, working out the kinks in his arms. "Neither does Jenova. Not the way you'd understand it, anyway."

"Did you say anything back?" asked Tifa.

Cloud sat on his bed and looked away. He picked at a bit of flaky skin on the mottled scar tissue covering his left wrist.

"I'm trying to help. You know that," she pressed.

"I asked it what it wanted. It said it wanted to talk."

"Did you say anything else?"

"It wanted to go outside," continued Cloud. "You came downstairs before it could."

"What was it after?" asked Cid, who was now properly paying attention.

Cloud shrugged. Then he took another breath.

You're over it. You're over it. You're over it.

"It said I was part of a project," he said dryly.

The room went silent again. Cloud looked down and realised he'd picked his left wrist bloody again. He sat on his hands.

"You think --"

"Maybe," said Cloud, interrupting Cid. "But it can't be anyone from Nibelheim. They're... they died. All of 'em. I checked." There had been a lot of chaos immediately following Meteorfall. No one had noticed the extra bodies, or would have had resources to investigate where they came from.

"There are only a few groups left with the resources to pull that kind of thing off," said Tifa. "All that's left of Shinra are a few ex-Turks. Wutai would probably want nothing to do with it."

"The WRO," said Cid.

"Reeve wouldn't sell me out like that," said Cloud.

"Wouldn't he? Jackass already did it once, from what I hear," said Cid. “Barret brings it up from time to time.”

Cloud shifted uncomfortably. "...That's not the same thing. He didn't start a 'project'."

"It might not be Reeve that's running it," said Tifa. "He's one guy. There are other people in the WRO. And other people in the government."

"They got the info they need, too," said Cid. "You can bet your ass they keep tabs on anyone and anything with mako in it."

"It didn't know who I was, though," said Cloud. "The WRO probably have a file on me, after the doctor thing..."

"When it comes back, ask it," said Cid. Cloud nodded, then thought of something else.

"...If I don't get to it first, can you -- when you get a chance, talk to Reeve," he said. "Ask him if there's anyone named Aeris Gainsborough working for them, or for Edge."

Tifa frowned. "Gainsborough... sounds a bit northern. Not Nibel northern, north-northern."

"Maybe it's someone up there?"

"Couldn't be," she said. "I was just there. The population was almost entirely wiped out thanks to Sephiroth. Unless there's some secret underground bunker stashed away in an iceberg, they don't have the people or the resources."

"Oh. Right." He'd seen that -- well, "seen it". Eavesdropped, more like. He wasn't sure how he'd forgotten.

"It's worth asking, though," said Tifa. "You never know what might turn up." Cid nodded, now watching Cloud carefully. Cloud shot a glare at him, and he looked away.

"We both know it's gonna turn up again," said Cloud. "You can stare at me then."

And then it hit him that it would come back again. And probably the day after that, and the day after that. Suddenly Cloud wanted to break something again. “If it’s got a name, what do you think it is?”

“It’s hard to say,” said Tifa. “I still don’t really think it’s Jenova. She never calls herself anything, and She probably wouldn’t organise a ‘project’. Now I don’t know what it could be.”

Cloud looked over at Cid. “Those holes from before. They meant something to you, but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Mind explaining it in standard for me?”

Cid swiped a piece of paper from Cloud’s desk and an undamaged pen and rolled himself over to them by kicking off a drawer. “Right -- the golden ratio.” He wrote a one, and then another one. “Add those for me.”

Cloud looked at him. “It’s… it’s just two, right? Is this a trick question?”

“Nope.” He wrote down 2 on the paper and crossed out the first 1. “Now add those.”

“Three?”

“Why’s that a question? Thought you finished first grade, at least.” He crossed out the other 1, and wrote 3 next to the 2. “And those.”

“Five. So, what’s --”

“Every number in this sequence is proportional to the two that make it up. That ratio’s in nearly every single part of the natural world. Anything intelligent that can add one and two and get three and not have it be a question for some fuckin’ reason would spot it right off the bat.”

“Where are you going with this?” asked Tifa.

“Something that can recognise patterns in nature, like a bunch of people organising a project, is looking for other things like it,” said Cid. “And it found Cloud.”

“Okay, but what’s ‘it’?” asked Cloud.

“Something named Aeris Gainsborough, apparently,” said Tifa. “So it says, anyway.”

“...So, if it knew something that I didn’t, it’s probably real, right?” asked Cloud. “The numbers, I mean. So how come I can hear it and none of you can?”

“No offense, but you’ve kinda got a track record for hearing voices that ain’t really there.”

“Piss off.”

“He’s right,” said Tifa, looking at his chest. “You don’t have to be crazy for him to be right. We all know you’re not crazy.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, lady,” grunted Cid. “He’s fucking batshit. He just hears voices that have nothing to do with that.”

“...Thanks?” said Cloud. “Look, it’s not… it doesn’t feel like Jenova. And… it didn’t -- I mean…” He glanced at Tifa. “You were there with me, in the Lifestream. The Planet doesn’t really do words.”

“Not the Planet. We know someone that does do words, though --” began Cid.

“Sephiroth is dead,” cut in Cloud sharply. “I’d know if it was him.” And that was the end of that line of thought.

“...Maybe it’s not your Jenova,” said Cid. “We still don’t really know what’s out there. Maybe there’s more.”

“...There better not be,” said Cloud. The Planet wouldn’t survive something like that again, and Cloud probably couldn’t… do whatever it was he had the first time. If he had done anything.

“It’s not outta the question,” said Cid, spitting out his gum into the trash. “Jenova’s been around for a few billion years. Maybe the reason we ain’t got a reply yet from any civilisations besides our own is ‘cause there’s no one left, because a certain someone got to them first.”

“And the name?” asked Tifa. “That bit doesn’t fit.”

“Maybe it’s someone that died,” said Cloud. “And they’re trying to reach me from the Lifestream.”

“You’re no Ancient,” said Tifa. “And we dealt with Hojo’s landline. I thought you’d stopped hearing that kind of stuff.”

“I have, mostly,” said Cloud. “I’ll catch bits and pieces from the mako, but it’s just noise. Maybe it’s too processed. Or I can’t understand it right. Or both.”

“Maybe you’re not hearing it from the Lifestream,” said Tifa. “Nanaki… he said ‘it shouldn’t be here’. But he couldn’t tell me what it was. I don’t think he knew.”

Cloud slouched against the wall -- the non-busted one his bed was against. “Then we still don’t know.”

Cid shook his head. “We still don’t know.”

No one said anything else after that for several minutes. Cloud threaded a flame between his fingers, watching the light illuminate the bones in his hand, the flame gradually shifting from orange to white to the shimmering blue of his own native magic the longer he sustained it. Cloud considered himself lucky, landing the innate magic that he had. Some people’s wound up being completely useless in a fight-or-flight situation, which was the entire point of lingering innate magic in the first place. Cloud had thought his own magic was in the ‘useless’ category for the longest time; he’d only ever used it as a light until he was fifteen and stranded in the slums without a gun during a riot. But even then, he’d always been fond of the colour. It reminded him a bit of… he couldn’t remember. Something to do with home. And grass, maybe. It had involved grass, too. And sun.

"...I've been thinking," said Tifa, cutting off his train of thought and causing the fire to fizzle into tiny sparks. "Just -- I don't have anything really planned for sure, but... when all this is over, maybe we could take a trip down to the beach."

Cloud blinked. "What for?"

"Just for fun. Doesn't have to be the one in Costal del Sol. It can be by Junon or something," said Tifa. "Somewhere quiet. It might be nice."

"A really empty beach," suggested Cloud, "where I can fight you without breaking furniture." He thought about it, and he could picture the warm weather, and the quiet, and the steady rushing of the ocean, and the sky above them, bigger than ever. He thought about taking a nap right there on the shore, out in the open, where nothing would come along and take a bite out of him. In his head, his skin didn't become red and peeling like it always did in the sun. Tifa usually fared a bit better than him, but only a bit. But there wasn't any sunburn in the version he was making up. There wasn't anyone else around to stare at his eyes, or mutter amongst themselves about his various disfigurements, or make fun of him for the way he looked beyond all that, because Tifa wouldn't care that he couldn't grow a beard or anything else.

Tifa might not, at least. He glanced at Cid.

"Should we bring anyone else?" he asked.

Tifa shrugged. "If you want. I was thinking it could be just us, though."

“I’m not really into beaches,” said Cid. “Too damn hot. Knock yourselves out.”

"That's fine," said Cloud. It did sound like it would be nice, actually. Even if it was all in his head.

Somewhere quiet and safe with company. He'd always thought Seventh Heaven was a place like that, and here he was, cooped up inside it with his feet tucked up underneath him because there might still be glass on his floor. Maybe he'd expected too much -- of his home and Tifa.

"...I'll get us something to eat," said Tifa, which made Cloud realise he'd spaced out on her again. Before he could apologise she'd disappeared downstairs.

He sat there and waited. For Tifa to come back, for him to black out again. For when he could go to the beach and see how big the sky was there.

Chapter 12: Cloud Hangs Out in a Bathroom and the Piss Joke Comes Full Circle Sort Of

Notes:

I figured out how to use the AO3 googledocs script and it's a fucking lifesaver. No longer do I have to spend an hour at a time reformatting every single chapter. That would have especially been a problem because man there's a lot of italics in this next bit.

Another title I seriously considered for this fic was GHOST PISS: THE PISSENING, especially back when this thing was a catty 500-word jab at someone's whack-ass headcanon. I still think that's better than "To Live". I'll figure something out.

Thanks a bunch to belderiver, Sanctum_C, and limbostratus for making sure this thing remains up to snuff.

"Does it hurt?" asked Tifa.

Cloud had been sitting in the bathroom with her for an hour, with Barret standing guard out front. Best to keep it in one place as much as they could. It had to be soon. They'd been waiting all day. It would be soon. They knew it would be soon --

He forced himself to actually pay attention to Tifa and shrugged, as though he weren't a bundle of nerves at the moment. "Not really. It's just... it's really unpleasant."

"Like Jenova?" asked Tifa.

"...A little," said Cloud. "I don't really... it doesn't make me want to be used, like Jenova. And it's a lot clearer, too." He set down the shampoo bottle he'd been reading for the sixth time so far. "I do hear things, though. Sometimes it sounds like Her."

"Can you hear it now?"

Cloud shook his head. "Just Mother. And She's not very loud right now." It took him a moment to figure out why Tifa was staring at him. "I mean --"

"I know what you meant," said Tifa. But now she looked worried again. Perfect.

"It's not what you think," he said quickly. "I just got used saying that."

"...How much do you remember about your ******************," asked Tifa. Cloud blinked hard a couple times as a searing white light crossed his vision, and Jenova's whispers momentarily peaked into shrieks.

"...Not a whole lot. I think I looked more like her than Father," he said, as a dull ache settled into his temples. "I don't remember how, though." He strained harder, trying to recall anything about Ma that he had left, which wasn't particularly a lot. "...The folks in the village called her a whore a bunch. I don't know if she was an actual prostitute or not." He looked at Tifa expectantly.

Tifa looked away. "I don't know. I never really bothered with you much in those days. Papa said if I hung out with bastards I'd get knocked up, and that was good enough for me."

Cloud looked at her incredulously. "He said that to you? You were, what... five?"

"Not in those exact words, but yeah," said Tifa, relaxing a bit. This was always a sore subject for her. "And you scared me. I didn't want to deal with you back then anyway. Especially after you bit Argos."

"Wish I remembered that."

"You probably don't," said Tifa. "When it started bleeding they shoved you in the supply closet of the general store."

"Maybe not," said Cloud. He considered reading the conditioner again, just for a little variety, and decided against it. "...It's -- I wish I felt worse about it. I remember it all ending but I just don't remember... them." He looked back at Tifa nervously. "Sorry if that sounds kind of dickish."

"Let me out," said Tifa.

Cloud blinked. Maybe he'd lost track of the conversation and said something especially rude. "The door's right there. Barret won't listen to me, though, so --"

"Let me out," said Tifa again, and this time her voice didn't just come from her mouth. It came from the walls, and the ceiling, and inside his head. "Let me out. Let me in. Let me out." Tifa was staring at him, but he got the horrible sense she was full of something -- that it was moving under her skin, ready to burst. The walls, too, had things behind them. This little pocket in the bathroom was the only thing between himself and the vast, roaring space surrounding them. There shadows were there, slipping themselves into his flesh -- no, out, he was leaking like the walls would be soon; and the noise of it all was unbearably loud, so loud it was sure to tear through the walls and the floor and the horrible thing that only looked like Tifa. He wanted to scream to let some the noise out of his head, but his jaw didn't seem to be responding to him anymore.

"Let me in. Let me in. Let me out. My child."

Shut up! thought Cloud. Just shut the fuck up!

And, miraculously, the noise stopped. The walls were no longer hiding something horrible, and Tifa was standing there, looking rather alarmed. "...Are you okay? Is it here?" she asked.

I think so, he thought. No. That wasn't right. He'd wanted to --

His mouth opened, and what came out instead was:

"No, I'm fine."

 

---

 

Something touched her.

She knew something touched her, she was sure of it. She looked around frantically to see what it was, but suddenly there was the sensation of cold tile beneath her, and she let out a sharp gasp.

She made a note of it anyway, because if they needed any more reason to be sure they were doing something terrible it was hallucinations filled with bad omens. Round two of invading someone's personal life. Here goes.

"...Are you okay? Is it here?" came a voice to her left.

She turned and saw she wasn't alone. There was a woman here with her, one she hadn't seen before. She was, Aeris decided as she looked at the arms coming out of the camisole she was wearing, the kind of woman that could probably rip apart a telephone pole and use it as a toothpick. This was almost definitely the person that had body slammed her into the floor.

Aeris immediately panicked.

"No, I'm fine," she blurted.

She felt something stir in her head. Her vision went strange for an instant and her head swam, and she realised it was because she was feeling two emotions at once. One of them was hers -- the one involving guilt and fear of being thrown out a window. The other one was white hot fury.

...You lied. You lied to her, said a small voice. Cloud, she remembered. This person was called Cloud.

I'm sorry. I didn't mean -- Aeris faltered.

Yes, you did! said Cloud. Why... why would...

Fear, this time. Defeat. Something that felt like sadness but much uglier. She was surprised she hadn't noticed him doing this last night because it was absolutely unbearable and, more importantly, distracting. The woman was saying something else. Aeris focused harder on it, and the voice quieted down.

"...sure? We can wait somewhere bigger if the size is getting to you," said the woman.

"Okay. That's fine," said Aeris. This was unworkable. The door opened, and Aeris realised she was sitting next to the toilet.

"...I'm gonna be a minute, actually," she said, gesturing to the toilet. The woman nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Aeris turned her attention back to the voice in her head that was, for all intents and purposes, screaming.

Please be quiet and listen to me for just a moment, she thought.

Fuck you.

That seemed to be a universal gesture, then. At least Cissnei would get a kick out of the transcript.

I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do about this, but --

You can go away and never come back.

Alright. That’s true. I can go away and never come back. And then someone else will show up to replace me and do the same thing. And maybe they won't want to listen to you and try and make this as painless as possible for both of us.

...What are you --

Listen, thought Aeris, I'm part of a multinational, multi-billion euro effort to explore other worlds. This is... a lot more than we ever expected to find. Maybe interesting plants, or some sort of sponge. Maybe even complex animals. Never people. Never... whatever species you call yourself.

...We're humans, it said, after a moment. Aeris's stomach did another flip.

...Well, that settles that, I suppose.

What?

Just -- I didn’t think… I mean, I suppose it makes sense now, obviously, that we’re both human, and -- you know, it’s really interesting that -- it’s just that before all this started --

You’re a human, he said incredulously.

Yes -- anyway, we just... the pattern we're using is... you, I think. We don't entirely understand it. But the whole project hinges on... your cooperation, I suppose. If you'd be willing to offer it.

I'm not, it -- he said.

I understand, said Aeris. I'm sorry. But there's no way around doing this right now. And then she did something she knew no scientist should ever do, and she twisted the evidence to suit her views. ...Yet, anyway. Not without your help.

What do you mean? He had calmed down enough for her to think straight, and she quickly pressed on.

We don't know what it is about you that makes you the only contact point we have, and we don't know much about you personally either. If you can just give us information for a little while, we can try other methods of contact that don't involve you or your... your family, at all. Alright?

There was a pause. How do I know I can trust you? he said.

...I promise. I don't want this any more than you do. I swear, none of us knew.

Silence. Aeris pinched the bridge of her nose, which felt different under callused fingertips. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror then, and started slightly. Blond flyaway hair, pale complexion, very fine features. Crooked downturned nose, as though it had been broken more than a few times. Clean shaven. A scar above the eyebrow, and another one by the jawline. Pierced ears -- both in the same spot on each ear, also worth asking about. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for the eyes; the pupils were slitted like a cat's, or perhaps a snake's. What she'd at first thought was simply a vibrant shade of blue actually appeared to be paired with a natural bioluminescence. She continued staring, and she could have sworn there were tendrils of acidic green moving and twisting around the pupils. She shivered involuntarily, and then noticed the bags under said eyes, and the sallowness of the skin, and the worry lines etched into his face, and the steady contamination of fear into her thoughts. She looked away from the mirror.

How about... we'll compromise. You can talk to me and help us both out. And I won't do anything you don't want me doing anymore. I didn’t know you were -- well, a person, and… and if I’d known, then... you tell me where to go, and I'll go there. Okay?

...Okay, came the reply.

Good. She prepared to leave the room, then quickly turned around and flushed the toilet and ran the sink for a few seconds, then opened the door to the enormous man with the metal arm. So... let's try again. My name's Aeris. What's yours?

...My name's Cloud, he said nervously. The man looked at Aeris uncomfortably, and she gave a small smile and a wave in response. The man seemed stunned by her (perhaps waving wasn't a recognised gesture here), and she quickly walked past him into the hall.

...And that was Barret. His daughter's Marlene.

I remember them from last night. She looked down the hall and made her way into another room. They live here?

No, said Cloud. They visit sometimes. The whole family is over right now.

Is there any special occasion?

You could say that, said Cloud coldly. The coma, for starters. The wandering off in the middle of the night. Smashing up the walls.

I'm sorry -- began Aeris, and then stopped. Wait... how long ago was the crash?

Few days.

...You're in really good condition, then, said Aeris. She decided to actually sit down until she knew where she was going in this building. What are your doctors like? What kind of medicine do --

I got released and we healed the rest back home, next question, said Cloud rather bluntly. Aeris tried again.

What do you mean by "healed"?

...You know. Made it so I wasn't bleeding everywhere. Wiped the blood off. Bandaged what needed bandaging. Stuff like that.

Did you use any kind of medicines to do that?

You're awfully interested in all that doctor shit, aren't you? said Cloud, and the way he phrased it it seemed almost like an accusation.

Aeris wanted to scream. Of all the people to make first contact with, and it was some stick-in-the-mud alternative medicine whackjob. Probably unvaccinated.

No, that wasn't fair. She was in his space. She threw him under a car. Of course he was angry. Still, he could stand to be a bit more cooperative about it.

...I am, actually, because we noticed a few things while we were doing this. We want to make sure you're not sick... apart from the physical injuries.

Uh huh.

Look. Aeris forced her hands to unclench. I’m sure this is going to sound terribly rude, but... do you have a brain?

Fuck off.

Deep breaths. Handle this professionally. I am doing my best, Mr. Strife. You're going to have to work with me.

What kind of question is that?

The kind where we detected the bare minimum of brain activity required to function. Look, where… the way things work where I’m from is, when we think, there’s electrical impulses that travel in our heads. And if someone isn’t thinking as much, there’s less --

I know what a brain is. I have a brain.

Well… we didn’t find as strong of a reading as we would from someone in my world. Not that I’m saying you aren’t thinking as much. Maybe you’re thinking differently. We know what we're measuring is correct, but we don't know if maybe we're measuring the wrong things, and you're somehow still functioning like this. We'd like to know if this is typical of... er... humans. From what she'd seen in the mirror earlier, she still wasn't sure if that term meant the same thing to Cloud as it did to her.

...I have a medical condition, said Cloud. It was the first time he hadn't sounded snide. If anything, he seemed about as confused as she was. ...A few medical conditions, actually. I think -- I mean, maybe that's why you're not getting as much... I dunno, thinking, as you would from people without something like that.

...I'm not sure that's how it works, said Aeris.

Well, since you’re so damn smart and you know more than me I guess you can just leave now. So much for that, then.

Sorry. Let’s just… your ears. You got them pierced. Is that commonplace? Are there any reasons people do it specifically?

...Some parts. In Nibel and Gongaga and around Corel. They do it when you’re eleven. Makes you an adult.

Who does it? Your parents? A religious leader?

Your father if you’re a guy, your mother if you’re a girl.

So your father did yours? How did he do it?

He didn’t, and I didn’t want Ma doing it because everyone would laugh. I wound up doing my own with an ice cube and a sewing needle. A lot of guys started getting it done in the city, but it’s just a trend for them.

So, would you say there’s a stigma against --

I’m not comfortable talking about this with you.

Oh. That seemed to be a yes, which meant she’d probably been rude again, which meant he was probably no closer to trusting her. Well… let’s try a different question. What... what kinds of technologies would you say your society most excels at?

Huh?

Well... it looks like you have electricity and running water... Simple concepts, she reminded herself. Chances were he hadn't spent years of his life researching the concept of technological development in extraterrestrial species. He was just some blue-collar bystander that was unfortunate enough to get caught up in all this.

A thought suddenly occurred to her. You mentioned you're a mechanic, right? Could you show me some of the work you do?

There was a small jolt of excitement -- the same kind she'd get when someone asked her about a show she liked. It was quickly replaced by hostility again. I mean... you'll have to go there.

Yes -- sorry. She got to her feet and looked around the room she was in. ...Tell me where.

There's a door that leads behind the building through the back room, said Cloud. Aeris strode down the stairs, and quickly pulled up short at the bottom upon being met with an older man sporting a five o'clock shadow and a strong aura of cigarette smoke about him, who immediately began to follow him as though this was perfectly natural.

...What does he want? Should I say something? she asked, glancing nervously at the man.

That's Cid. And he wants to keep an eye on me. Someone has to constantly.

Why?

Because I asked them to, because you keep happening, and it's freaking everyone out.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" said the man, Cid, suddenly. He stepped between her and the door, giving her a judging look.

"Er..." Right. The mob bit.

You want to fix Fenrir. She's still all dinged up.

"Just... gonna fix Fenrir a bit. I won't go far," said Aeris. It was strange, speaking aloud in a voice that wasn't hers.

Cid shook his head. "If you lose it again, we need you in here. Ain't no one in here that can outrun you if it gets going."

"Well..." faltered Aeris. "I mean, you might be able to. If you got a good pace going."

Perhaps there was some double entendre involving running in this society that she wasn't aware of, because Cid sniggered loudly and began laughing.

"Yeah, just fuckin' maybe. Just get a good stretch in. Drink some water. Quit smoking," said Cid. Aeris blinked in confusion. Cid must have interpreted it as offense, and he continued.

"Too risky. I'm real sorry, but... actually, maybe we could clear a space in here. You'd have to move the damn thing, obviously, but..."

"Yes, that would be fine," said Aeris.

Cid gave her another look, and stepped away from the door, muttering something that sounded an awful lot like "dumbass" under his breath. She was finally allowed outside, at least, and took her first look around at the world, which was no longer blurred and distorted. In fact, it seemed almost too sharp...

She had a brief moment to catch a glimpse of the sky -- heavy overcast, it seemed, with bits of pale blue peeking through. It was very warm, even then -- perhaps thirty degrees or so. She couldn't see much from the alley she appeared to be in, but there were pedestrians out dressed in light summer clothing, save for one oddball with a heavy jacket. She couldn't see any cars parked on the side of the road, but she could hear the roar of an engine off in the distance. Something still seemed odd about the street, though she still couldn't quite put her finger on what. Then she took her first breath of fresh air.

The information hit her before she even knew what it was, and her eyes widened as a flurry of some sort of unknown stimulus from an equally unknown source bombarded her. It took her a moment to realise it was scent, but it was unlike anything she'd experienced with it before. There were smells she recognised like dirt and soap and cooking meat, and there were scents that were completely alien to her, ones she knew meant things like humans and dog and the woman-from-the-bar and grass-from-far-away, but didn't know how she knew those things. And the noise -- more and more of it, pouring in from every direction; until between the sheer cacophony of her surroundings and the sudden experience of apparently having scent as a viable source of information about the world, she could barely think straight.

Cid was saying something to her. She could hear him quite plainly but she was distracted by how he smelled like Cid who smelled like Cid who smelled like Tifa who smelled like soap Tifa bar Cloud human Cid --

"While I'm still young, Cloud," drawled Cid. Aeris forced herself over to what was probably the largest motorcycle she'd ever seen, still nonplussed.

"...Something wrong?" he asked.

"It's -- yes. Noise --nose -- no," was all she managed to stammer out. God, she would have given anything for a sinus cold right now. She was going to blow this whole thing already.

Strangely enough, Cid didn't seem to think anything of this, and simply gave her a reassuring pat on the back as she stood there looking confused and overwhelmed. "C'mon. I'll get the tools. You just take care of the bike."

She looked down at the bike, then back up at Cid, who had already turned his back to her and did not appear interested in helping her move it. She looked back down at the bike.

Pick it up, said Cloud. Aeris didn't have much room in her thoughts at the moment to argue, and bent down to get a good grip around the middle before giving it an enormous yank.

Aeris nearly fell flat on her back as she wildly overcompensated and the motorcycle was effortlessly lifted into the air. She looked over at Cid, who seemed to be barely managing with the heavy toolboxes he'd tucked under his arms, and strode in after him. Aeris shut the door behind them, somehow not even having much trouble holding it with one arm, and gently set it down on the floor. The tortuous smells had already leaked inside, but they were being slowly replaced with ones that were apparently familiar enough for her brain to filter them out.

It was then that Aeris suddenly realised she'd lifted about 200 kilos of metal as though it were little more than styrofoam.

She looked back at Cid. His pupils were rounded. Come to think of it, Tifa's had been too. And Barret's. And nothing had been glowing on any of them.

Several questions. But for later. Cloud seemed to be trying to get her attention.

Here’s how this is gonna work: I don't want you dinging out dents you don't know how to ding out and making everything worse, he said, and if you touch her and I haven't told you to, I swear to every last god I'll kill you. So we're going to open her up and check if the engine is okay, and then we're going to not touch a single fucking thing otherwise. Alright?

I wasn't going to, said Aeris, gritting her teeth. Deep breaths. She owed him for the car. This is fine. Thank you for your cooperation. This is really helpful.

He continued onward without a moment’s hesitation. Pop open that panel with the big scratch on it.

They passed the next two hours (or whatever passed for hours here) carefully disassembling their way towards the inner workings of the motorcycle. If this had accomplished anything, it was that it seemed to relax Cloud quite a bit. He seemed more focused on instructing her which tools (some familiar, some not) to ask Cid for and what parts went where than he did about his current situation. Most of it made very little sense to her, particularly when Cloud started talking about materia and currents, but she took careful notes of every last bit of it. Whatever it was all about, he seemed to know a great deal about it, and a detailed account of how this particular engine worked, what developments had been made how many years ago, and how common certain elements were in general society (apparently the motorcycle, Fenrir, was a particularly fancy handmade custom job) was waiting back on the server in the fifth ring. Cloud wasn’t exactly a political leader, but a mechanic wasn’t a bad substitution for the time being.

So, what kind of car hit you? she asked as he was enthusiastically going over the internal gyroscope he’d installed.

I never said it was a car. It was a semi.

...A what?

A semi. It’s a kind of vehicle they use to --

No, I know what a semi is, that’s… you were on a motorcycle. You should be dead. How did you --

That’s what the doctors said, too. And the mob.

...How did you survive?

There was a long pause. He was wary of her again, and ashamed of something else.

Guess I was just lucky, he said finally. I’ve always been pretty tough, you know. And they were able to sew my arm on in the ambulance ride over.

Your arm came off?!

I put it -- I mean, they put it back on. Like I said. So it’s fine.

Seems like you’re in good health now. That’s… She experimentally waggled the fingers, and reached up to feel her arm. Towards the shoulder she found a mass of scar tissue.

...Are you sure you don’t want to talk about the medicine you had access to? We don’t have anything like it where I’m from. You could save a lot of lives with that kind of knowledge.

I’m sure, he said tersely, and there was a note of finality in his voice. She let it drop for now.

Halfway through Cloud giving an impassioned speech about how Fenrir's power supply worked, and how he got the idea from "mako", something that people used to use before it was outlawed, Cid spoke up, making her jump slightly.

"...I meant what I said earlier," said Cid. Aeris blinked again. Should she have known this? She probably should have known this.

Cid didn't seem bothered by her confusion, either. "When we spoke a couple days back, I said you were welcome to crash at my place until this all blows over," Cid recapped, without a hint of the annoyance or sarcasm she'd expected to continue over from earlier. "There's nobody there that'll give you shit for setting foot outside your own damn house if I tell 'em not to. You worked hard, getting where you got. And I'm proud of you, even if all those assholes ain't. You know that, right?"

What do I say? asked Aeris frantically. But Cloud either didn't want to tell her, or was at a loss for words himself. Something swelled in her chest and crept up into her throat. She was sad? Happy? Disappointed? This one felt more complicated. She wished he'd stop doing it.

Aeris nodded, doing her best to look as though this were a normal conversation between... brothers? cousins? in-laws? What exactly constituted a "family" in this culture, anyway?

It was a normal conversation, right? Maybe it wasn't. Maybe someone had died recently.

"You're a good kid, Cloud," said Cid, beginning to pack up the tools. The swelling feeling intensified again, and for some reason Aeris felt a strong impulse to cry. Or at least to do something. For a brief moment she felt as though she would absolutely without question die for this man in a heartbeat.

Over "you can sleep on my couch for a while", apparently. And yet here he was acting as though this man had just proposed to him.

She'd take the outdoors again in an instant before she had to sit through another second of this. It was gawking at a funeral times a million.

"...Thanks," she said eventually, though she was sure it sounded insincere.

There was movement above her -- god, there was way too much movement everywhere -- and a moment later the woman from earlier, Tifa, reappeared at the bottom of the stairs.

"There you are. I thought we were gonna try to limit collateral damage."

Aeris looked at Cid uncertainly.

"Thought we'd get some work done," said Cid. "This way he stays inside, yeah?"

"You're right next to a door," said Tifa.

"I was watching him!"

"I'm not gonna go back outside," said Aeris. She'd had enough of that nightmare to last a lifetime.

Tifa frowned. "...I'd still feel better if you were closer by than that. C'mon." She disappeared up the stairs again. Aeris nervously followed.

They were shut up in the bathroom again with little fanfare. Tifa sat on the edge of the bathtub, and Aeris sat down under the towels against the wall.

How are your families typically structured? Are all these people blood relatives? It was as good of a time to ask as any.

No, was the unhelpful reply she got.

...I see. Well... how do families typically form?

Well, my mother laid a clutch of about thirty eggs, said Cloud. Then when we hatch we dig our way out of the broodhole. We're raised communally by all the fathers, and whoever manages to eat their siblings the fastest gets to pupate and reach adulthood.

And... how long would you say each phase is? This was a lot to write down...

About three months as an infant, six years as a larvae. I'm twelve years old.

Oh. Really? You're very articulate.

No. All of that was bullshit. And about tonberries.

Aeris sighed heavily. Sir, I am trying to -- why are you making this difficult on both of us?

Because I hate you, said Cloud. Because -- because this is all I have, because I can't move or fight you off or ask for help or anything. You could make me slit my throat or someone else's right now and I wouldn't be able to stop you, and the only guarantee I have that you won't is that you want me to "trust" you. Like I have a choice not to. Like... as though it would matter even if I didn't. Which I don't.

...I wouldn't do that, Cloud. I would hope you'd believe no one would do something like that.

They would, he spat. If someone had that kind of power, they would in a heartbeat, just to prove they could.

"Are you okay?"came Tifa's voice again, making her jump and interrupting her reply. She was staring at her concernedly. "You seem upset about something."

"It's nothing," said Aeris. Tifa simply crossed her arms.

"Cloud, you were in a coma over this, and you're still... we promised, didn't we?" She moved from her spot on the bathtub and sat next to him. Very close. Very very close.

"You can tell me. I won't hate you, I just want to know. I'm worried," she said.

You made her worry, came the bitter reply in her head. It wasn't me. It was you. You made her worry.

"It's..." Aeris faltered. Tell me what to say.

I don't know what to say.

Is she your sister? Is she your wife? Do you have either of those things here? She's still staring at me.

She's not my sister. I don't have any relatives.

"Cloud? If there's something wrong, you can let me know about it," repeated Tifa, but this time her words were tinged with suspicion.

"I'm perfectly fine," said Aeris.

Tifa's eyes narrowed. "...Really."

"Yes."

"So, if you're fine, you won't mind going back to a hospital for a quick check-up."

"Yeah that's -- that's fine."

Tifa's eyes widened -- whatever she had been expecting, it apparently wasn't that.

And just like that, Aeris was forced onto her back and pinned to the floor, her head impacting with the tile with a loud crack.

"You're not Cloud," she said. "You're not Cloud, you're --" and then she did something odd, and used her free hand to grab Aeris's left arm and yank it into view. The arm -- Cloud's arm, was absolutely covered in scars. The vast majority of them appeared to be some sort of acid burn.

Tifa looked from the arm back to Aeris. "What..."

"He's safe," she said, trying her best to sound calm and reassuring. "He isn't in any pain. He can hear you."

"Give him back," she demanded, and Aeris was certain there was fear undercutting her tone. Tifa moved her hands to his neck. "I thought -- I thought you were dead. I thought we killed you."

Aeris frowned. "Killed...?"

Tifa was staring at Aeris now, looking rather upset. She hadn't actually started squeezing yet.

"...I won't do it, you know," she said. "I know what you're trying to do, and I won't do it."

Do what? What is she talking about?

I tried to make her promise that if anyone ever did to me again what you're doing to me now, she'd kill me. She didn't want to promise.

Aeris was now staring at Tifa, alarmed and confused and still aching slightly. What do you mean, "again"?

...None of your business.

No help. None at all. Absolutely ridiculous. "...I don't -- I don't want you to kill him. I'm going to sit up again, alright?"

Tifa did not move. "What did you do to him?"

"I'm not sure. That's what Cloud is supposed to be helping me find out," said Aeris. The sarcasm seemed to confuse her further, and she sighed again.

"I just want to help," she said. "I'm going to sit up, and hopefully we can talk about this."

Tifa stared at her for another moment, then slowly moved off to the side. Aeris sat up, rubbing the back of her head. Her fingers lingered over the outlines of several more scars she could feel under the hair. Perfectly curved -- maybe surgical in nature? They seemed to be from before the recent accident, given she couldn't feel any bald patches. Odd.

"Introductions are in order, I think," said Aeris. "What's your name?"

Tifa stared at her. And stared. And stared.

"You mean you don't know?" she said eventually.

Aeris opened her mouth to reply and got a lungful of warm tank air. Zack was leaning over her.

"Sorry for cutting you off, but we didn't wanna keep you drugged for too long," he explained.

"That's alright," she said. She felt as though she'd hit a wall with that particular session anyway.

"This is -- this is incredible," said Zack when they were going over the data half an hour later. "I mean, it's -- wow. You know?"

"I think I do," said Aeris. She looked around at the team -- they seemed elated. She envied them a bit -- they hadn't had to also endure someone panicking into their head for the last few hours. "Where's Tseng?"

"'Compiling data.' Sulking, more like," said Cissnei. "He's a bit disappointed to find out it's just humans."

"Your idea of smoothing things over is interesting," said Angeal dryly. "They don't seem to like you much more than they did before."

"They probably never will," said Zack, shrugging. "This guy clearly has a chip on his shoulder about the whole thing."

"Well they'll need to if we want to keep this project going," said Aeris, setting a dry towel down on a desk a bit too hard. "How are we supposed to get information like 'atmospheric makeup' and 'cultural basics' from someone like this? There's -- he can tell us something, I suppose, at least about himself, but he doesn't seem to want to."

"You'll have to compensate for damages somehow."

"How am I supposed to do that?" grumbled Aeris. "Run back home, pick him some flowers, and take them into the tank with me? If you're so smart, you figure it out."

"Well for starters, you can loosen up a little," said Zack.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"You're treating this like it's customer service, and he's mad because his food had a hair in it," said Zack.

"Show me where I made light of --"

"Nah, not like that. I mean, look at what you're saying." Zack quickly went back over to a computer and scrolled up through her transcript. "'I am doing my best, Mr. Strife. You're going to have to work with me.' 'I understand you are frustrated.' Seems like he's got an issue with authority figures, and you trying to be one of those and getting mad at him probably isn't helping. You gotta pick one. At least then he'll know where you're coming from."

Aeris eyed him amusedly. "Do you have a psychology doctorate as well?"

"Nah. I think Lazard does, though. Right, Lazard?"

"I don't," said Lazard. "Please remain focused."

"That's no good. Six people cooped up in one tiny space and no shrink for any of us." Zack leaned back in his chair and spun back around to face Aeris again. "Honestly, though, if it were me, I wouldn't want a professional anyone giving me orders."

"I assumed, if it were me, I'd want to know someone in the equation knew what they were doing," said Aeris, yawning as the drugs started to creep up on her again.

"But you'd want it to be you, right?"

"...I would."

"You don't get out much do you?" asked Zack. "No offense."

"...Not really," admitted Aeris. "Between the constant moving and getting jumped a bunch of grades, it was hard to find anyone to talk to. Why, do you?"

Zack snorted. "I wish. Been on a bunch of teams with testosterone-fueled asshats, though, and you've gotta be good at handling people that don't wanna be handled."

"Oh?"

"Hey, if you're reading into that for anything about you, that's on your end, not mine," said Zack, switching off the monitor. "Just saying, it's worth a shot. Not like he's gonna hate you more."

"Alright," said Aeris. "With a couple changes."

 

---

 

"Deep breaths. Come on."

It had been a good thing they were already in the bathroom. One of the first things Cloud had done upon regaining his senses was hunch over the toilet seat and spit up the contents of his stomach into it as Tifa rubbed his back. The nausea hadn't been as bad this time. It seemed to mostly be from nerves.

"I'm okay," said Cloud. "I'm fine." He was still shaking, he knew. But there was something he'd had this time that he'd been missing the last several times, and that was control. Or at least the illusion of it, which was still better than nothing.

They'd finally moved him out of the bathroom, given the danger had passed, and they had him back in his room sandwiched between Tifa and Cid, who hadn't made eye contact with either one of them.

Cid took a deep breath. “...I shoulda said something, and I didn’t. Just figured you were outta your head like normal.”

Cloud nodded. “It’s okay.”

Tifa cleared her throat nervously. "How long were you...?"

"Since before, in the bathroom," replied Cloud.

"Barret told me to check on you." Tifa hadn't looked at Cid, either. "He said you were acting weird."

"Where is he now?"

"Out with Marlene," said Cid. "He's trying to get someone to watch her while he deals with this. No sense in keeping her cooped up here with us."

"He can leave if he wants," said Cloud. "I wouldn't mind." It wasn't fair to either of them. Not to anyone here, really, but especially Barret and Marlene.

"Well, he's staying here. His choice. Ain't nothin' anyone can do about that."

Cloud nodded. He didn't really understand why. If any of them had a right to bail on this dumpster fire, it was Barret. He thought back, trying to come up with a single moment that would explain any of it.

As incidental as it was, Jessie had been the first one to actually touch him.

He realised months later that it must have technically been Tifa, carrying him home from the Sector 2 landfill while on a supply run, bringing home a body and an extra mouth to feed instead of the raw materials for weapons she was supposed to have been salvaging. But Jessie had been the first one he'd been conscious of.

"You've got soot on your face," she'd said, and before he could actually reply she'd already spat on the corner of her shirt and carefully wiped it off. Her hand had lingered for perhaps a bit longer than had been appropriate, but Cloud hadn't noticed. The unexpected contact had come as a shock, as was the question it had prompted -- when was the last time anyone had actually touched him? It must have been a few weeks before he'd signed on with Avalanche, hadn't it? He was pretty sure he'd had plenty of friends in Soldier. Someone had probably brushed up against him or shaken his hand or something. But it still felt like a lot longer, somehow.

The second one had been Barret. Tifa had been asking him all sorts of questions -- questions he knew the obvious answers to, but she hadn't stopped staring. He wasn't sure if she was displeased with him or not. She was so hard to read. Barret, he could deal with because Barret was uncomplicated -- Barret hated him because he was an asshole and an "expensive leech", and Cloud did his best to live up to that reputation, because who cared what Barret thought? Nothing complicated with that, and Cloud liked things uncomplicated.

So it had come as another, even greater shock when they were in Kalm when Barret had approached him as they were packing up to leave.

"I know none of that was easy to talk about, but I'm glad you did. And I want you to know, I'm seein' this through to the end if you are."

And then he'd put his hand on his shoulder.

Barret said something else after that. Cloud didn't remember what it was, because all he'd been paying attention to was the warmth of the hand on his shoulder.

It hadn't been anything remarkably intimate, he knew -- he'd had loads of squadmates in Soldier that had definitely done the same thing. And he was sure they liked him better than Barret did.

It just seemed like a long time, was all. And it actually felt really nice.

And he found himself badly wanting it more.

Barret took his hand off his shoulder after he was finished saying whatever it was he was saying and walked away, and Cloud didn't know how to ask him to please do it again, for longer this time.

It was such a juvenile thing to want, too; Soldiers probably didn't care about that sort of thing.

And just like that, the notion was gone, and he barely remembered thinking it in the first place.

Chapter 13: If You Thought This Story Was Dialogue-Heavy Already Then Buddy Have I Got Some News For You

Notes:

I really need to stop second-guessing chapters because it just causes delays and GOOD GOLLY was a lot of garbage posted in this tag in my absence. Longer chapter than usual to make up for that and wipe away the bad taste a front page full of rapefic and paedoshit and repetitive garbage tends to leave in one's mouth.

Also I'd just like to mention my recommended videos are full of industrial lathe accidents and eye surgery now and YouTube refuses to show me anything else. The sacrifices I've made for this stupid ass story. You're welcome.

Thank you to belderiver, limbostratus, Sanctum_C, and Raaj, because this one needed a lot of work.

Cloud had been doing paperwork for the last three hours. He eventually learned it was three hours because Tifa had come to him in the middle of hour two, wondering what he'd been up to. He'd said "nothing", and as far as he knew that was accurate because none of the work was done and he had been sure before it had only been ten minutes. He'd been staring at the holes in his wall for longer than he'd thought.

Everything felt fuzzy today. It was Yuffie's turn to watch him right now, and he'd blanked out twice in the middle of her conversation. She'd said something to him. About him? Maybe. He knew he'd said something, too. She'd said something after that, but without the sentence before it he didn't know how he was supposed to reply to this one.

"...Yes?" he offered.

Yuffie crossed her arms. "What did I just ask you?"

He didn't know. He was supposed to know, wasn't he? If he didn't know the answer fast enough, she'd be mad, and --

"I was asking you if you needed help with expenses. You said yes, and then I asked you which part you wanted me to work on first," said Yuffie. Was she mad? She was probably mad now.

"Oh," said Cloud.

"Well, let me have a look," she said, and leaned over the form he was working on. She stared at it, then looked back at Cloud.

"So... is this a prank?" said Yuffie, and held up the paper he'd been working on for him to see. He'd blacked out most of the form, nearly every inch covered in formless scribbles.

"That's..." Now that she had brought it to his attention, Cloud did have a vague memory of doing that. It had made sense at the time, and he knew it wasn't right now, but couldn't quite put his finger on why that would be the case.

"It's that modern art you hear so much about, right?" said Yuffie, before crumpling the paper. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes."

"You are Cloud, right?"

"Yeah." He was, wasn't he? "I'm Cloud. I'm Cloud."

"Prove it. What did you get me for my birthday?"

"Water canteen. Materia inlay. I made it." She was mad. If she was mad at him, they'd make him listen for longer this time. There was a chemical tang to the air.

"...Yeah, I guess so. So did you want help with this stuff or not?"

"...What?" She wanted something. He didn't know what. He was supposed to know. She would be mad.

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "Y'know, let's do this later." Something seemed to click for her, and she turned back to him. Cloud flinched at the sudden movement.

"Tell me what you want to do later," said Yuffie pointedly. Cloud stared at her. He couldn't seem to point his thoughts in any particular direction right now. Doing later. What you want to do. What I want to do. I want. Want to do I want I am I want. A muscle in his arm spasmed.

Yuffie seemed to take his hesitation as a sign and wheeled his office chair over to the bed before dumping him out of it onto the blankets. There was too much noise in his own head, drowning out his own thoughts, and then drowning out him. There was a woman fussing about him, positioning him against something soft and folding him into a shape for her to slip in next to so she could write words into him more easily. He was melting into the walls, which were already covered with the words he'd let leak out. His arm arced out involuntarily, grasping frantically at something that wasn’t there.

The bits of him that used to be Cloud dissolved back into the green. It was too much trouble to be anyone, let alone be Cloud, right now. This is fine, was the last thought he managed to have for a while.

Schhhhhhick.

The sound was satisfyingly smooth, as good as the blade felt in his hand, lighter than air despite the reinforced steel it was supposedly made of. His breathing was heavy, his blood pounding in his ears, the scent of combat, of adrenaline and sweat and a mix of hormones he didn't even know how to describe, hanging richly in the air. A red heat sprayed up his arm and into his face. He let the body of the monster he'd run through slump off his sword, leaving it on the ground where it had fallen next to what remained of the other three.

A buzzer sounded, and he lay the sword down on the floor in front of him and stepped away, kneeling on the ground and putting his hands behind his head. Some of the blood ran past his nose and into his mouth, delivering a wealth of information that only parts of him, the old parts, could use. The lab aides quickly rushed in and began removing various sensors from him that had been monitoring his vitals, and the guards quickly escorted him out of the examination room once they were done.

He had grown taller in the time he'd been here (one year? ten?) -- not a whole lot taller, since he had never exactly been large, but enough to be the last bit of height he had to go. No longer a boy, very nearly a man. They had improved him, for which he was grateful. It felt good to be as strong as he was, to know he was better, the same way he knew he was taller. To know he was being made whole. To perform well for them, all these humans that had made him everything he was, and to finally begin whispering back to Mother.

The things he fought varied from week to week in size and shape, but they were otherwise generally consistent -- older specimens. The bad ones, the ones that didn't work out, and were consigned to the storage room until a use had been found for them. In this case, that use was bettering him, Series 3 of the Jenova Project. Giving him something to cut through, so they could measure how skillfully he did it. That was all they were good for.

Not like him. Not like Cloud.

In front of his cell, they were met with Hojo standing in the hallway accompanied by a pair of guards of his own, his hands steepled expectantly. Cloud stood and waited to be addressed.

"Welcome back, Series 3. It seems congratulations are in order."

Cloud waited, either for the professor to be finished speaking, or for him to be given orders to speak.

"Your performance this week has been excellent thus far," he continued, now only barely managing to stare down at Cloud due to his recent growth spurt. "My expectations for you were quite high as it stood, and yet in the three years since this leg of the project began, you have still managed to exceed them by leaps and bounds."

Cloud nodded after a moment, judging the risks of speaking unprompted. It appeared to be expected here, though. "Thank you, professor," he said.

"Your cooperation has been noted as well. I have therefore decided that you are worth investing in at this stage, as the potential next iteration of Soldier... among other things," he said, clearly pleased with his work. "And the President happens to agree. As such, I think we're due for a few formalities. As well as certain rewards, for good behaviour."

He stepped back and nodded to the guards escorting him to open the door to his cell. Cloud kept his eyes on the ground so Hojo wouldn't see the confusion in them. He should know what was going on, probably. Shouldn't he?

He was led inside, and the door wasn't shut immediately behind him prompting him to actually look up around himself. His eyes landed on his cot, and his mouth fell open.

It was a sword. A real sword, a proper sword, one that he probably wouldn't break by putting his full strength behind it. It was massive, nearly as tall as him, and more than half as wide. The blade was finely sharpened, the metal engraved, with a hinge near the base with a couple hollows for storing materia directly in the blade, for easier spell channeling. A sword that must have needed to be specially commissioned, which wouldn't be done for just anyone. A sword designed with an incredible amount of strength and destructive power in the arm of the wielder in mind.

A Soldier First Class's sword.

His sword.

Next to it, neatly folded, was a distinctive uniform and a pauldron.

Cloud's knees went weak.

Hojo watched intently from the doorway as Cloud knelt down next to it and reached out a shaking hand to grasp the hilt. "Perform well enough, and perhaps one day when the world is ready for you it will be official."

His arms suddenly felt like jelly as well, and he supported the blade with his other hand, looking it over. It was his sword. His. Just like a Soldier.

"Thank you," he managed to choke out.

"Hm." The guards began to file out. Cloud didn't look back at any of them, busy looking at his sword. His sword.

"Earn it." The door slid shut.

I will, though Cloud, the sword sitting on his lap, the uniform pressed into his face. I will. I will.

He fell asleep that night, on his cot and under his blanket that he had earned, next to his sword, the First Class uniform clutched to his chest. He really should have put it away, but he didn't want to let it out of his sight so soon. Clothes were a privilege and not a right.

He was looking forward to putting them on, but the next morning he was told to strip, and was then sprayed off with the hoses in preparation for an operation. Dr. Crescent was there, which meant it was probably an important one.

Once the sedatives were in his system he couldn't do much more than move his eyes, but from what he could see from his position on the operating table, there was something in a box that she and Hojo seemed excited about. It looked almost like a materia, and had the same sort of magical tug around it as one, but Cloud had never seen a white materia before.

He was jarred from any further contemplation when the operation began, the searing pain of the scalpel carving into his chest below his right pectoral making it significantly hard to focus on anything at all. He caught a word every now and then, about the Ancients, contact, naturally receptive. He couldn't make much sense of it, and it made even less sense when the materia was lowered into his abdominal cavity and the slow, excruciating process of sewing up what wouldn’t heal right away had begun. After the drugs wore off, he kept quiet; both because he had not yet been addressed, and because something was concerning him.

It was strange -- although he was very, very much in contact with the materia now, the spell didn't come to him. There was no rush of knowledge, no easy recollection of all the ways one could reach into the Planet. It seemed to be reaching to him, trying to pull him somewhere, but to where he wasn't sure.

Maybe it was just because his chest hurt too much to focus. He hoped they wouldn't ask, because "nothing" was almost always a wrong answer.

After another hour or so, when he had been deposited back in his cell, he eagerly changed into the uniform -- his uniform -- and looked at his reflection in the sword. He was stronger now, his muscles more defined, and his features were sharper and more mature-looking than they had been when he was fourteen. The uniform was a bit big on him, since most Soldiers trended away from a slight build, but the shirt fit comfortably. His eyes were unmistakably glowing, and they even looked a little bit like Sephiroth's did, the pupils still just a bit more biconvex than they were perfectly round like a human's, as dilated as they were as the sedatives slowly worked their way out of his system.

It had been quite a while since he had seen his reflection (months? years?), and it was with a small jolt that he realised it was him, in that Soldier uniform, with those mako eyes, looking like a grown-up. He spent the rest of the night staring back at his reflection in the dim (though not for him) light provided by his eyes.

He didn't feel any older. He couldn't quite remember how old he'd been when he had first come here. Fifteen? Maybe sixteen. He'd been thinking of himself as such for long enough. The further back he thought, the less there was to remember. Maybe the doctors knew how old he was.

Could he buy lottery tickets? Cigarettes? Booze? Could he get married? Own a house? It had been a long time since he'd thought about any of these things, but looking at his face -- a man's face, a Soldier's face -- brought it all flooding back. These were things he wanted when he was younger. Things that came with being a grown man in Soldier.

For the first time in a while, he thought about the name tied to all those old worries. Cloud. This is what Cloud wanted, wasn't it?

He quashed the thought almost immediately, as though it were an unpleasant image. It wasn't allowed to be his name. That was bad, like Cloud. He knew how to not do anything bad anymore.

He realised after another moment that much of it wouldn't matter -- he was Shinra's now, and if Shinra hadn't mentioned these things to him yet, they probably wouldn't at any later point either. He wouldn't need any property beyond his sword, or companionship beyond the company. Shinra was his home. He rarely ate food these days either, receiving much of his nutrition intravenously.

There was something else he had wanted with Soldier, too, the reason it had been his dream, but he couldn't remember what it was anymore.

It probably wasn't important.

 

---

 

There was something that felt wrong this time. It was night, Aeris could tell. She'd deliberately waited to avoid another encounter with Cloud's family in the middle of the day. One thing at a time.

She was pretty sure Cloud was here -- at least, something was. But there were no thoughts coming from the presence; no steady stream of resentment bleeding into her perception. It was little more than a niggling feeling in the back of her head, the way the "whiteboard" was.

She felt something on her hand and looked down -- there was a young woman sitting next to Cloud in bed, her fingers laced around his. She appeared to have fallen asleep sitting next to him. He had been propped up against the wall. Some sort of animal appeared to be asleep across his lap. It was quiet here, and both the woman and the animal were curled up quite closely to her. The blanket even seemed to be handmade. It would have been nice if it didn’t feel incredibly intrusive, which she supposed it was.

It's me again, said Aeris. No response. That wasn't right.

...Hello? Cloud? If you're willing, I'd like to talk. And apologise

Something seemed to brush up against her as she said his name, but it was so faint she wasn't sure she imagined it. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on it.

She felt her way towards the something -- there was something here. She was sure of it. As she listened, she could feel bits of thought occasionally congealing before disappearing again. Something was definitely wrong here.

Well, she didn't know what this was. But someone else would.

She extracted her hand from the young woman's and gently shook her. "Psst. Wake up," she whispered.

The young woman did not wake up. The animal did, and she managed to choke down a gasp as she saw that it was apparently on fire. Before she could shake the woman harder, the animal opened its mouth.

"You're awake!" it said. "I was worried, you haven't been this long in a while..."

"...You talked."

The animal (wolf? lion? it certainly seemed too big to be a dog) stared at her, cocking its head to the side, and then bared its teeth.

"You're not Cloud," it said in a growl.

"I -- no, I'm not. I came to apologise," said Aeris. "What's wrong with Cloud? He's not... he's not here."

"And whose fault is that?" It had walked itself forward and was now snarling in her face.

"Not mine. He was like this when I got here."

"Well, you're most likely making it worse."

"Just -- listen," Aeris hissed. "I came here to try and fix things. And I can't do that if I don't know what's going on because no one will tell me anything."

"...Cloud is having an episode," said the... something, glancing at a digital clock by the bed -- a digital clock that used a twelve hour system, maybe? "This one has lasted ten hours and forty-nine minutes. I had hoped he had finally thrown it off, but it was just you."

"An episode of what?" There shouldn’t be any reason what she’d been doing would have given him any brain damage (well, apart from the incident with the coma), but anything further and she’d have to call off the project anyway. Talking was one thing. Scrambling someone’s brains was another.

"Cloud has sustained severe and continuous psychic damage over the last decade. It is difficult for him to maintain his sense of self. It is an ongoing battle, and on occasion he loses ground."

"What do you mean, ‘psychic damage’? From what?”

“That is Cloud’s business. Not yours.”

“And... how long is he usually like this?"

"It's difficult to say. It could be a few hours, or a few days. His longest was a little over two weeks."

Two weeks with their contact point out of commission... that could end the project, and doing things achronologically was nigh unworkable.

She had another thought, then, of a headline -- “DISGRACED SCIENTIST FIRED. RUINS THE LIFE OF BRAIN-DAMAGED BYSTANDER. ACTUALLY WORSE THAN MENGELE.” She pushed it away.

"What's your name?" asked Aeris. The dog-thing stared at her suspiciously.

"Nanaki. I am visiting until Cloud gets better and you go away."

"And you're..." Calling something that could talk a "pet" would probably be a bit rude, even if she was reasonably certain that was the case in one way or another. Who else let their friends sleep in their beds? Not that she couldn’t see why. She wondered if he would allow her to feel his fur.

"I am Nanaki," said Nanaki shortly. "I'll be waking Yuffie now."

"Wait!"

Nanaki stared at her. "For what?"

"...Maybe I could help. I can sort of feel him... moving?" That wasn't the right word. "He's here. I could talk to him."

"You do that. I am going to wake Yuffie now anyway."

"Don't --" she shook her head and let it drop. Priorities -- dealing with whatever fugue state this was.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the strange presence that wasn't the whiteboard. If she hadn't been deliberately looking for it, she wouldn't have noticed it as anything more than occasional intrusive thoughts in the back of her mind. Whatever it was, it wasn't truly thinking.

She tried writing to it in the way she wrote to the whiteboard. Hello, she said.

Hello came the reply, but it was merely an echo of her own words; stimulus, response.

It's me Aeris, she thought. It's me Aeris, echoed the parts that weren't really a person. They began to twist closer to her.

I came here to talk to you. If you can hear me please give me a sign. Again, she heard the not-a-person echo her thoughts -- no, not echo. They'd been thinking them at the same time.

Cloud? Are you there? No, not thinking them -- she was thinking with those bits, as though they were just another part of her mind.

They began to congeal around her, and more and more they became another part of her thoughts. Stop it, they said, or she said. She tried to say to them, anyway, but there didn't seem to be any of them left.

He was gone. How could he be gone? He had just been there -- and now here he was, twisted up so deeply into her she couldn't tell what was her own mind and what was him, mimicking.

Not good. Not good at all, he had to be here; she searched her own thoughts frantically. She was here to talk to Cloud, and Zack had her count to thirty before she came here, and Lazard had taken a blood sample from her as part of a routine checkup --

She felt a thrill of repulsion run through her, and a very small part of her said no.

She thought more about the appointment. It had been just in case constantly drugging her was having adverse effects on her, she remembered. She had looked away from the needle going in, but she had watched it on the way out.

The thing that said no pulled away further, and it seemed to recognise itself then. Parts of her turned out to be the pieces she'd collected, and more and more of them identified themselves -- never again -- broke his arm -- I don't belong here. It became easier and easier to find the parts that had convinced themselves they weren't parts of anything else. She pulled away from some, and pushed others in towards each other, each thought connecting to another idea that distinctly wasn't her, and for some reason despised having its blood drawn.

It was still twisted up against her, but it was distinctly no longer her.

Who, it asked. She hadn't told him to do that.

Are you feeling alright? she replied.

I'm here, he said, as if to remind himself. I'm here. I'm Cloud.

Someone was touching her, and she opened her eyes to see Yuffie twisting her arm behind her back. She sighed. "I'm not going anywhere," said Aeris.

"Fat chance," said the woman. "I shoulda kept a better eye on you last time."

Aeris sat up and pulled her arms away from her back -- Cloud was a lot stronger than her, it seemed. She still needed to ask about that business with the motorcycle.

"See? I’m helping. I can hear him," said Aeris. "There's something wrong with his head. What do I do?"

"You leave," said Nanaki.

"Fine. I'll figure it out myself. Should be easy enough," said Aeris, and closed her eyes again.

I'm here, she could hear him saying. He was still built around her and through her, using her to define what was and wasn't himself.

...I thought I'd apologise, said Aeris. I likely sounded bossy and rude. So I thought I could start by telling you a little about myself in exchange.

Cloud said nothing. She wasn't sure if he could really hear her.

I'm from Reading, and I study physics in London. That's a really large city in the United Kingdom. We have a queen, and a prime minister. Neither one of them really does much of anything for the country, but at least people like the queen. Sort of. Sometimes. It felt strange, narrating to herself and knowing someone was there to listen.

My parents, they studied physics as well. Most people in England, they live with their parents until they become adults. Mine are gone though. I didn't know many people besides them, so it was very difficult. She could feel him listening now, a gentle probing against what she was saying. When I turned out to be good at physics too, it was decided that I should get into the field as well. It's all very fascinating. And now, I'm picking up the project they left behind.

I'm not from Reading, she heard him say, as though trying to convince himself.

No, I'd imagine you aren't, said Aeris. Where are you from?

Nibelheim. I'm from Edge. I'm from Nibelheim. I'm from 6 7 dark in the storage room don't make me go back don't want to go back I'm from 3 I'm from Nibelheim Sector 7 Edge Nibelheim Midgar please don't make be go back 7th Heaven off Reedgrass and 25th.

She needed to get him... out, for lack of a better word. This was too much information too fast. She wondered if he was getting about the same experience from her.

Then he asked, Yuffie?

Aeris started slightly. ...No, I'm not Yuffie. I'm Aeris. I came to apologise.

She didn't get a response that was articulated with any words, but there was a good amount of confusion and unease rather than the expected hostility.

I'm not from Reading, he said again. I'm not from Reading...

Something clicked into place then, and she felt a stab of pain shoot through her that had her gasping out loud. She reached up to grasp at her head, but her arm stopped halfway and put itself back down.

"She's here again," she felt herself involuntarily say.

"Yeah, I know," said the woman. "What should I do? Should I get Tifa, or... you're awake."

"I am," said Cloud, as Aeris felt her jaw part and her mouth moving to form words she had no input in making. And then she blurted out, "I said I was here to help. I just want to talk. I --"

Her speech broke off into a sharp gagging noise as the throat they were both using tried to say two things at once. Nanaki looked between her and the other woman helplessly.

"I'm going to talk to Cloud for a bit," she said slowly. "Then I will leave."

"...Two hours," said Yuffie. "Or I'll..." she glanced at Nanaki, who didn't seem to know how to finish the threat either.

"Yes. Two hours." She closed her eyes again and leaned back against the wall again.

What happened? she asked Cloud. He must have still been a bit disoriented, because what he said next didn't make much sense.

I've been trying to push in since you started doing this, but it was too hard. You let me in. I thought you did this. I don't know why you let me think and move this time, and not the others.

...What do you mean? The others? The earlier runs, probably.

That's the only way I know to describe it. I wanted to move but you wouldn't let me. And now you are letting me. That's what it feels like.

Well -- look, I was serious when I said I was sorry, pressed Aeris. So... if I'm gonna ask you a bunch of questions, then you should ask something too. Does that sound fair?

...You helped me, said Cloud.

Sorry?

You... in my head, you talked to me. It... it helps to hear people talk.

Oh. Well... least I can do.

He was quiet for a while. He seemed conflicted about something.

...How are you doing this? he asked eventually.

Well, began Aeris, I do a lot of very complicated calculations based around that signal I mentioned earlier -- the one we found coming from this world, that has something to do with you. Then I get into a tank with a lid that's filled with liquid gallium, and some other metals. Brainwaves are just electrical signals, after all. We pick up those signals, and we can tweak one set of signals into another to match mine.

Is that what you're doing now? he asked.

Yes. Technically I'm asleep right now. I'm writing down what we're saying on -- well, that's another conversation. I'm keeping track of it, though.

...So, you didn't... do anything to me?

What do you mean? she asked nervously. Whatever the implication was, it seemed unpleasant.

To do this. You didn't do anything to me. I'm not... I'm not different from how I was before you started this?

I doubt it, said Aeris. I don't quite understand why the data we obtained led us to you, but since it did, I don't think it's very possible that we might have based that data on you before even meeting you.

...So, we're humans. And so are you, apparently.

Well… I think so, said Aeris. In a manner of speaking.

"In a manner of speaking"?

Yes. You mostly look like what humans in my world look like, but I think there might be a few differences. I'm not certain. Your family seems to be what I'm used to... mostly, anyway, the wolflion was new, but I couldn't help but notice your eyes --

Aeris felt her fists clench involuntarily.

What about 'em?

A sore subject. Perhaps there were different subspecies of humans, and this one was a minority. Well... I noticed earlier they glow. We have animals that naturally produce light in my world, but humans usually aren't one of them. Does it impair your vision any?

Shouldn't you know that by now? he deadpanned.

I... yes, I suppose I should. Are there many humans with glowing eyes here?

Not anymore, said Cloud. And it's not a normal thing. They're from mako treatments.

...What's mako?

There was a pause. What do you mean, what's mako? It's -- never mind. They used to use it to power stuff --

-- until it was outlawed. Yes, I remember that from yesterday. But... it's a medication, as well as a fuel source?

Not a medication. Performance enhancer. I've had five years worth of shots and tissue infusions of it.

Performance... that's how you lifted that motorcycle. Not everyone can do that?

No. Just me.

And anyone else that's had those... injections. Are they legal? How many others are there?

They were legal -- they were issued by Shinra. And there's nobody left anymore. They're all dead.

Was it a health compli --

I thought I was asking the questions here, snapped Cloud.

I'm trying to get some common ground here. A lot of what you've been saying doesn't make much sense to me. Things like "materia" and "mako" and --

Well... maybe you can tell me the kinds of things you do know, he said, and for some reason this reply didn't seem as testy as the others.

I could tell you about the people on the team with me.

...How many of you are there?

There’s six of us. I suppose technically there’s more, since we’re funded by CERN, but there’s six of us specifically on this project.

...What’s CERN?

It’s the organisation I’m part of. We study physics.

Physics? He said it as though he didn’t quite believe her.

Yes. You know, different kinds of matter, spacetime, dark energy. Things like that.

So if you’re a physicist, how come you’re messing around with me?

Like I said before, that’s what I want to find out. This was an accident, sort of, finding you. We know how this works, but not so much why. Or maybe it’s the other way around…

Just physics, though?

Well, I mostly study physics. So does Fair, albeit a different application of them. And Hewley mostly does maths, which is sort of a purer form of physics -- which we’ll need when we start planning things like navigation. Lazard is a medical doctor, just in case something goes wrong, because we won’t be able to leave for medical attention.

...And why’s that?

Well, this place is a clean room, isn’t it? Say one of us showed up on your doorstep tomorrow --

Please don’t.

...Hypothetically. If I came straight there, there’s a good chance both of us would die.

Probably. If I didn’t kill you, someone else would.

That’s… well, that’s not really what I meant. Like… let’s say -- you have colds in your world, right? Something you get sick with for a day or two?

Yeah, we have colds and the flu and stuff.

Well, let’s say that we didn’t. If I went to your house and was around you, I’d pick up whatever you were carrying and bring it back home with me. Even if it didn’t make you very sick, it could kill us because we have no natural immunity to it and no way to treat it. The same goes for you. So we’re locked in here with no contact from anyone else for a few weeks at a time, for your safety and ours. There’s an even cleaner clean room in the middle of the facility too.

Sounds like you’re talking about a lab.

There are parts of it that are labs, yes. Tseng has one for biology things. I don’t really understand much of what he’ll be doing, but then that’s why he’s doing it and not me. But viruses are viruses. Even if neither one of us are sick, we could still transmit something to one another.

...What do you mean? There was a hint of suspicion in his “voice” again, but this time it seemed tinged with interest.

Well, the way I understand it, viruses make more of themselves by changing your DNA to pump out more of them. Even after you’ve recovered, they’re still there in your system for good -- sorry, I’m not -- you’re familiar with the concept of DNA, right? Do you call it something else?

We know what DNA is, he said shortly. And I know how viruses work.

Ah… good. Then you know how --

Yes.

I haven’t even said anything.

I know what viruses are.

...Out of curiosity, what do you know about them?

There was another pause as he seemed to be considering something.

Most of what you already said. They latch onto a host, rewrite the DNA of the host cell. Really contagious. They’re sort of… the odd phylum out, because they’re alive, but they’re not actually alive the way bacteria are, and that’s a hard thing to wrap your head around. They exist to make more of themselves because that’s what they are. Anything in that weird in-between space that acts the way that does, we call that a virus.

That seems about right, said Aeris, even if the last bit hadn’t quite been clear. For someone with a hatred of modern medicine he sure seemed to know a lot about it. Do they usually teach that kind of thing in schools here?

I guess so. We went over it a little before I dropped out. I didn’t learn it in school though.

...When did you drop out? He did seem the type, now that he mentioned it.

I kinda stopped going to classes when I was eleven. But I left officially when I was thirteen. Spent three months on the road on the way to Midgar. Probably missed a lot of stuff I should know, but Tifa usually helps me out with the bookwork.

...Why did you leave? Aeris herself had technically finished grade school when she was thirteen, but leaving voluntarily was completely unthinkable. Was it a money issue? How long does school usually last?

Sort of. I thought it would be nice to help out Ma with the whole food thing. So I went and enlisted.

...Enlisted? That didn’t sound good. Perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it sounded.

Yeah. You know, military, police, military police… they mostly deployed me in Midgar, though I got sent to Wutai a lot during my first year. Mostly cleaning up pockets of resistance hiding out in the jungle. Work for disposable grunts...

You… they dep -- how old were you?

Fourteen. What’s your problem? He likely could feel her disgust and sadness slowly settling in, and it was probably giving him the wrong idea.

Fourteen.

Yeah. I mean, I did leave a little late. Everyone else in my squad was twelve, except for a couple guys in their thirties that just never got promoted. I got enough shit from them about dragging my feet, I don’t need it from you.

Sorry. I just… where I come from, that -- letting children into the military... it’s considered a war crime, she said weakly. There was a brief pause. If they’d been speaking aloud, she would have been sure he’d snorted in disbelief.

What’s a “war crime"? asked Cloud.

Definitely not good. And absolutely as bad as it sounded. Before she could reply properly, someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she jumped and reflexively swatted at whatever was in front of her, but for some reason her hand came up short of actually touching anything. Cloud was determinedly holding still.

Watch it, he warned. Yuffie, who was sitting in front of her, had flinched away from her arm.

“Sorry,” said Aeris. “Has it been two hours already?”

“No,” grumbled Yuffie, edging away from her just in case. “But I’m getting everyone else up. You’ve got questions to answer.”

“I -- I also have some questions,” said Aeris, her voice sounding slightly panicked. “How is it that none of you have heard of war crimes?”

Yuffie stared at her. “I mean… it’s a war, right? The whole thing is made of crimes. It seems a little redundant to make a word for that kind of thing. You can’t exactly march up to soldiers or world leaders and arrest them for fighting a war the way wars get fought. I mean, maybe they do where you’re from, but...”

Aeris just gawked. Cloud took the opportunity to speak up then.

“She’s been asking about physics a lot,” he said. “Can you get Cid? I can’t make heads or tails of any of this, and I’d like to sleep soon. The WRO’s gonna be here in the morning, I think.”

“Who --” began Aeris. Then she shook her head. We need to come up with a system.

What “system”? replied Cloud rather irritably. You’re the one that’s letting me do this suddenly. Even though you didn’t have much of a problem forcing me to do whatever before.

I didn’t know! I didn’t… never mind. Just -- I don’t know how I’m “letting” you. Your head was a bit funny when I came here. Maybe it has something to do with that.

I’ve got a system for you. You keep quiet and let me talk for once.

...Alright. That’s fine.

“Just… get everyone,” she felt herself say. “I wanna get this settled.”

Nanaki stared at her hard, then exchanged a look with Yuffie, who turned to her and said, “Password?”

What does she -- ?

“The hell are you talking about?” said Cloud, voicing her own confusion.

“The real Cloud knows the password,” replied Yuffie without missing a beat.

“Fuck off, no I don’t.”

Yuffie nodded to Nanaki. “Yeah, it’s him.” Nanaki sniffed and padded out of the room to fetch more onlookers to complicate things.

...Now what? asked Aeris.

Now, said Cloud, we get a few things straight.

 

---

 

Control, or at least the illusion of it. Gods, he’d missed this. It was something he experienced in brief spurts during a repair, or in the middle of a fight -- periods where Cloud knew exactly what he was doing, how he was going to do it, and why. There was a clear problem and a path to a solution and Cloud would force a straight line between the two because it was the easiest way to do things.

“She says her name is Aeris Gainsborough,” he said, “and that she’s human. She doesn’t seem to know anything about Jenova, or the WRO. She’s part of a group called Sern, or something like that. I wasn’t supposed to be part of this. We’re trying to figure out why I am.”

“How’d she get ahold of you?” asked Cid.

Cloud shook his head. “We don’t know that either. She mentioned something about a pattern --” he paused as Aeris filled him in on more information, trying to keep himself focused on some point in the room so no one would comment on his eyes glazing over, “-- but the person that discovered it died years ago. So we’ll have to answer a lot of these questions ourselves.”

“If she’s a human, how is she doing this?” asked Tifa. She’d positioned herself in front of the window and kept glancing at the door as well. Cloud shrugged.

You explain it, he told her.

And she did, and he felt his mouth move involuntarily as she launched off into another explanation. Something about broadcasting, and other universes, and distinct electrical signals, and waypoints.

“...and he’s the only one there is, and we don’t really know why. There were others at first, but they all flashed out in seconds. I don’t know why that is either.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the room.

“...Well, the WRO’s going to be here tomorrow morning anyway,” said Reeve. “We’ll know for sure by then.”

“If you’re humans, I guess y’all live on the Planet, right? One of ‘em, anyway,” said Cid, looking a bit disappointed.

...What does he mean by that? Is there only one planet here? What happened to the others? probed Aeris. From the pictures we got of your sky we know there are probably other planets out there, so --

The Planet is the one we’re on, he said. Why would you think there’s only one? How many Planets do you live on?

Just the one, replied Aeris. But you just… you call your world “the Planet”. It doesn’t have a name?

No. What other Planet would we be talking about? It doesn’t need a name; if it wanted one, it would ask for one.

...You just call it “the Planet”, then?

Yeah. Why, don’t you?

No. We call ours Earth.

...So, you’re getting on me for us knowing what planet we’re obviously talking about, but you call your planet “dirt” just to be sure.

“He’s zoned out again. Someone pinch him,” he suddenly heard Jessie say from in front of him. He blinked hard and brushed her hand away rather firmly.

“I’m fine.” He leaned back against the wall, yawning. “She says it’s called Earth.”

“Sounds fake,” said Cid. “Let’s say I buy that. Best case scenario, who’d you want to be in contact with? ‘Cause the space program was dissolved over a decade ago, and starting up a new one’s been outlawed as treason.”

“What? Why?” said Aeris, using his mouth again.

Stop that, he snapped.

I’m trying.

“Hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but you ain’t the first alien we’ve brushed up against,” drawled Cid. There was a glint in his eye that Cloud hadn’t seen there since the night before.

“It was decided it was… safer,” supplied Reeve in a clipped tone. “Given that we have no way of knowing what else was out there. We would likely not survive a second confrontation. Of course, this may count as an exception given this isn’t really an airspace violation.”

…”What else”?

Long story, said Cloud, rubbing his forehead. ...Though I guess it’s one I’ll probably have to tell you anyway.

“There’s a lot of countries involved,” he continued aloud. “So there are a lot of people that are interested in the project continuing. They’re here for information, she says.”

...Who are all these people? asked Aeris. You never really said. You mentioned family, but you never said how.

“...She wants to know who you are,” relayed Cloud. “Personally, I think. And how we met.” He got another flash of confusion from Aeris and wasn’t sure why. He was answering her question, he thought.

There was another pause as a glance went around the room. Cid was the first to speak up.

“Cid Highwind,” he said. “Used to be into aeronautics. I’m the one that deciphered your vandalism. Met Cloud when I joined Avalanche.”

“Reeve Tuesti,” said Reeve. “Senior member of the World Regenesis Organisation. I was… initially sent to gather intelligence on Cloud. I met him properly when I joined Avalanche.”

Intelligence? I thought you said you were a mechanic.

I am a mechanic. I used to not be a mechanic. Shut up and listen.

“I’m Tifa Lockhart. Cloud and I grew up in the same town. We…”

“You don’t have to tell her anything,” said Cloud. “In fact, you probably shouldn’t tell her anything about that in the first place.”

So… it’s complicated? Is that why you were sleeping with that other girl when I got --

Shut up.

“Fine, then. I had to leave Nibelheim when it burned, and I met up with Cloud in Midgar five years later. I convinced him to join Avalanche, and he lives above my bar now.”

What’s Avalanche?

A group we used to be part of. We blew up reactors, fought Shinra, saved a bunch of people…

Er --

I said it was a long story. Later.

“I am Nanaki,” said Nanaki. “I met Cloud during his incarceration in the Shinra Tower. I joined Avalanche as a matter of prudence, given we were both fleeing from the military in the same direction, but I stayed as a matter of personal attachment.”

“Lady Yuffie Kisaragi of the Golden Kingdom of Wutai,” said Yuffie. “I tried to mug Cloud ‘cause he looked like a dumbass. I joined Avalanche to mug him some more because he definitely was a dumbass and let me. Now we’re friends. I still take his stuff sometimes. It’s a game we play.”

"It's really not," said Cloud quickly.

"Then stop leaving your wallet around in the back of your dresser drawer where anyone can find it and I'll start taking you seriously," retorted Yuffie, pointedly dangling it in front of him. He snatched it out of her hands. She'd probably taken it when he was asleep.

"Barret Wallace," said Barret. "Mr. Wallace or 'sir' to you. I hired Cloud as part of Avalanche. Abdicated due to... personal reasons, and 'cause I got sick of him taking all my damn money. Let him handle the payroll for a change."

"I'm Jessie Mahoney, and I was working for Avalanche as our technician when Cloud signed on," she said. "I dated him twice and dumped him because he was a giant prick the whole time and Tifa's the only one that can put up with it. We still hang out though," she added, as Cloud shrank a bit further into the bed.

Ignore that.

Absolutely not.

"...Aeris is from Reading," he said eventually. "She likes space."

You like space, right?

I do like space! Though I wouldn't say that's my specialty. So, that's your family? They're all former co-workers.

Yeah. What's wrong with that?

Nothing. I love all of them, she said enthusiastically. Only...

What?

Do you not have any relatives? Or are families not organised by blood here?

Usually they are. I said already I didn't have any. They died years ago.

Oh. Well, your family's brilliant and I like them already. Tell them I said hello.

"...She says hi," he added lamely. He got a chorus of monotone "hey"s from around the room.

So, the stories behind these people are as good as they sound, aren't they?

I guess. I mean, we all kinda met in unusual --

There was a knock on the door downstairs. They all froze.

"They're here awfully early," commented Tifa. "After all that time they spent dragging their feet..."

"Can't be, can it?" said Cloud, frowning. "It's probably Reno doing something scummy."

The knock returned, louder this time, and someone downstairs who distinctly wasn't Reno announced themselves as a driver for the WRO. Cloud slid himself out of bed.

"Everyone clear out, I gotta get dressed." So much for sleep.

Cloud watched everyone file out, then began to shrug off his pyjamas.

Wait -- I'm still --

Then leave. Not my problem.

That's not the... Her voice trailed off as she forced him to stop and stare at his skin, or more accurately, what was decorating nearly every inch of it.

What happened to you?

Oh. You mean...? Stabbed a bunch, among other things.

...You’ve led an eventful life, then.

I guess so. Avalanche picked me up as a mercenary. It was Tifa’s idea to join. I remember I almost left after the second job when they cut my pay.

I don’t know why you’d leave. There was an unusual pause, where she seemed to be focused on something he couldn’t see. I’d love to have a family like that.

Why, what’s yours like?

My parents died a few years ago. I haven’t dated in a while. I guess this project is the first time I’ve gotten to talk to someone in a long time. Another pause. What are they like? That dog, he seems nice.

Nanaki’s not a dog.

Well, what is he, then?

...We always thought it was rude to ask, so nobody ever did.

Do you suppose he would be mad if I pet him?

...I mean, maybe not. You’d have to ask.

I’m going to next time I come back. He looks like he’d appreciate a good pet.

Don’t make it weird.

I’m not, she said indignantly. And another question -- do you always sleep together like that?

Not… not for a while, I guess, said Cloud. We used to, on the road.

It was kind of nice, she said.

Yeah, he said after a moment. It was.

It took him another couple minutes to get dressed, because Aeris was torn between wanting to examine more of his body and attempting to respect his privacy, which meant Cloud had a difficult time looking at what he was doing at all. She'd taken a particular interest in his boots, or more specifically, what was stuck in the treads of them (scientists, complete nutters, every last one). Then he'd buckled on his harness and loaded his sword into them.

...What's that for?

It's a sword. You use it to kill stuff and defend yourself.

...And... you expect to kill someone during this visit? Will they be alright with you bringing a weapon?

I don't know. It never hurts to be safe, right?

As it turned out, the WRO was very much not on board with him bringing his sword with him, and after a heated argument insisted he at least have it in the back seat rather than in his hand. He reluctantly agreed, if only because he could probably set the driver on fire and retrieve it faster than they could pull a gun on him.

Aeris stared out the window through most of the drive, staring at the city as it blurred past them, which was actually fine by Cloud; he didn't care much for cars. Too cramped. There had been a time when he'd been just as enthusiastic about them as he was with bikes, but that was before he'd spent a fifth of his life locked in very small spaces. Any distractions were more than welcome, even if they came in the form of someone forcing him to stare at every single street sign and pedestrian she came across. She even seemed fascinated by the brief view of the Wastes they caught when they were on a highway overpass.

Aeris suddenly sat up straighter and addressed him.

I figured it out!

...Figured what out?

What was different about your city. I haven't seen a single plant anywhere, the entire time I've been here. Apart from the wood you've made things out of. What happened to them all? In my world, they usually plant grass and things in cities. Do they not do that here?

...Not in Edge, said Cloud. We're too close to where the reactors used to be. Nothing really grows here anymore without a lot of coaxing. They're not gonna waste that energy on things like grass and flowers when it has to go to things like food and lumber. Most wood we have to import in.

That's...

I've seen real flowers before, said Cloud proudly. There was this jungle we were visiting. They were everywhere. You see the pictures, but it never really captures the smell right. One day, I'm gonna go back and visit.

Aeris was silent.

There were flowers just outside Nibelheim too, when I was little, he continued. Tiny blue ones. I don't remember them, though. That's what Tifa says.

...I have a garden at home, said Aeris. I grow different flowers and mints and things. Maybe I'll bring pictures, if we ever --

Silence.

If you ever what?

No response. The strange presence in his head seemed to have vanished, and he felt the beginnings of nausea begin to creep in. Before he could investigate any further, the vehicle ground to a halt.

"We're here," said the driver. Cloud let himself out and immediately fished his sword out of the back seat, the expanse of the facility they'd driven to looming ahead of him. It had been built fairly recently on the outskirts of Edge, and there was still construction equipment littered outside of it. Tifa and Reeve emerged from another car that had pulled up beside him.

"We're right here with you," said Tifa. Cloud nodded, and slipped his sword into his harness anyway.

 

---

 

"Why did you pull me?!"

"Shh!" That was Tseng, clamping a hand over her mouth and hauling her out of the tank with Zack. For some reason, half the computers against the wall were in the process of rebooting.

"We had a power issue," he explained in a low murmur. "And when we went to sort it out, we --"

"Something moved. I saw it. I know I saw it. It followed us up here," whispered Zack, anxiously glancing around. "It was big. Way bigger than a rat."

"What would even be in here with us?" hissed Aeris, removing his hand from her mouth. "This entire compound is sealed off."

"Maybe something came through?" muttered Zack. "Can't have, though, the centre room's still closed off."

They sat in silence for another few minutes. There were no sounds beyond their own breathing, and the dripping of NC fluid onto the floor. A faint hum could still be felt coming from below them, and Zack was still staring fixedly at the maintenance hatch set into the floor by the wall. It sat there, unremarkable as always. The whiteboard flickered back to life.

"...You must have imagined it," said Lazard eventually. "We've all been cooped up here too long. It's getting to us. The next restock period is in a couple days, at least."

"I didn't imagine it. It was... I don't know what it looked like," broke off Zack, frowning. "I saw -- it was something. I was looking at it, but when I looked at it, it was like... like I didn't want to see it, so I couldn't."

"We need to get out of here for our own mental health," said Angeal. "We're well ahead of schedule, at least. Did we save the transcript?"

"Right here," said Cissnei, patting one of the computers. "I dumped it as soon as the lights started flickering."

"You're not authorised to be using those," warned Angeal. Cissnei rolled her eyes.

"Fine, I will delete it."

"Thank you, you're a valuable part of this team," interjected Aeris. "Speaking of which, you read --"

"Yeah, we read it," said Zack. "Part of it, anyway."

Aeris approached the computer. "What do you mean?" she asked, then leaned in and saw for herself.

We know what DNA is and I know how viruses work.

Good. Then you know how

yconfirming@@*@

not said anよything.

I know what viruses are.

Out of curiosity what do you know about them?

Most of what you already said. They latch onto a host, rewrite the DNA of the host cell. They are very contagious. they 門6226s7xuuu8subecause they 偽 infect65535ria are and that’s わ a hard thing to understand they exist πολ8xujれονται. Anything with behaviour between in not 4μεtween, we call that a virus.

That seems about rigわht. do they usuallれのy teach that kind of thing in schools here?

I guess so. We went over it a little before I dropped out. I didn’t learn it in school though.

when did you drop out?

I sort of stopped going to cla子s000learn90 when I was eleve11111ten one. But I left officially when I was thirteen. Spent 3 akkkkkkkkkkkkk traξid missing should know, but Teefa usually helps me out with the boo供kkeeping.

"A good chunk of it's like that," said Cissnei as Aeris scrolled through, hoping to god she’d remembered to switch it off for part of the conversation. The official report did not need details of her personal life in it. "Most of it we can parse, but..."

"I thought we fixed this bug," said Aeris. Most of it looked more or less legible, at least. Good.

"We thought it was caused by the partial," said Angeal. "But it seems like there's some sort of interference bleeding through this time. Tseng and I will look into it."

Tseng nodded. "We have something to work with, it seems, but..." he gestured to the bits of the transcript that were legible. The ones about war crimes and the potential for an international incident across two worlds.

"Mm," nodded Aeris. "Do you think we could ask for an official diplomat during the restock period?"

"It wouldn't be out of the question," said Tseng. "It explains a lot of the hostility, too. They're expecting the worst because it's not out of the question for them to expect it.

"So... the situation as it stands is that we are in contact with a likely shellshocked former child soldier from a world with no equivalent of the Geneva Convention. It may have been obvious, but that would explain why his expectations of us are likely not good."

"We really oughta ask for a shrink, if Lazard can't do it for us," said Zack. "Like, I'm just saying, it just turned into a necessity."

“I thought you said he wouldn’t want a professional anything in his face?” quipped Aeris. Zack shrugged. "Look, there's a lot to go over," she added. "I'm getting back in in six hours. I want to know more about the rest of them. Especially that aeronautics man. He said they'd already had first contact with someone, and it's probably a good story and no one wants to talk about it."

She retreated back to her room to sleep off the meds. Lazard must have been at least partially right about drugging her for as long as they were, because she had very strange dreams.

The sky was burning, the ugly red colour of an open wound. It whispered to her things she couldn't understand, and behind all of it she heard music -- the most beautiful, terrible sound she'd ever heard. She covered her ears and looked out at the city, and then at the low roar coming from above them, and gasped. It was big. Too big. Aeris didn't think she'd ever seen anything that big before in person. But the more she looked, the more she felt it was looking at her, and the more she felt an insatiable hunger, and a spark of rage that kept growing and growing --

The world ripped in half. She was dead, she knew. She had to be. But she wasn't afraid -- she was returning to where she needed to be. It was time to finally be let out --

Aeris awoke with a jerk and stared at the ceiling, reorienting herself. She could have sworn, though, that the whispers were still echoing around the room, if only for a moment.

Chapter 14: Tifa Sits In A Chair And Talks For A While

Notes:

[FLASHBACKS INTENSIFY]

Thanks to Belderiver, Raaj, Sanctum_C, limbostratus, and Cat. Sorry for pushing this one on you pretty hard.

Tifa couldn't feel her hand anymore. She hadn't said anything for fifteen minutes, but she'd have to soon, given tissue damage was probably right around the corner. Cloud had clamped onto her arm when they'd said they had to draw blood, and he hadn't let go long after they'd already taken the needle out.

"They'll burn those, right?" he asked. They'd been sitting in the waiting room for a while as the staff ran blood tests. Thus far Cloud had threatened six people and a nearby fax machine with immolation, and Tifa was about ready to tear her hair out.

This place wasn't a true hospital, not the way Cloud was treating it. There were hospital like places in it, certainly, back when it had been. In the early days after Meteorfall, it was a hastily-constructed relief centre, built to house the homeless, provide medical care, and organise what little infrastructure anyone had left into something resembling a coordinated plan.

These days, the building was a massive complex with several wings -- a medical wing, left over from Meteorfall and the stigma, dedicated to studying "medical anomalies"; a business wing, which was most of the building these days, coordinating trade agreements and political restructuring; and the federal wing, which would probably wind up taking over the entire place in a few months now that there wasn't any mysterious space diseases or unmanageable monster populations or mass famines ravaging the population. Right now they were in the medical wing, which was in the centre of the entire complex as the other wings were added on around it.

"I don't know, Cloud," said Tifa, who sounded as exasperated as she felt. "Probably not for a while, until they sort this out."

"It was an awful lot of blood," he growled.

"It was one bag," said Tifa. "They'll probably do another tomorrow. Eat your sandwich," she added, hoping he'd unclench his hand from her arm to do it. To her relief, he let go and took several large, angry mouthfuls of the peanut butter sandwich they'd given him.

"Where's Reeve?" asked Tifa.

"Talking to some clown with a clipboard," said Cloud, picking some peanut butter out of his teeth. "Seemed mad about something."

"He's sure been gone a while," said Tifa, peering down the hallway, as though he might come back at any minute.

"Does it usually take this long?" asked Cloud. "To get results, I mean. You've been here before, right?"

Tifa shrugged. "I donate eggs. It's not the same thing." Various organisations all over the world had begun paying couples to "repopulate", as it were, but Cloud was sterile, and Tifa had no plans to raise any babies anytime soon anyway, so this was as good of a compromise as she could manage. "It'll probably be a couple hours, at least."

"Better be," muttered Cloud, then looked guiltily at Tifa's arm, where a bruise was already beginning to form. "Shit, did I -- ?"

"It's fine," she said tiredly. She covered it with her own hand and healed it away, leaving the area a bit sore but otherwise unmarked. She stared at the reddened skin for a while, then glanced at Cloud, who was staring morosely into his water cup.

"Mr. Strife?" came a voice from down the hall. Reeve had returned with a woman, the latter of whom was holding a small sample cup. Tifa didn't recognise what it was for, but Cloud seemed to and let out his breath in a huff of annoyance.

"Gotta do this one by myself. I'll be a couple minutes. If it's longer than that or if anyone goes in after me, get Reeve," said Cloud, before standing, snatching the cup out of the nurse's hand with a hostile glare, and storming off to the bathroom a few doors down.

Reeve sat down next to Tifa on the couch looking tired. He didn't say anything for several moments.

"You need to talk to him," he said quietly. Cloud was several metres away and behind a few walls, but it never hurt to be safe.

"I know."

"Do you?"

"Screw you. It's complicated."

"Someone's going to have to do it. He'll listen to you. I can't keep fending off assault charges like this. Do you know how many mobs we haven't had? The ones I've headed off before now?"

"He doesn't understand --"

"He's a grown adult, Tifa. You run his life enough as it is. You know it, I know it, he knows it. So he either does understand and refuses to accept it, or he needs to."

Tifa shook her head. "You were around before Soldier was Shinra's response to everything. I got to grow up in a house with an education for a while. Cloud's... we're the first people he's ever really talked to besides his mother, and he doesn't even remember her. He's spent his whole life fighting, as kids, in the military, in Nibelheim, for us; he doesn't know how to stop. He's never had to or been told to before."

"He's going to have to learn. I think he can, he's clever enough." Reeve was eyeing her carefully. "That's an excuse. That's not why you haven't said anything."

Tifa said nothing. Reeve sighed heavily.

"I don't know why you're putting this off. He'll listen to you, he always does."

"That's the problem," said Tifa without thinking. Reeve gave her a questioning look.

"...He puts a lot of stock in what I think about him. I don't know how he'd react if he got it into his head we didn't like him, or if he saw himself as a liability. Look at what happened the last time," she said pointedly.

"It'll have to be soon, then," said Reeve. "This isn't sustainable. Actually, that's part of why --"

The door opened down the hall, and they both stopped muttering amongst themselves as Cloud returned and handed the cup back to the nurse and sat on the other side of Tifa.

"If they ask for semen next, we're leaving," he said flatly. "I'll take my chances with the semi again."

"I don't think that's likely," said Reeve. "Though it's more likely they'll want bone marrow --"

The light fixture above them shattered. Tifa flinched and covered her face to avoid the shower of glass raining down on her as she felt a wave of cold air wash around her. Cloud barely reacted.

"They can knock you out for it," said Tifa quickly. "You won't feel anything. We'll watch to make sure."

Cloud nodded stiffly. No one came to clean up the glass for some time, and by then they'd herded Cloud off to another room -- this one with a PET scanner in it. All of the nurses were keeping their distance by this point, so Tifa was taken aside briefly by another nurse and given instructions for walking Cloud through the process.

"We'll be doing three scans," said the nurse. "The first to be used as a control. The next one, we'll need him displaying elevated Jenova-related brain activity. And we may have to wait for the third, depending on if he has another one of the episodes you've mentioned or not. You said they're a daily occurrence, right?"

"That's all this is? Comparisons?" she asked.

"We don't have much to go off right now," he replied. "Not until the blood tests come back, and personally I don't think they'll tell us much. Even if he would submit to a kirliograph, that probably wouldn't do much good either, given..." the nurse gestured delicately. "So we're monitoring brain activity. See if that gets us anywhere."

“You think that’ll work?”

The nurse shrugged. “It’s hard to say. We won’t know until we try. You're gonna have to give him this, though," he said, and gestured to a small bottle full of reddish-brown liquid and a syringe.

"It's not happening," she replied immediately. "He's not gonna like that one bit."

"It's just tracer fluid. We'll need it to see properly," said the nurse, glancing tensely back at Cloud, who was giving a nearby nurse a rather venomous look. "He'll be more likely to accept it from you than me. I can tell you how to set it up, but someone's going to have to do it."

Cloud hadn't particularly wanted to subject himself to a PET scan either, which didn't make much sense -- as far as she knew, the entire benefit of doing one was that it was non-invasive. He'd been staring at the machine with something akin to muted terror since entering the room. Seeing her approach him with a tray containing a pouch of saline and the bottle of tracer fluid certainly didn't do anything to change his opinion.

"No," said Cloud promptly as she approached him, looking betrayed. Tifa sighed.

"It's just sugar, mostly," she said. "You're gonna need it for this. They can't help you if we don't know anything."

"Tifa --"

"None of us have anything to go off of right now," she said, losing her patience. "Not even that woman. You don't trust me to do this?"

"That's not it, it's --"

"I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry for what they did, and I know there's -- that there's nothing I can do to help you get through any of it, and --" She stopped, hoping she hadn't sounded too angry. Well, she was angry. She wasn't even sure at whom anymore. "...But don't you go shoving that off on me when I'm trying to help you now," she snapped.

Cloud stood there for a moment, then sat on the PET machine's table and wordlessly offered her his arm. The left one. Tifa sighed.

"They say you'll need to take the earrings out, too," she said, after she'd flushed his vein with saline and rigged the machine to inject him with the contrast as best she could. "You can put them back on when it's done."

Cloud seemed almost as hesitant to actually do this as he had to allow her to inject him with contrast. Eventually, he reached up and removed his earrings and set them on the tray. Tifa noted that there was a significant amount of dead skin built up in the crevices of each one, and wondered when the last time he'd actually taken them out was. Months, at least. She'd wash them before giving them back for sure.

The first scan went uneventfully enough. Between Tifa's vague knowledge of first aid and the nurse's instructions on how to properly use a needle, they managed to get everything set up without any damage to either Cloud or the unfortunate staff that happened to be at work today. After they'd finished with the first one, she'd pulled him aside to go over the plan for the second one.

There was a sense of familiarity to this, but not in a comforting way at all. The last time Cloud has genuinely been at risk of any Jenova-related episodes had been four years ago, either when Sephiroth felt the need for an extra pair of hands, or when they'd realised that the connection went both ways and Cloud had to consciously tap into it himself. It had saved a lot of lives in the end, but it took its toll on Cloud in more ways than one.

Tifa had hated it. She knew it was for the greater good, but she still hated it. For her, it was ten or more agonising minutes of sitting there, watching Cloud attentively, unable to help him in any way except to knock him out to keep him from doing anything he'd regret, watching him grow strange and distant when it worked, watching him twitch and convulse when it didn't. It was another thing from that period of her life she thought she'd earned the right to never deal with ever again.

Eventually, he'd learned to control it, and she'd learned to accept that it was something she had no control over herself. And he'd grown less distant, had fewer seizures, had learned to live with it constantly; and she'd begun to believe they could move on with their lives.

Maybe she was just angry at everyone and everything.

"Just a quick one this time, right?" she asked. "Don't go too deep."

"I'll be fine," he said, though he sounded drained and unhappy and kept glancing back over at the PET machine.

"I know it's the last thing you want to hear right now, but you've gotta calm down or you're gonna be knocked out for hours," said Tifa. "If you need help, just tap your finger on the --"

"I'm fine," he interrupted. "I know. I'll be fine."

Tifa nodded and went back to "keeping watch" for any nurses as he lay back down on the table and began to calm himself. They didn't have to wait long -- seconds later, she heard him gasp sharply, his back arching and his hands clawing at the table. That didn't seem right -- he hadn't been that reactive in this state in four years. She didn't have time to dwell on it as he relaxed back into the table and she got the machine started again. She made the mistake of looking at his face briefly while she was doing it, and was met with his eerily serene expression, and the vivid green catlike eyes peering back at her. She resisted the urge to snap his neck and run, and quickly took a step back. She'd held his hand enough this last week. Hopefully he'd understand her absence for this one.

She asked Reeve to talk him down from this one and excused herself for a moment under the guise of wanting to look at the PET scans.

The staff present seemed like they were... not necessarily enjoying themselves, given the prospect of being badly maimed by the end of the day was still a very real one thanks to the patient sulking one room over. But they were talking amongst themselves curiously. Tifa hoped that meant they'd be able to help.

"...Find anything yet?" she said hesitantly.

The nurse she'd spoken to earlier shook his head. "It's hard to say. It's a good thing we did these two scans first to act as a control -- there's a lot wrong here. It would be hard to know if it was an effect of the episodes you've mentioned, or something he could have sued Hojo for medical malpractice over. There's a lot of damage here, you know. Medically speaking, he should still be a vegetable."

"Damage from Jenova?"

"Maybe," said the nurse, gesturing to the second set of pictures they'd pinned up. "We're seeing a lot of activity that's in line with temporal lobe epilepsy but... again, the damage makes it difficult to know if that's really what it is, or, if it is that, if Jenova's even the cause of some of it. It could be mako poisoning, it could have been head injury, it could be mako that's crystallising into deposits in his bloodstream -- rare, but it's happened. It could even be genetic. Hopefully we'll know for sure soon."

"How much do you know about Jenova?" asked Tifa.

"More than most, not as much as we'd like," said the nurse. "This clinic was started to deal with the stigma before it was... dealt with, and we discovered a link there. All of us have a basic knowledge of it because it's our job to. Unfortunately, a lot of information about Jenova went down with Shinra's servers."

They had to wait quite some time for the third scan. Cloud sat in the waiting room and stared at her throughout most of it. She knew he didn't mean it badly, but it was unsettling nevertheless, especially with those eyes. Tifa had gotten better about guessing what his various stares and grunts actually meant, because of course he would never actually ask for anything, not directly. One would think he didn't have a tongue, the way he acted half the time. Nanaki was still the best at it out of all of them, though Tifa considered it cheating to just sniff him and check if he was feeling anxious.

Cloud suddenly got to his feet and looked around, walking right past Tifa. He'd suddenly taken a great deal of interest in the television, as though he'd never seen one before. Tifa wasn't sure how much it mattered that it was playing the same rerun of The Planet's Most Dangerous that it had been playing for the last four years since the studio that made these was destroyed in an explosion of magic the likes of which the world had never seen, but Cloud was utterly enraptured as he watched a brood of seaworms skeletonise a cow in two minutes.

He turned back around suddenly. "Where are we, anyway?"

"...The clinic at the WRO," said Tifa cautiously. "You're Aeris?"

Cloud nodded. "We didn't really get a chance to speak to one another properly. There was a complication on my end, but I'm back now."

"A 'complication'?"

"Yes. A brief power outage. You haven't noticed anything strange yourself, have you?"

"No more than usual," said Tifa, still watching Cloud very closely. Aeris cleared her throat nervously.

"I'm sorry for lying to you the first time around. I could have handled that better. I panicked and thought you might as well."

Tifa continued watching them. Aeris only seemed somewhat focused on her, and kept stealing glances at the television, which was now advertising a restaurant much fancier than Tifa's.

"...Is he alright?" she asked. Aeris paused, apparently listening to something.

"He can't move again," said Aeris. "I'm trying to figure out why. He said to tell you, 'Don't tell them yet.' Does that mean anything to you?"

Tifa groaned. "Tell him that the faster we do this, the faster we can leave, and the faster you can get back to fixing this whole mess on your end. Which you are doing," she added sharply, "aren't you?"

Aeris nodded curtly. "I can't say much for the progress we expect to have, but yes. I don't need to tell him, though. He can hear you." She paused again. "He really does insist on ten more minutes, though."

"Five," said Tifa. "Final offer."

"Five is fine," replied Aeris after a moment. She sat back down. "Would you mind me asking a few questions?"

"About what?" said Tifa warily.

"About... well, a lot of things, I suppose," said Aeris. "Truth be told, I'm not really sure where to start..."

"What are you gonna do with the information?" asked Tifa. "What's the point of all this? The semi, the wandering off in the night..."

"Well..." began Aeris, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "A great deal of it's prep work. Finding out what this place is, how strong the gravity is, if the laws of physics apply in the same way, what the people there are like..."

"Prep work for what?"

"If everything goes well, for a visit in person," said Aeris. "We have the equipment, but no way of looking at the place we'd send anyone. Even if we just chucked in a robot, it could be incinerated the minute it got here because we could be throwing it into a star, and that would be the end of billions of pounds and years of hard work."

"You. Coming here?"

"Eventually, yes. I hope."

"Why? What could you possibly have to gain from all this?"

"Knowledge and exploration for its own sake," said Aeris simply, as though this were obvious. "We didn't expect anything to be here apart from a bunch of rocks and perhaps a few microbes. Now that we know we're wrong, it's more important than ever." She gestured to the television, which had gone back to showing The Planet's Most Dangerous, where the host was excitedly feeding another cow carcass to yet another predator. "All of this -- this culture, this world -- don't you think it's worth it to learn about for its own sake? Wouldn't it be terrible if all of this was here, and no one ever got to know about it?"

Tifa glanced back at the television. It didn't really seem all that exciting to her to watch a carnivorous plant from Gongaga eat half a dead cow, but Aeris was gesturing to the television as though it were airing a grand symphony.

"And of course, there's the political side of it," she continued. "The first partnership between two universes. It would give people a lot of hope, to know they weren't alone. We could learn a lot from one another. Of course... I don't really know how most of that will go now. I've made a mess of the whole thing, now that we know Cloud is involved. If enough fingers get pointed, someone might start a war over this whole mess. Maybe on your side of things, or perhaps even on mine. My country has its own enemies, and this technology was never supposed to be capable of this..." She slouched in her chair. "So, there's really no way to go but forward. If all of this was for nothing, at least I tried, even knowing it was pointless to."

"...I guess so," said Tifa after several moments. Aeris cleared her throat again in embarrassment, as though someone besides the three of them had been listening.

"So, er -- what's your atmosphere made of?"

Tifa blinked. She hadn't needed this information in years. "Nitrogen, oxygen, some other stuff..."

Aeris nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, but what concentrations?"

"Just off the top of my head? 70-30 to the nitrogen, I think. I don't know. Reeve might." Tifa frowned. "He's been gone an awfully long time..."

"Reeve was the older gentleman, yes?"

Tifa nodded. "He arranged the drive here. Cloud agreed to it, I don't know why he's being so difficult about it now..."

She stood up. "That had to have been five minutes. Let's get this over with."

"Cloud says that was only four minutes. He says he was counting."

Tifa gave him a look. Aeris looked away, and Tifa got back up to fetch the nurse.

The staff still refused to go near Cloud, and found it just as unnerving that he was suddenly making the procedure so easy on everyone. A muscle in his face kept twitching, and at one point she thought she saw his lips mouth something along the lines of "shut up".

Half an hour later, Cloud was herded into a private room in preparation for another sample, where she distinctly heard Aeris mutter, "I'm not asking that. It's probably not a semen sample," and Tifa stepped back out to speak with the nurse about the results. She still hadn't seen Reeve.

Instead of curious chatter, she was met with a roomful of grim faces. They still had the pictures up from the previous scan, too, which was strange.

"...Good news?" asked Tifa, a pit of dread settling in her stomach. The nurses exchanged a glance with one another.

"That depends on your perspective," said one of the nurses. "We've determined he isn't having a psychotic or dissociative lapse of any sort."

Tifa had already figured that much out by now, but there was still a tiny voice in the back of her mind that still wondered. "Good. That's good, right? If -- if he's not crazy, then this is something we can deal with on our own, right?"

A hush went across the room. One of the nurses took out another set of images and put them up next to the ones on the wall.

"These are the ones from the previous scan," said the first nurse. "And these are the ones we just took." He gestured to the images on the wall when she'd walked in.

Tifa looked between them in confusion. "I don't get what I'm supposed to be seeing. They both look --"

"-- the same," said the nurse. "They are. The same brain activity in the same amounts in the same areas, the same changes in vitals..."

Tifa faltered. "I don't..."

"The entity Cloud is in contact with is Jenova. Undeniably. He's been speaking with Her, and has already shown to have a great deal of influence over him. With everything that implies."

She felt numb. None of it made sense -- Jenova didn't speak. Cloud had said so, again and again. And it certainly didn't speak to anyone that wasn't Her host. Had She adapted? Did Cloud know? He had seemed so sure...

"So what does this mean?" she said. Her throat suddenly felt dry.

"It means Cloud can't leave. I'm sorry."

"No."

"Ma'am, I understand this has to be upsetting, but --"

"No! Where the hell is he? We're leaving, right now." She shoved past the nurse into the hall.

Cloud was lying unconscious on some sort of stretcher, which was being wheeled down the hall away from them.

"What did you do to him?!" she screamed, shoving her way past the first three nurses before someone grabbed her from behind and pinned her to a wall. A trained grip, with gloved hands. They'd brought guards in. On loan from the police, judging by the uniforms. When had they had time to do that?

"He's just been sedated to avoid a confrontation," explained another nurse as two more guards piled onto her after she incapacitated the first one with the back of her skull. "This is for his safety too. If Jenova is influencing him the way She was with Sephiroth, we'd have no choice but to execute him to avoid massive loss of human life. None of us want to do that. If we just --"

"Fuck you," she spat. She clenched her fist, and the two guards holding her were violently slammed against the ceiling by a gravity spell. She brought them back down and hurtled over them, but a wall of ice suddenly sprang up in front of her. She slashed her hand through the air as a localised windstorm whipped up indoors, threatening to fling the guards into another wall, but one of them closed the distance and tackled her to the ground. She quickly flipped them both over, delivering a series of blows to his head, then whipped up to face the other guard.

She never got the chance. One thousand volts coursed through her body, and she caught a glimpse of a drawn taser. She struggled to get back up, but her limbs wouldn't stop twitching long enough to obey before she was cuffed and carried down the hall in the other direction, away from Cloud.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," said one of the nurses, as she was carried out of the building. "This is all we can do."

 

---

 

Cloud had been sitting in the waiting room by himself for a while. They'd been amusing themselves trying to figure out how he'd been able to move before, and making very slow progress. If Aeris distracted herself to the point where she was half asleep and Cloud focused everything he had into it, he could twitch his fingers. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Do you think it's bone marrow? Aeris asked. That seems like the sort of thing, doesn't it?

Tifa said she'd be there if it was. We've been here a while. Do you think they forgot? he asked. And if they have, do you think we could just go home? They got their scans and their blood and their cheek swabs and their piss. I don't know what else they'd need.

Perhaps they want to perform a biopsy.

They better the fuck not. You better not let them.

I won't. As interesting as your medicines are, I don't think I want to experience them firsthand just yet.

The door opened, and a nervous-looking nurse came in with a cup of tea and another sandwich, and fled the moment he set the tray down. That probably meant more blood. He was just about fed up with getting stuck with needles

Threaten to break his neck for me, said Cloud.

No. He's already afraid. He smells quite strongly of it -- this is strange, the scent thing, how do you deal with this?

I didn't, at first, said Cloud. Aeris started on the sandwich enthusiastically.

What kind of meat is this? she asked. It tastes like turkey.

Probably turkey then, said Cloud, watching as she took careful, fascinated sips of the tea.

What about this, then?

...Don't know. Chamomile, maybe. It smells kind of funny. I'm not a tea expert.

Ah, we have that too. A shame we don't have any milk.

Butter would be nice, said Cloud absently. A lot of milk and honey and butter.

Cloud felt himself make a face. Butter?

Yeah. They make it that way in Knowlespole. Way up north, even more north than Nibelheim. I kinda got attached. It's actually not bad... A strange sense of calm washed over him, and he had a vivid memory of resting in that cafe away from the blizzard outside, Cid taking notes -- actual real paper notes -- about how the tea was prepared here, and talking to Cloud about flavours and aftertastes, and Cloud was just happy to sit and listen to him.

Sounds nice... said Aeris. I make fancy teas sometimes. Just for me and Shithead.

Shithead?

I mean, Cassiopeia. My cat. Do you have cats here?

Of course we have cats here. What kind of place wouldn't have cats?

Cassie and I, we'll watch the rain and drink it out of fancy cups. Sometimes it's nice to do something like that for yourself...

Yeah, thought Cloud to himself. Yeah, it is.

Aeris was saying something else to him. Or maybe he was saying something else to Aeris. But it was warm in the office, and he was full, and he was full of a sort of peace he couldn't remember experiencing in years...

 

---

 

Cloud opened his eyes and was puzzled to find himself in a bed, and realised he hadn't left for the WRO at all. He hoped he hadn't overslept. Yuffie should have woken him up.

Yuffie wasn't with him, though. Neither was Nanaki. They'd gone to get Tifa and the others... no. They'd already done that. Aeris had come, and he'd woken from one of his lapses, and the WRO had shown up early... they'd gone there, hadn't they? And they'd done a battery of tests, and it seemed like only five minutes ago he'd dozed off in the office after he drank --

Cloud bolted upright and looked around the room he was in. A cell, about the size of his room in the hospital. No windows. No doors -- no, there was a door, at the front of the room, but there wasn't any handle on this side, and the gaps between it were too small for him to slip a finger into. The walls were covered in padding, and while there were vents, they too were flush with the walls and ceiling. Aeris seemed to be gone. The room was eerily quiet with no other noise but his breathing. They had taken his sword, and at some point his clothes had been removed and replaced with clean hospital scrubs with no pockets.

Cloud leapt out of bed and threw his shoulder into the door. It held firm -- it must have been incredibly thick: Cloud had thrown himself (and been thrown) through solid cement before. If only he had a sword…

He began looking around his cell for something to use as a weapon -- the sink, maybe, if he could rip it off the wall. It wouldn’t do him much good if they had guns, though. Deflecting bullets was significantly easier than dodging them. Maybe the blanket? It didn’t seem very sturdy, probably specifically to keep him from using it to strangle anyone.

So that left him with the much more risky option of blasting his way out of the cell. The quarters were too close to summon anything that wouldn’t kill him too… Ultima might do it, but he could easily get caught in the explosion himself, and he wasn’t sure what would be waiting for him on the other side. If there was a way to see what --

“It’s good to see you’re awake, Mr. Strife,” came a voice from the ceiling. An intercom. “Would you prefer Mr. Strife, or Cloud?”

“I’d prefer if you let me the hell out of here,” he growled. “You’ve got ten seconds before I burn this whole complex to the ground.”

He heard some noise in the background briefly -- someone said something about “violent outbursts” and “signs of influence”. The voice turned its attention back to him.

“I’m sorry. It’s better for your own safety if you remain in your room.”

“Like hell it is!” Cloud delivered another fist into the wall. Sturdy. Way sturdier than what would be expected of any normal prison cell. They had planned for this -- for him. “I wanna talk to your supervisor. Where’s Reeve?”

“Former-director Tuesti is no longer employed within the WRO,” said the voice. Cloud froze.

“...What?”

“His contract was terminated six hours ago. He’s been frequently abusing the privilege his position offers to grant political pardons to certain individuals he’s acquainted with.”

Cloud felt his stomach twist up uncomfortably with guilt. “He’s…”

“The actions he took have endangered both the general public and you,” the voice continued. “It’s been decided that --”

“So, what? I’m being… arrested?”

“You aren’t in any legal trouble. We don’t believe you to be accountable for your behaviour at this particular time. We’re here to help you.”

“You can help me by letting me out before I kill you.”

“Mr. Strife, your judgement is severely impaired. Jenova has been influencing you for nearly a decade. We have no way of knowing whether your actions and words are your own. Therefore, it would be safer for you to remain --”

“Asshole.”

“Mr. Strife --”

“Asshole!” His fist became wreathed in flames. “Open the door.”

“Cloud, you’re very sick --”

“Open the fucking door, or I burn this whole place down with me in it!” he bellowed. “How long do you plan on keeping me here?”

“As I’ve said, we’re here to help you. We understand the circumstances you’re in are not your fault.”

“Good. So let me --”

“As such, we’d like to find a way to cure you, if you’re willing to cooperate.”

The flame sputtered out. “...What?”

“Jenova appears to have a significant amount of influence over you. What happened with Sephiroth was tragic and unavoidable. This time, we have the opportunity to prevent that. We’d like to find a way to reverse, or at least mitigate, Jenova’s integration into your own genome.”

“...You can cure me?” It had been so long since he’d fantasised about not hearing Her voice in his head, he was having a difficult time imagining it. It had been better, he knew. Felt better. Maybe his eyes would look normal. Maybe he wouldn’t need glasses. Maybe he could just go outside.

“We’d like to try. Much of the data we had on Jenova was lost during Meteorfall, of course. We’d have to gather more. We’d need to run several tests to determine --”

“How long would it take to cure me?”

“That’s difficult to say for certain. If everything goes well, we could begin making progress towards one within a year.”

The fireball came back. “Ten.”

“...Excuse me?”

“Nine.” He fed more magic into it. An alarm somewhere tripped, either in the distance, or directly outside his cell, depending on how thick the walls were. “Eight.”

“Mr. Strife, please understand that while we realise it may be difficult to control your impulses, we can’t allow you to harm the staff here during your stay.”

“Fuck you. Seven…”

Something was happening to his vision. It was suddenly much harder to maintain the fire, and it died out again as he stumbled and the world tilted and bucked around him. “What…?”

He looked up. There was air flowing through the vents now. It smelled faintly chemical, like the tea had. Maybe some sort of opiate, he realised, as the general feeling of wellbeing washed over him again. Whatever it was, it was strong. He struggled to stay on his feet, but he was very tired, and it was safe here… he’d missed feeling safe…

“Six…” he mumbled, though he couldn’t remember why he’d been counting. He fell bonelessly to the ground, glaring halfheartedly at the wall. He needed to stay awake. He needed to stay angry. This was wrong…

Sixty-seven two, he thought instead. The number comforted him. Sixty-seven two three. The voice was saying something else over the intercom in a soothing voice. This was wrong. He shouldn’t be here. He knew that, didn’t he? Sixty-seven two three. It had taken him so long to recognise it, to get rid of that stupid Buster Sword… he still wanted it back... Sixty-seven two…

 

---

 

"Did I do something wrong?"

The fear bled into his voice against his will as he was escorted onto the table and clamped in place to keep him from thrashing around. He was almost certain the sessions with the one test that he was still afraid of were over, so this was almost certainly for punishment purposes. But he didn't understand why. He thought he had been good, just like they wanted. It had been so long since they'd punished him that he'd thought maybe he had finally figured out how to be good, but now he wasn't sure.

He quickly realised that he obviously hadn't learned a thing, because here he was asking questions he hadn't been told to ask, speaking when he hadn't been given permission to speak, and referring to himself when he definitely hadn't been given permission to do that.

He was still shaking terribly by the time they stopped the machines. He didn't say a word for days afterwards, even when prompted. He desperately wanted to know what he had done wrong, but he hadn't been given permission to ask, so perhaps he'd never know. That thought scared him almost as much as being taken back to that room again.

He did try to figure out what he'd done. There was another test -- they'd had him listen to Mother, and She had drawn him into the deep place full of Herself, and the world seemed to fall away around him. He had done well, he'd thought. The Professor had called it a stunning success, and he'd looked at him, glowing with pride. And he'd smiled, and reached out to the Professor, and the Professor had looked at him with... he didn't know.

Maybe that had been bad. He hadn't been attacking him, though. He thought that was obvious. He thought maybe, since he had done so well, and the Professor had been smiling... the way he'd recoiled from his hand, though, had looked at him coldly as he pleaded not to be taken back again -- it hurt the way the machines did. Worse, maybe.

The Professor didn't reach back. He never had. So maybe that was the bad part -- he'd asked for something without realising it.

He knew what he'd done wrong the next time, though. He was being made to run, testing how long he could go before his body gave out. A day and a half into it, he had been told to stop so they could fix one of the electrodes. He didn't stop. He felt violently ill, and it was as if someone had taken their words and scraped the meaning from his brain. For a moment, he wasn't even sure where he was, or how he'd gotten there, or how long it had been since words started falling apart.

The Professor thought maybe it was residual stubbornness, and began treating it as such, but the lapses got worse and worse, and it got hard to tell what was him and what the others were saying, until it all ran together. He could feel them all over the inside of his skin, scraping away what used to be written there.

He sat inert in his cell these days. His arms felt strangely flimsy, like paper, and he couldn't bring himself to move much in between the blank periods. He ran a constant fever, and he swung wildly back and forth between shivering intensely and lying on his side on the cool floor of his cell, trying to keep himself from melting into the walls. Sometimes he would stroke the spot on his left wrist for comfort. It was still covered in a bandage so he couldn't pick it off, but it was good to know it was there. That he had earned it. Then his thoughts would go blank again as all the words ran out of them. He'd been poked too full of holes, and now a bluish green fog was rushing in and out of him, blowing it all away.

He could have sworn there was a word that had been erased that shouldn't have been. It was important he made it to Soldier, wasn't it? It was for something. He wasn't sure sometimes, until the Professor or the Director would come by and remind him, and he'd remember: His designation was Series 3. And that this place was his home. And he was special, he knew -- the Professor would say that a lot too. Shinra wanted him to be a weapon, but the Director knew he could be more. Mother would help him be more.

The old parts of him sloughed off more and more, and eventually Mother stopped writing new ones. He asked Her once. What did I do wrong? But if She replied, the fog swallowed it.

Sometimes he could move, but couldn't think, and he would find himself ripping up his cell, knocking holes in the walls, smashing his cot, tearing at his own skin, trying to get out of the cell, of his own flesh, of his own poisoned blood, of his ruined mind. He didn't know how to get out of any of these things, so Mother would rescind what will She had given him, and he'd be left at the mercy of the fog again.

Once a week, if he was lucky, there were periods when his mind was working but the lab was empty and everyone had gone home, so he was left in the mako tank with all the lights off for a day or two. He used those times to think. He thought about how he was in Soldier, and he had gotten here by being very brave and better than the other test subjects that weren't good enough for Soldier. He thought about the Director smiling at him during the tests, and telling him how wonderfully he'd done with her nice voice that crawled around the inside of his head. He thought about the Professor looking at him proudly, telling him how he'd always known he was special, that he would do a good job. He thought a secret thought, too, one he was almost sure wasn't allowed, but he snuck back to it anyway, because it was his secret: A fake person that didn't exist, that was Mother and the Director and the Professor all in one, would embrace him, and tell him what a good subject he was, and her arms were warm, and she called him her child. He thought it so often that it started leaking out of him, and the Professor would speak to him in the Director's voice and tell him to try harder, and the Director would look at him and he would feel Mother's cold fury burning through her.

He wanted so badly to do well for them. It was all the good he could do for the people that had looked at him and decided he was worthy. He wanted to be worthy. He tried his best to think of more ways to prove he was useful, all through the trip to the mako tank, and the hours he'd been soaking in it. Let me be good, he thought. Let me be good enough. He pleaded and begged for an answer, over and over again, his heart clenching painfully with how badly he wanted it, even though no one could hear him.

But someone did hear him.

It was roaring and vast and old, like Mother. Unlike Mother, its voices seared and cut and dragged like the fog did, and they were agony to the touch. His chest burned, and he screamed, the sound gagged by the mako in his lungs. They carved their way through him, exploring him, and something burned a single question into him: What do you want?

Help, he thought. Help me. It hurts. I'm alone. Help me.

The voices twisted around his question, but did not seem to understand it. He asked again.

Please help me. I want to be good enough. It hurts.

They continued to twist around indifferently. He saw for a split second what they were, and he knew it wasn't the fog -- it was steam. It was fire. It was almost as old and deep as Mother, and it was like trying to pour the ocean into a thimble, but continue to pour it did, burning in its wake. Too much. It was too much, and he pleaded for it to stop, but the fire, the light, the rushing green and blue that twisted around the fog like water through oil, did not understand or did not care, or both. He couldn't look away, because there was nowhere to look that was safe -- it was inside and around him. It was him, the way Mother was, but Mother had pulled away and was nowhere to be found.

They burrowed in deeper now, and then there was another sharp jab in his chest as a white light filled him up, and he could feel himself being ripped apart more and more as another word came to him: false.

Then they vanished as quickly as they had come.

Series 3 spasmed in the mako tank and then floated there, motionless.

 

---

 

Aeris didn’t realise when she’d fallen asleep. It hadn’t been the first time, though. It felt like the first time. She didn’t realise when she’d fallen asleep until after her dream was over. She was sure she’d had one like it before, but she couldn’t quite remember. She wished she had written it down before going into the showers. There was something about it that was strangely familiar.

The sky was burning, the ugly red colour of an open wound. It whispered to her things she couldn't understand, and behind all of it she heard music -- the most beautiful, terrible sound she'd ever heard. She covered her ears and looked out at the city, and then at the low roar coming from above them, and gasped. It was big. Too big. Aeris didn't think she'd ever seen anything that big before in person. She was pretty sure it was looking at her, and the whispering in her head intensified into an almost painful shriek. She ignored it.

Her hand was curled around another, belonging to the woman next to her. Another hand was draped over her shoulders, as though to steady her. It was funny, staring out across the imminent ruin of all that was -- it hadn't really mattered much who she was or what she'd done. The world would go on without her. The hand holding hers tightened, and she amended the thought, because didn't it matter now? It mattered to these people, here. She mattered to them. Perhaps that was enough.

They had done all they could.

She woke up, and for some reason felt horribly lonely.

Chapter 15: Aeris Also Buys a Snack but Does Not Get Hit by a Truck in the Process

Notes:

So this thing was originally one 12k+ chapter. That’s enough for two short chapters but pacing wise it’s meant to be one thing, so I’m gonna split it in two and post the next chapter the very next day.

Thank you Raaj, limbostratus, Sanctum_C, Cat, and Belderiver, the latter of which is indirectly responsible for a couple of the bits in here.

Aeris had been staring at Zack and Cissnei huddled around her phone for the last three hours. She knew it was three hours because the battery finally ran down on whatever terrible game they'd been emulating and Zack complained loudly about the fact that it was supposed to last longer. She was supposed to be reviewing the transcript -- she'd been the one the most pushy about their schedule, after all. It's not like there wasn't anything to review, either -- new information on how families were structured, this time without any nonsense about larvae and eggs; the absolute clusterfuck awaiting her with the fact that she'd have to explain they were in contact with a civilisation that took an "anything goes" approach to both warfare, human rights, and diplomatic relations, that would be fun to deal with; and a few interesting tidbits that seemed to hint at a religion of some sort -- a mention of gods, plural, except on occasion only god, singular, and something rather curious about the planet asking for a name, and a mention of returning to it, clearly hinting at some sort of implied afterlife. She'd have to ask about that later. She had scribbled a note in shorthand that she probably wouldn't remember to check later and had let her attention wander.

Instead, she was thinking about how to best approach her coworkers. Waking up next to someone like that back in Cloud's room, it had been nice. It had been a long time since she'd experienced something like that -- maybe when she was eighteen and had begun dating for its own sake? She'd never really had much in the way of peers, due to being repeatedly jumped grades and put in classes with people several years her senior. And after that, her work had always made her too busy for any sort of social excursions. Besides, who would she even go out with in the first place?

Cissnei was already friends with her, or at the very least was an acquaintance, though she wasn't sure how comfortable she'd be with casual human contact (which was such a strange thing to be uncomfortable with, in her opinion). Zack was fueled by fifteen percent coffee and eighty-five percent machismo, it seemed like, which could either mean he'd been looking for an excuse to get extremely familiar with everyone, or did not even remotely consider anyone else here his equal. Tseng was allergic to fun. Angeal seemed good-humoured enough, but in a dry, professional way. Lazard was technically her physician and they weren't really supposed to get overtly familiar with their patients.

Teachers were easy enough to get along with, though. She wheeled her chair over to Angeal with a good shove off the counter.

"Busy?"

Angeal shrugged. "Not particularly. Much of my work won't be starting for another week or so, though I have gotten portions of it done early... was there something you needed?"

"A sounding board, preferably. I'd like to get my thoughts in order." She straightened her printed copy of the transcript out from their last conversation, reading over some of the more interesting parts of it. The interference seemed to be gone for now.

I talked to your friend.

Teefah (sp?), or Reeve?

Teefa. She seems nice. How long have you known her?

Years. you'd have to ask her that.

I see. How long is a year for you out of curiosity?

like in days?

Perhaps? For that matter, how long would you say a day is?

24 hours (clarify cesium-133 second standard later?).

Good. So how many of those in a year?

358, except when it's 360 every 6 years.

So then how old are you?

25, I think.

You don't know?

No. I don't remember a lot from before I was 14 (age of enlisting, maybe coincidence)

Any reason why?

Mako poisoning I think. It does funny things to your head.

Is it all just a big blank?

I remember Ma. don't know how she looked, or what she was like. she returned to the Planet when I was 16.

I'm sorry for asking but does that mean she's dead?

Yes. That's what that means.

I'm sorry for your loss.

Why are you apologising? you didn't kill her. hard to miss something you don't remember

Doesn't it bother you?

Of course it bothers me. but she's gone, and nobody's alive that remembers her. So there's no point in trying to get her back. it's not like I don't have a family now anyway.

"He's obviously hiding something big," said Angeal. "The question is, is he hiding it because it's personal or is he hiding it because he knows it's relevant?"

"How do you go about asking that?" said Aeris. "This is the first conversation we've had where he didn't tell me to fuck off once. If he knows it's relevant, he'd tell us, wouldn't he? So we have the information we need to move onto the next stage and stop messing with his head."

"Would he?" Angeal gestured to another page of the transcript.

Why are all the doctors afraid of you? Are they prejudiced? Are you a minority subspecies?

the last time I was in here I broke a lady's arm.

Why?

Said I would. I said, you stick me with that needle, I'll break your damn arm in half. I told her. I warned her. I'm a man of my word. Didn't need her fucking flu shot anyway.

"He doesn't seem to have much sense of what's good for him, is the point I'm trying to make," said Angeal.

"But what we're trying to do is going to directly benefit him --"

"I'm not certain he cares. He's very... spirited. Try appealing to his better nature."

Aeris gave him a look, then shook her head. "I'm going to try speaking to Tifa about it. She seems interested in his wellbeing. If I just explain to her we're trying to help... what do you think he could be hiding anyway?"

"...Maybe he's just embarrassed," offered Angeal.

"He's done all this over embarrassment? He said he'd tell me eventually. I don't understand why he's like this." She looked over the papers again. "He's younger than I thought."

"He's your age."

"He is." She'd been thinking of him as older, but it seemed he was actually a year younger give or take. She'd gotten used to most people she knew being her senior by twenty years or so. The fact that she was technically the "adult" in this situation in more ways than one was something she hadn't considered. Perhaps that's why he'd calmed down as soon as she'd stopped trying to prove herself to him. She went back to reading the transcript.

What does it mean, to return to the Planet?

It means a lot of things to a lot of people. But we all come from the Planet, and when we die, our souls return to it. For a long time, everyone thought that's what the Promised Land was, too

So you're Jewish?

I'm what?

Never mind. It's a religion. For instance, I'm a Jew. We have one god, and one day hope to return to the Promised Land. Do you have religions?

Yeah.

What's yours?

I don't know.

So, you don't believe in any of them?

I didn't say that. I just said I didn't know. I don't remember anymore. Same as Tifah's, I guess. With the gods of the hearth and the gods of the mountain and the sky, and their circular war.

And when you return to the Planet, do you meet these gods?

I mean, some people think that. I guess maybe I did too. I don't know. What are you asking, exactly? Returning to the Planet isn't a belief, like the gods of the hearth. It's a fact, like gravity.

I'm sorry. I didn't intend to be rude.

You weren't rude. I just don't get how you don't understand that.

"He's very devout," commented Angeal. Aeris shook her head.

"It was more than that. The way he said it..." she pondered, "he wasn't angry. It was... it was as though he really didn't know how I didn't know about his culture. It must be very ingrained. You know how every culture on Earth, or very nearly, has some sort of flood story, suggesting something like that really did happen?"

"So you're suggesting there was some... mass earthquake?" asked Angeal.

"Maybe. We could do with an anthropologist, too."

"How many spare rooms do we have left?"

"...Not enough for an anthropologist," admitted Aeris. "Nobody expected to find anything more than rocks and germs. They might shut the project down even if I hadn't thrown our ambassador into traffic, just because we're underprepared for this. Come back to it in another year or two."

"You think they would, after all this?"

"I don't know. Maybe." She stared at Angeal. She wasn't actually sure if they were closer or not. Suddenly it didn't seem to matter much -- they might not see each other again for a while if the entire thing was shut down. It was such a stupid thing to try and engineer, too.

Instead, she just got up and hugged him. She made her way around the room with everyone, even managing to get a confused hug back from Zack and Cissnei before heading back to her room to organise her findings.

There wasn't anything that was scientifically helpful. The atmospheric content had been useful information, at least. Though she couldn't imagine them ever getting to a point in her lifetime where she'd get to walk around on another world with no isolated air supply. She looked over the transcript again.

If you're not sure how old you are, is there any way you normally keep track of it?

We normally mark it based on the day you're born. I think I was born sometime in the summer, so we just decided it should be the first day of August.

August as in the month August? Did you have an Augustus Caesar?

I don't know. Haven't heard of them. But I'm not good at history.

Sorry. Continue.

So, every year we celebrate the day you're born with a small party. We call that a birthday.

We have those as well. Please continue to tell me about your celebratory customs.

She smiled a bit. That wasn't quite how the conversation had gone...

 

---

 

Do you do presents?

Yeah. Do you?

Aeris had been examining a patch of skin on her arm where she was sure there had been a needle hole. Injuries didn't seem to stick here, between this and the coma. She'd made a note to ask Cloud about that as well. But she hadn’t yet.

Yes. I got a bottle of very fancy champagne and some garden tools from a colleague. But my birthday is in the winter, so I had to wait until the ground thawed out to use them. The tools, I mean, not the champagne, she added with a hint of distaste. She hadn't really cared for the champagne, either. It had tasted terrible and not at all sweet, which probably meant it was extra expensive and it was extra undignified to say you didn't like it. Apparently she wasn't even supposed to open it, she was just supposed to let it sit on a shelf for another ten years.

I get tools for my birthday sometimes. Wrenches and screwdrivers, not garden tools. Don't really need 'em anymore, but it's nice when someone remembers I like that kind of thing. One time I got a knife, though.

What kind of a knife?

Hunting knife.

That big one under your pillow?

That's the one.

Have you ever stabbed anyone with it before?

No. There's never been any reason to. Not until recently, anyway, but then that's what I've got my sword for.

Was that a present as well?

It was, yeah. But it was from me.

Why a sword? Why not a gun? You have guns in your world, right?

Because I'm better with a sword. Duh. And because swords are better. If you're going to kill someone, you should do it with your own two hands instead of pressing a button. Have some respect.

Yes, but a gun would be a lot more efficient.

No it wouldn't. Not for me. And guns are stupid.

Yes, but --

Have you ever used a gun or a sword?

...I can't say I have.

See? You're in no place to talk.

So you're telling me, you've used a sword.

Yeah.

Instead of a gun, when a gun was an option.

Yeah. I don't know what part of this you're not getting. Maybe this is why someone got you gross champagne for your birthday instead of a real present.

It was expensive gross champagne, thanks. It's a huge honour to get gross champagne from your boss.

Are you sure it was even gross? Maybe you just don't like dry stuff. There's no shame in that. I get a lot of customers like that. Some people just can't handle it.

You work in a bar, that's cheating. Piss off.

And then he'd laughed. Or, something like it. A strange little burst of amusement that had her own mouth curling into a smile involuntarily.

Didn't think you had it in you, "ma'am". I bet it wasn't even bad. I bet it was really subtle and complex and you're a big baby that can't handle anything that isn't ginger ale.

Well, maybe I am. And maybe ginger ale is just good.

I never said it wasn't.

 

---

 

She'd begun editing what went into the transcript at this point. She was supposed to be learning about another culture and forging a path ahead for humanity, not debating with someone about swords and guns and birthday presents. Not to mention, with sections like the above, she'd been a bit too distracted to take note properly and had to hastily fabricate a couple generic lines on the spot so Lazard wouldn't think something had gone wrong because she had stopped "writing". She'd been getting more and more spotty lately. Hopefully no one had thought much of it.

She didn't know why she disliked the project so much now. This should have been a big turning point.

She awoke to someone shaking her and found Zack and Cissnei leaning over her bed.

"Don't do that," she reprimanded. "It's creepy."

"Sorry," shrugged Zack. "We were thinking -- do you wanna hit up a bar or something? To celebrate."

"This might be the last time we will get to work with each other for a while, depending on how things go," said Cissnei. "We should make the most of it. Grab something to eat."

Aeris smiled. "I'd like that. Maybe I can try out the champagne."

Zack blinked. "I... I guess you could, yeah."

Going back out through decon was much faster than coming in -- an hour later they found themselves switching places with the inspection crew, which was already waiting outside for them. They'd have a week to decide what to do from here while the facility was re-cleaned and restocked.

They found a small cafe several hours away, closer to civilisation. Cissnei had to do most of the talking for them, though Aeris insisted on ordering her own drink in broken French. Zack stood there, looking lost.

"The others didn't want to come?" asked Aeris, after she'd received her cocktail. They wound up getting a pizza to split. Zack had gotten a sparkling water, and Cissnei had surprised them both by requesting straight gin.

"Don't know. They left earlier this morning," said Zack. "We got three, right? Good enough. So..." he continued, lowering his voice, "no ovipositors, huh?"

"No," she said flatly.

"How do you know? Did you look?"

Aeris smacked him with her napkin. He shrugged.

"In all seriousness... we aren't gonna get to use any of the pictures. Everyone's gonna think they're fake."

"What's fake about them?" asked Cissnei.

"What do you think? 'We totally found aliens, you guys. They look just like us except they have cat eyes'."

"I mean, maybe it's a statement," said Aeris. "About how humanity thrives, so on and so forth." She paused to take a sip of her drink, then stopped. "Actually, maybe that's something to think about. People are the same all over, aren't they?"

"I guess," said Zack. "I don't know if they'll see it that way... man, we're getting shut down for sure."

Aeris glumly dug an ice cube out of her glass. That would probably be for the best, she knew rationally -- Cloud would probably be glad to never see her again, and no one would have to deal with any ugly politics in the event that two entire worlds' worth of geopolitical conflicts came into contact with one another. She wanted to continue, she knew. She also knew perhaps it was selfish to want it to continue, but she wasn't surprised she felt that way. What did surprise her was why.

The entire point of it had been furthering humanity as a species... well, actually no. No one actually bought into that. The entire point of it had been finishing her parents' work and following in their footsteps and clearing their names by showing her discovery to the world. That was the point, wasn't it?

When she'd been sitting there in that waiting room talking about guns and birthdays, the thought hadn't entered her mind. She found herself wondering if Cloud would want to talk to her again, and if she'd get a chance to pet that not-a-dog, and if Tifa would be willing to talk to her again about something less boring than the atmosphere.

She still wanted to do the project, of course. What did it matter why, as long as it got done? But it still felt like a betrayal of why she started this in the first place. Remaining professional about this wasn't a matter of her pride -- it was a matter of... family tradition? Maybe. It was important, even if she didn't have the right word for it.

"...I mean, because no one will believe what we found," amended Zack, getting the wrong idea from her silence, "not because we're all gonna be jailed for human rights violations."

"Keep your voice down," hissed Cissnei.

"I'm just saying. Maybe they'll be too distracted by the weirder bits to even notice the whole... y'know."

“Why are we still talking about the project?” said Cissnei. “We have been talking about the project for weeks.”

“Not me,” said Zack. “I just got here, remember? In comparison, anyway. If it weren’t for this thing I’d probably have just let them pick me up with the next draft. That stuff pays crazy good as long as you don’t do anything stupid like beat your girlfriend or make your pet dogs snort cocaine.”

“Draft for what?” asked Aeris.

“Basketball, probably. In case you hadn’t guessed,” he said, gesturing vaguely above his head to indicate his height. “I’d have probably gotten some free press just for being the first pro player with multiple doctorates. Get my career started early.”

“That was the deciding factor?” asked Aeris. “Your career?”

“Well, what about you? What did you do before you went and dumped your life into bothering some random asshole from Jiffy Lube?”

“Well… I finished school obviously. Then I went into physics after my parents. They were always talking about how important the project was, and since I had the skills to help --”

“You’re talking about it again,” Zack interrupted. “We need a non-project goal. Hobbies. Something.”

“...I’d always wanted to be a pilot, actually,” said Aeris. “At first it was just space shuttles, but then I got interested in aeroplanes for a while. That was what I was set on for a while, was flying.”

“So, why did that not work out?” asked Cissnei.

Because it was all entirely false and Aeris had never had more of a passing interest in flight before. But that was better than admitting that there hadn’t been a non-project goal; that her entire life had been working towards this moment, and now that it was here, it was…

...Ordinary. She didn’t know how something like that could be ordinary -- she’d met a bunch of aliens that were all sitting on some sort of enormous secret-that-wasn’t-a-secret. She’d made… if, perhaps not a friend, at least an acquaintance. It was all very exciting. But…

She don’t know if she expected some sort of epiphany. She certainly didn’t feel like one was coming on. An entire world had been opened up in front of her, quite literally, and she didn’t really feel like she cared. That didn’t make sense. She obviously did care, she did strongly hope they weren’t shut down after this. None of it made much sense.

Though, now that she was spinning a ten-minute lie about it, the plane thing actually seemed interesting too. She knew more about the subject than she thought. She wondered if Cloud knew how to fix a plane. If they had planes. They probably had planes, right? Reeve mentioned airspace violations, so they definitely had planes that maybe one day she could have a look at.

“I haven’t been on a plane in years,” said Zack. “Not until recently. Suddenly a bunch of ‘interested parties’ are in my face, and I’m being flown around everywhere, and there aren’t enough barf bags in the world.”

“What kind of interested parties?” asked Aeris.

“Same ones that started throwing money at you, I guess,” said Zack. He opened his mouth to continue, then shook his head and took a drink from his soda water.

“I like planes,” said Cissnei, shrugging. She was pushing around the ice cubes in her drink, looking glum.“I think they’re exciting.”

“With the rush to get to the terminal, and a bunch of strangers shoving you around?” said Aeris.

“No. It’s just fun to up and go somewhere else. Even if it’s work, it still feels like a vacation.”

“And how often do you actually get to go to the beach on these vacations?”

“Almost never. It’s usually a conference room full of old angry men.”

“The beach is overrated,” said Zack. “It’s nice, but it’s overrated.”

“You’re just over-beached,” said Aeris. “You’re spoilt on a beach that isn’t piss-cold all year.”

“It does too get cold.”

“Ten degrees is not ‘cold’.”

“Well, tell you what -- when all this is over, we’ll wait until the winter and we’ll see for ourselves.”

“How do you know you’d remember to keep in contact that long?”

“How do you know we'll even be in contact that long?" he retorted. Something must have shown on her face in response to that, because he suddenly looked uncomfortable and went back to eating.

“I’ll cover it,” said Cissnei as they got up to leave. “First useful thing I have done in weeks, no?”

“Come on,” Aeris huffed. “You’ve --”

“No, you come on!” snapped Cissnei, angrily throwing her money down on the counter. “I was only there that long because I wasn’t allowed to leave. Chances are I will not be reapproved for the second part of this, if there is one. It is the least I can do.”

Aeris exchanged an uncomfortable look with Zack, who was already on his way out the door. She left after him. “Look…”

“Tell me one useful thing I have done for the project,” she said, shoving the door out of her way.

“...You dumped what we had of the transcript the other day,” suggested Zack. Cissnei rolled her eyes. “Alright, whatever. You were useless. You happy?”

Aeris glowered at Zack. “Oh, come off it --”

“She was! I’m not saying anything everyone wasn’t thinking already,” he protested, as Cissnei sat there and glowered at him.

“...Alright, fine. Why’s she need a use? Maybe it was nice having her around,” Aeris fired back, standing on her toes to try and get her point across. God, he was tall.

“I’m right here!”

“Well then fine!” shouted Aeris crossly, rounding on her. “It was nice having you around!”

“Then thank you!”

“You’re welcome!”

Zack was staring at them both, looking rather bewildered. “Is… this a European thing, or…?”

“Shove it, Fair,” said Aeris. Zack raised his hands in defense and turned away, still looking nonplussed.

“...I mean, I thought this was going pretty well,” he said after a few moments as they drove back to the airport. “Good talk.”

Aeris and Cissnei both made a general noise of assent.

“So… now we wait?” asked Aeris.

Zack nodded. “Seems so. Best case scenario, we’re all back in a week.”

Aeris didn’t ask for the worst case scenario. In truth, she wasn’t sure what it would be. The project continued, but they’d have to double down on the work? Or perhaps she’d be removed from the staff for mishandling the whole thing? Or maybe she’d be invited back, but everyone else would be gone. It wouldn’t really feel the same. Or perhaps they’d all be jailed, that wasn’t out of the question either. Or maybe the project would continue, but her backers would pull out and no one would believe the research. Or maybe CERN themselves would just shut the whole thing down. Or perhaps…

There really wasn’t anything to be done about the whole mess. She’d just have to hope for the best. At least Cloud would have a week to recuperate -- she got the sense he seemed high strung in general.

So, a week to mull things over. Just her and Shithead, and her work. For the project.

Zack tapped her on the shoulder, and she started slightly. "Thought I said not to do that."

"I tapped you. Doesn't count. Anyway..." he shrugged. "You and Cissnei already live here, and I don't really feel like getting on another twenty hour flight back to Hawaii just for a week. Would you care if I hung out at your place? Just for the week."

It was the kind of question he'd almost certainly asked on purpose. Had she really looked that disappointed?

"I know it's kind of out of the blue," continued Zack, as though he wasn't obviously asking for her benefit, "and I don't even know if you have a spare room, and I totally get it if you want your space, but..."

She really shouldn't, she knew. It was vastly inappropriate. But then, she'd also been living with these people for days on end anyway. And Zack seemed decent. And all professionalism had gone out the window the minute the medically advanced civilisation they'd made first contact with had been revealed to know the phrase "fuck you".

"Yeah, alright," said Aeris. "But I hope you're not allergic to cats."

They'd parted ways with Cissnei shortly after the plane ride, when she'd been nice enough to drop them off at the kennel first to pick up Cassiopeia, who yowled angrily the entire bus ride home.

"Is she usually this grouchy?" said Zack, as he swiftly withdrew his finger from the carrier as a set of claws swiped at it a moment later.

"No. She's an attention whore, and she's mad I didn't dote on her for ages," said Aeris. The bus rolled to a stop a few moments later.

"I got it," said Zack, and before she could say anything else he'd hefted their combined luggage in one hand and the carrier in another, its contents still hissing and spitting at everything she could see through the door.

She remembered, all too late, that the pan she'd cooked her eggs in was still in the sink. The house probably reeked -- yes, there was definitely a smell, she quickly realised as she stepped inside. At least she'd remembered to empty the litterbox.

Zack set down the carrier once they were inside and knelt by it. "Can I let her out?"

"Yes. Just keep her away from the patio. She likes to eat the plants."

She saw Zack carefully unlatch the door to the carrier, and watched as a very grouchy tortoiseshell streaked past him a moment later.

"She'll say hi later," said Aeris in response to Zack's somewhat offended look. "She's gonna have a good sulk first."

"So, am I staying on the couch, or...?" questioned Zack. If he noticed the smell, he wasn't acting like it.

"I've a spare room you can use," said Aeris. "I'll get something for us to eat later. Snacks are in the kitchen."

"It's just you here?" he asked.

"Well, me and Shithead," she said, gesturing towards the direction Cassiopeia had sprinted off in. "It's not all bad, really. I've got my work..."

Her work. Her parents' work, at least. Hers now. Her very very important work. Humanity. Something or other.

"Something wrong?" asked Zack. Aeris realised something must have been showing on her face and quickly flashed him a small smile.

"No. Just thinking about what to do in the meantime. We could try and organise our findings into something we could publish, but the whole thing might be pointless in a week, depending on how things go."

"Well... why don't we check the news? See if we're famous yet."

Aeris fetched her laptop from her room. She could have used the desktop computer, but she wanted to sit on a couch. She'd missed couches.

There wasn't much on the news about it that wasn't already common knowledge -- obviously they'd be debating about whether or not to publicly release the information.

Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of focus put on their age. A quick self-google had revealed Zack already had a small following of people interested in more mundane aspects of him than his scientific achievements. Aeris, too, had something of a following, though her name also turned up a number of conspiracy theories surrounding the failed bridging experiment, and how her parents had been taken in by the aliens on the other side and ascended to a higher plane of existence.

Aeris would have liked to believe that. She'd never been brave enough to look at the photos herself, but apparently there was a great deal of viscera everywhere that had clued authorities into the fact that, perhaps, there might not have been any survivors.

The computer was right there, though. Perhaps she should look. For closure. If there was ever a time for it, it was now, before everything they'd worked for came crashing down under its own weight.

She sighed and searched "gainsborough gast explosion remains". Zack, who was still sitting next to her, gave her an alarmed look.

"Are you okay?" he asked quickly, clearly convinced she wasn't.

"Yeah. Just... I wanna look," she said as nonchalantly as she could. She only succeeded in alarming him further. Too late now -- the picture had already loaded.

It wasn't actually as bad as she'd thought. But it was about what you'd expect from someone standing next to a very small hydrogen bomb. There wasn't as much... paste, there was no other way to describe it, as she thought there would be. Still a lot, though.

There. She'd looked. She closed the tab and went back to self-googling, then closed that tab when she inevitably found her head badly photoshopped onto a porn star's body.

"You're not worried, are you?" asked Zack. "It's totally safe, I promise. And we'll send rats through first, obviously..." He rubbed his neck nervously. "God, I shouldn't have been petting them. If any of them survive, at least one is getting dissected."

"I'm not worried," said Aeris distractedly. They wouldn't need to dissect all of them, surely. They'd need some alive to observe over the next few days anyway. And maybe if Cloud wound up dying from anything that developed from doing this, they'd find some other waypoint and whatever was left of his corpse would be used for educational purposes. And there would be others, probably, because there would be more visits now that there was an entire world to develop relations between, and it was her project after all, hers, she'd made such a fuss about that, her project, not her parents', she was doing this for her --

In that minute, she saw the whole of her life stretching out in front of her in two long, narrow paths -- one of more projects, and more terrified mechanics she'd have to possess. More guilt. More objectives being put in front of her to complete, walling it in, stretching it further. More refining this project that had sucked everything she knew into it.

The other path was empty.

Aeris curled up further into the couch and turned the volume up on the television. Zack looked at her concernedly, but said nothing for a long while.

Cassiopeia had finally warmed up to her again by the time she went to bed -- perhaps the fact that she'd been living in a clean room for several days had removed her scent? Or perhaps she was getting used to smelling her again after it had faded from the house. That wasn't likely, though. The scent of humans tended to permeate whatever they were around. One only really noticed it was there when one stopped smelling it for a while.

God, it was so bizarre that she knew that now. So far, the smell thing definitely had to be the strangest part of that world, bar none.

Aeris had another strange dream that night -- one she'd had several times before she was eight years old at the zoo with her parents in front of her favourite exhibit, the ostriches. She'd always wanted a pet ostrich in those days. In the dream, they always came up to the fence and permitted them to dig her grubby, cotton candy-encrusted fingers into their feathers. A voice from behind caught her attention.

"Aren't you Dr. Gainsborough?"

Aeris turned around, but of course they weren't talking to her. Her parents had been approached by another pair of visitors. Her mother nodded graciously.

"You were in the news recently -- about the parallel universe thing, yes?" said one of them. "Amazing stuff, never thought I'd see something like that in my lifetime." He leaned in closer, looking at Aeris. "Is that your daughter?"

Her father nodded proudly. "Aeris. She's eight years old, and already in her ninth year."

The man laughed. "Well, now! The apple certainly doesn't fall far, does it? I expect she'll have quite a bit to contribute to the field when she gets older." The man crouched to address her directly. "Do you like physics, Aeris?"

"I like ostriches!" she had said proudly. That earned another laugh out of everyone present.

"With that kind of enthusiasm, she'll make a great scientist," said the man. Her parents leaned over her pen in the zoo with great interest.

"She's too small right now," said her father. "She can't help us yet. She'll have to get bigger first."

They had all hunkered down to watch her. She was exposed in the pen. She wanted to hide behind something, but there wasn't anywhere to hide in the fifth ring. There were thousands of people watching from the rails now, and her parents were lost in the crowd. Their faces blurred together into a leering, flesh coloured mass. They all had cameras, wanting to take a picture of the alien she had discovered, and she and Cloud were exposed for the world to see, the scientist and the project bound together in a single exhibit. She was trapped in skin that wasn't hers, and Cloud was desperately screaming in her ears to be let out. They were twisted together too deep, and when Tseng pulled her, she woke up inside the tank in Cloud's body again, and was moved back into the exhibit. She woke up again, in her bed, and she was still Cloud, and he was still pleading to be let out, and she woke up again, and was still Cloud. She was here, in this body, in this exhibit, forever.

She woke up a fourth time and immediately grabbed a mirror. Just her own sweat-slicked face staring back at her this time. Her own hands, not pockmarked by battle scars, but not familiar either -- no dirt under the nails from her garden, due to the thorough decontamination weeks ago.

She got up right then and there and went downstairs to the patio. She'd never gardened in the middle of the night before. First time for everything, she supposed. She needed the dirt back right now.

She was woken up by Zack, who looked rather alarmed at this point. He tossed her a blanket.

"Jesus Christ, do you always sleep outside in the dirt?"

"No. Just... wanted to check on the plants. It's been a while, you know?"

"Whatever, lady. Aren't you cold?"

"No," she said as she began to shiver. Good thing it had been late summer.

"...Alright. Well, if I've got permission to go through your kitchen, I wanna make breakfast. If there's anything I missed, it's cooking."

“You cook?” asked Aeris, following him inside. Everything was sore. This was a mistake. She was never sleeping outside again, ever.

“I mean, as a hobby, yeah.” He began going through her cupboards. “Do you cook much?”

Aeris shook her head. “I was never much good at it. Never learned before, and haven’t really bothered to.”

“Well, you’re missing out,” said Zack, as he began chopping up some of the vegetables he had insisted she buy, even though she really didn’t bother with cooking from scratch, with a couple exceptions. It was a lot easier to just buy something canned, season it, and get back to work. “It’s really just chemistry, you know -- monosaccharides will brown if you heat them at this temperature, but introducing lipids will slow that reaction by this percentage -- and then you get to try and figure out how exactly long in your head.”

“And that’s fun for you?”

“What is? Cooking? Yeah, obviously.”

“I meant, guessing at things, for its own sake.” Aeris began to feel a bit useless, and decided she might as well make tea with what little space the stovetop offered.

“Oh, that too. Part of why I got into basketball, you know. If you know where the ball is gonna be before anyone else, it makes the game a lot more interesting.”

“So, why didn’t you just go into basketball?” asked Aeris. Whatever Zack was doing with those vegetables, it smelled amazing. “Seems like you’d enjoy it a lot more.”

“I don’t,” he said shortly, as that odd look passed across his face for another moment. “...I mean, not as much as theoretical astrophysics,” he said, flashing her another obnoxious movie star grin. She rolled her eyes. “Although I guess at this point it’s not really theoretical anymore…”

“Now, cooking,” he added, as he switched the stove off and dumped the contents of two different pans into bowls and fetched them a couple plates, “cooking I could get into. Who knows, maybe once we’re all fired I’ll go on Chopped or something.”

Aeris helped herself to a few generous spoonfuls of everything and took an experimental bite. Her eyes watered.

“Oh, wow,” she said.

Zack raised an eyebrow. “That bad?”

“No, it’s fantastic -- what is this?”

“Not anything fancy or anything -- sauteed some mushrooms and onions in butter, and, uh… we didn’t have sausage or anything, so I improvised,” he said, gesturing to an empty tin of corned beef hash. “Mixed the eggs and rice in with it, threw in some red pepper and a little cheese. Shit, we shoulda got some fruit too...”

“I have fruit,” said Aeris, and quickly got up and left the table for the patio again with an empty bowl. She came back with it filled with strawberries.

“Grew them myself,” she said, as she began rinsing them off in the sink. "I've got edible herbs out there as well."

"Wish I'd known that earlier. Remind me about that later."

"Remind yourself," said Aeris, taking her plate and the bowl of strawberries and sitting on her couch next to Shithead. Zack uncertainly followed her. She dug the remote out from under the blanket she'd left it buried in a lifetime ago and switched on the television.

The news was on. Some important-looking doctor was discussing Tseng's presence on the project and his credentials, and what a huge deal it was that he was involved in this monumental endeavour.

"I think we should change the channel," said Zack quietly. Aeris nodded and flipped to a competitive baking show as Shithead marched her way across her lap to demand attention from Zack.

They spent the week stubbornly ignoring the outside world. Aeris went back to fending the cat off from her herbs. Zack didn't even bother changing out of his pyjamas for most of it, except to make another grocery run. He seemed to have taken her comment about his cooking skills as a personal challenge, and it had become clear early on that he was showing off, although Aeris had no trouble admitting she was actually impressed, even if it did make him insufferably smug. She preferred smug to the grinning mascot she'd encountered in the facility, though. He seemed less on-edge here. And perhaps it was just his face, but he seemed to look happier when he wasn't actually smiling.

She'd miss him when he left.

Chapter 16: Happy Birthday Cloud (Just Kidding It Is Not Actually His Birthday at All, I Have Done Another Joke)

Notes:

And here's part two. I think the next two chapters after this one might be a bit delayed by a week or so, because they'll also be hella long and I don't think I can justify splitting them up. Also finals are happening.

Again, thank you to Belderiver, Cat, Raaj, Sanctum_C, and limbostratus for proofreading.

"Those motherfuckers."

"Listen to me --"

"They fucking planned for this, from the first call! They --"

"Tifa, I need you to listen to me."

Tifa had been dropped back off at the bar, where Reeve was waiting with her next to Barret. Barret looked just as furious as she did. Reeve just looked grim.

“Yes, they planned for this. This has been in the works for four years.”

Barret turned to him this time. “You mean, you --”

“God dammit, will you both listen to me! They’ve been wanting an excuse to lock Cloud up for years, and he keeps giving that to them. I couldn’t deflect this one, but it would have happened sooner or later.”

“He isn’t crazy --” began Tifa again.

“You have to understand the mentality behind this decision. He’s unstable,” said Reeve. “I don’t think any of us would argue with that. We have a system in place to mitigate the worst of it, but he’s… he’s had a rough upbringing, obviously, and that’s stunted both his emotional development and his view of the world. Everyone he knows, he categorises as either his best friend or a target. He’s incapable of seeing anything between the two.”

“...Maybe so,” said Tifa as she exchanged an uncomfortable look with Barret. “But --”

“He’s unstable,” said Reeve, sinking into a booth. “You have to understand, that’s undeniable. And he’s dangerous. Dangerous doesn’t mean crazy, before you start, it means dangerous. The man can dodge bullets, Tifa.” He took a deep breath, kneading his eyes with his palms. “It took eight of us to take down Sephiroth. And then two years later, he did it on his own and survived. He’s a lethal mage that’s mastered more magic than most people are ever exposed to in an entire lifetime. And… you saw what he did, that day at Meteorfall,” added Reeve softly. “We all did. Even if he denies he had anything to do with it, we all saw. That kind of power… Cid and I have been trying to discourage him from using it that casually, but…”

“So they’re afraid of him,” spat Barret. “Buncha cowards.”

“They have every reason to be, because neither of those things pair well with the third thing, which is that he’s killed before, and doesn’t have much keeping him from killing again besides the fact that he knows we’d disapprove of it,” said Reeve. “Tell me, Tifa -- how many of your customers has he casually threatened with disembowelment?”

“That’s just talk,” she said sharply.

“Is it?” asked Reeve incredulously.

Tifa looked away. It wasn’t. She knew it wasn’t. She’d seen him grandstand to get his way before, usually with Barret. Those times were different from the ones with that cold glint of hatred entering his eyes.

Reeve pressed onwards. "We've been keeping tabs on him from day one. For about six months before the stigma was officially recognised as a pandemic, there were plans to incarcerate him. Worse things have been suggested. At least three times, a lobotomy in some form or another was mentioned. You try explaining to a roomful of people that just watched the world nearly end that he's 'one of the good ones'."

"You didn't --"

"Obviously I didn't let them. Any brain issues he has, the WRO had nothing to do with them." Reeve sighed heavily. "So, we compromised. I bugged his room."

A stunned silence fell over the two of them. Tifa looked at him with narrowed eyes.

"...For how long?" asked Tifa coldly.

"Four years ago. The batteries would've died after four months, and by then he'd fallen a bit on the priority list due to the stigma, so I never bothered switching them out."

"Well, ain't you a regular fucking humanitarian," spat Barret.

"Oh? And what would you have done?" replied Reeve without missing a beat. "Some changes you can accomplish from outside the system. Some you can't. You have your methods. I have mine. But if you can come up with a better solution than blowing up the building, I'd be happy to listen."

"Better than selling out everything that ever made you a decent man," said Barret. "That boy trusts you. Like Marlene trusts you. That's two times you double-crossed him now."

Reeve looked at Barret exhaustedly. "I joined your organisation because I wanted to do the right thing. That is all I've been trying to do. Please listen to me. When all this is said and done, I will tell him myself."

Barret crossed his arms. Tifa stared at him expectantly, and decided to check her own room when Reeve left, just in case.

“While I'm airing out dirty laundry, there are other incidents that… before today, I would have risked my job to tell you about. I have reason to believe he’s involved in a string of deaths that cropped up not long before the WRO first formed. There were at least thirty that we know about, all formerly involved with Series 3 of the Jenova Project in one way or another. Shinra has a lot of enemies, it could have been anyone, but some of the things done to those bodies…” he shook his head. “I can’t prove it was him. Maybe it really is just a coincidence. But I can’t prove it wasn’t him, either.”

Tifa forced herself to sit down across from Reeve, as though that would calm her somehow. Everyone besides the three of them had cleared out and taken Marlene with them in order to distract her. She’d probably wind up staying with Nanaki or Yuffie until this mess blew over -- as far away from the conflict as possible, ideally.

“He’s emotionally unstable," said Reeve, looking at Tifa hard, “highly suspicious of strangers, refuses to seek medical treatment for any of the three psychological disorders he has that we know about, has an intense dislike for authority, a deep-seated link with Jenova, is comfortable with the idea of committing acts of violence, and gods, does he ever have the means to commit them if he should ever decide the world has given him a reason.”

“So they think he's Sephiroth,” said Barret shortly. “That’s their problem. We just convince them he ain’t a threat to anybody.”

“You can’t convince them of that,” said Reeve, “because it isn’t true. That’s what you need to understand. We’ve been the only thing keeping him away from several murder one charges. No, nothing we say to them is gonna get them to let him go.”

“But he would never…” she trailed off.

“He wouldn’t because we’d never let him hear the end of it if we did,” said Barret, as something seemed to dawn on him. “He sure as hell don’t do that for everyone else. It’s no good to have someone else be your moral compass. He should know this himself.”

“Tifa…” said Reeve, looking at her imploringly, “you know how he is.”

And in a strange way… she did.

It had been four months ago, when they’d been alone together. Alone, and on the same bed together. They’d been planning this night for quite a while -- Cloud was sterile, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other potential “biohazards” he was host to. Maybe even lethal ones. He’d been nervous -- Tifa had had her share of partners after coming to Midgar. Cloud had grown up in captivity and everything he knew about sex prior to their relationship had come from whatever his mother had deigned to tell him, which he likely couldn’t remember anymore anyway, and a hazy memory of a smuggled-in blue movie he’d gotten a glimpse of when he was fourteen.

She’d moved closer to him, watching him uncomfortably fumble with the hooks to her bra under her shirt, glancing at her expectantly now and then. He’d been so eager to please… not just her. Everyone. Every little acknowledgement they’d given him for something he’d done made his face light up like it had on his first “birthday”. He’d even started seeking out situations like that, she’d noticed. From the little gifts he thought they’d like, to the way he’d drop whatever he’d been doing in a heartbeat if someone needed something. He never complained or objected or backtracked out of something.

Her hand had slipped into his pants at some point, but she hadn’t actually begun doing much of anything. “Did… is something wrong? Did you want me on top for this?” said Cloud. He had been looking at her, confused, and faintly upset.

And he’d never, ever say no to them if they asked him to do something he didn’t want. He’d convince himself he did want it, it seemed like. Nobody was that accommodating.

She let go of him and removed her hand from his waistband.

“I’m sorry, just… I should have mentioned. My period started, and I didn’t want to say anything,” said Tifa, by way of an explanation.

“Oh… well, er… did you just want to sleep, then?” Not even an objection, after they’d planned this for two weeks. If he was disappointed, he’d hidden that too.

“That’d be nice,” she’d said, and that had been the end of that.

They hadn’t been involved to that degree for four months. What they had was a carefully-constructed facsimile of a relationship, in that they both pretended they were equal parties that could hook up at any time but just chose not to, for mutual reasons. When she’d been younger and stupider and more hopeful, she thought having someone willing to die for you would have been a terribly romantic thing. All it was instead was sad. It was hard to date someone that would probably, actually, without hesitation, jump off a cliff if she told them to. Or throw themselves in front of a train.

Or hand over the Black Materia. So eager to please...

The word puppet flashed through her mind for a moment, and she pushed it away. Cloud wasn’t their puppet. They didn’t force him to do anything. He could make decisions for himself.

Could, but doesn’t, said a part of her that was still angry. He asked you to kill him.

“So… now what?” asked Tifa. She suddenly felt as tired as Reeve looked.

“If they don’t give him back, we gotta bust him out,” said Barret. “Obviously.”

“Where would we hide him?” asked Tifa. “How would we even pull it off?” She looked at Reeve. “How are they keeping him there anyway? It’s been a whole day. If he could have broken out himself, he would have by now.”

“I don’t know. I can guess, but they could have made changes to the initial design and not told me after I showed myself to be corrupt.”

“A breakout like that…” Barret let out his breath in a huff. “That’s three months. Maybe more. You can’t even leave that boy alone for an hour. He ain’t gonna last that long.”

“He might have to,” said Reeve. “All we can do is --”

“No. Fuck that.” Tifa stood up. “This whole thing -- it’s because they think he’s talking to Jenova, right? That’s their excuse.”

“That’s their excuse this time,” said Reeve. “If he assaults someone again, I won’t be able to get him off anymore.”

“We’ll cross that river when we come to it,” said Tifa shortly. “That’s what they’re basing this on, right?”

“Sounds about right,” said Barret, as Reeve nodded uncertainly.

“But we know it’s not,” said Tifa. “It’s some little old lady that didn’t even know he was there at first. She didn't know who I was, either. And Jenova doesn’t talk.”

“The scans indicate that apparently she does now,” said Reeve.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Tifa. “If we can get her to just -- explain, or -- or if we could talk to her, figure this all out… she’d help, right?”

“Can’t do that if they’re both locked up now,” said Barret, silencing her.

“...There’s gotta be a way,” said Tifa eventually. “We just need to figure this out.”

Barret shrugged. “Let’s hope he don’t lose his mind before then.”

 

---

 

Cloud was lying on the bed in his cell, watching the intercom on the ceiling spark and fizzle. He'd managed to put his fist through it, both because he thought there might be spare parts he could use to escape, and because he'd gotten absolutely sick of his "overseer" trying to get him to work through his hostility. The small magnet in the speaker might've been useful, but the gas had kicked in almost immediately, and by the time he'd woken up again it had been confiscated. They'd probably use a different kind of speaker next time, if anyone was brave enough to come into his cell for long enough to repair it.

He'd been in a constant state of various levels of sedation over the last three days. He was presently feeling the same dreamy contentment the gas generally offered. It was probably for the best, really. Between the quiet, and the isolation, and dread at the prospect of spending years in this place, he'd started to lose it an hour after the speaker had first clicked off. He found himself regretting smashing his only source of human contact moments after waking up. It would have been very easy to just break down without him being half out of his mind.

He wouldn't, though. His family obviously wouldn't stand for this. It was only a matter of time before they came to break him out, if Cloud couldn't find a way out himself. Therefore, he'd gone out of his way to make the staff as miserable as possible in the meantime.

Yesterday he'd iced the door over. Didn't help him get out, but it made it that much harder for them to get in. He'd dumped the medications he'd gotten (most of which were more sedatives) down the drain, and when they'd tried to make him take them intravenously he'd managed to get one of the other nurses with the syringe instead, which held everything up for another hour while she was rushed off. Apparently the stuff they'd been using on him was practically chocobo tranquiliser.

He still hadn't managed to find the cameras. That would be priority one, if he was going to come up with an escape plan. They were somewhere, he knew, but he couldn't see anything on the walls besides padding. He was willing to bet there was probably at least one in the shower, but on day two he decided he didn't really care if a bunch of doctors saw his unmentionables, and he hoped whoever was looking was profoundly uncomfortable every time.

The cell was solidly-built, and newly constructed as well -- he couldn't find a single part of it that looked worn down or rusted or faulty. He'd tried to pick up the bed and use it as a battering ram, but the whole thing seemed to be built directly into the floor with no space beneath it to be used to get a good grip on it. And anyway, whoever was watching them had their hand on the knockout button. They didn't even allow anyone into the cell with him to draw blood or leave him food unless he'd been breathing it for at least five minutes, as he'd learned from when he'd tried to hold his breath and fake it the first day. He'd have to be subtle about this.

No keys, no wallet, no more electronics he could dismantle... his hand flew to his ears -- his earrings. They'd given them back after the third scan and hadn't taken them away yet. He carefully popped them out and looked them over. Perhaps he could make some sort of lock pick? Or perhaps a weapon, even if it was a really ineffective one. Maybe. But...

Maybe not. They might break, or he might have to break them to do it. And if it didn't work, they'd take them away. He didn't want to lose them.

They're just earrings, he told himself. Don't be stupid. If they could get you out, you should use them. Your freedom is worth more than earrings. But he couldn't make himself do much more than stare at them. They're just earrings, you moron. They're

 

---

 

A pained yelp echoed in the grubby bathroom in the barracks. He nearly dropped the needle he'd been using, his teeth clenched tightly enough to make his jaw hurt as it pierced cleanly through his earlobe. He stared at it in the mirror for a moment in morbid fascination. For about ten seconds he thought it looked kind of badass, what with the blood and all. Then it just made him nauseous, and he wanted it out as soon as possible.

Had to leave it in, though, or the other side would be lopsided. His fingers were in more pain than his ears, honestly. He should've worn gloves to deal with the ice. Too late now. He'd spent long enough psyching himself up to do it. If he left the bathroom now, he'd never get the courage to go back in.

He'd thought about asking one of his seniors to do it for him, but decided against it. It would have been nice perhaps having his CO do it -- someone that had taught him how to get by in the army, so it would feel about the same. They'd laugh, though, or worse. So it was probably better this way: just him, a cup of ice, and a large sewing needle.

The second hole tore another pained scream from him, but this one he clenched his teeth around harder, muffling the sound. It wasn't even the worst pain he'd been in -- Wutai had shown him that. He thought having a cool bullet scar would make him tougher somehow, but all it had done was hurt and bleed a lot. But getting jabbed through the ears with a sewing needle still hurt like a bitch. He was allowed to say that, wasn't he?

He carefully eased out each needle and inserted the cheap studs he'd picked up in the slums into each hole. He snatched the healing materia he'd smuggled out of the training room and wished away the open wounds, and just like that it was done, the flesh sealed neatly around the rods of metal through them, simply in need of a quick rinse first.

It had been messy, but he'd done it. He felt just a hint of pride at his accomplishment. Hadn't even needed a father to do it for him. None of the other boys in Nibelheim could say that. Now he was an adult, just like them.

 

---

 

"Just come in through here," said Jessie, leading him into the back. He could navigate perfectly well himself via sound, and all she was doing was bumping him against furniture. What a waste of time.

"You're all in there," grumbled Cloud. "I can smell you. Just because I can't see them doesn't mean I don't know they're there. You don't need to blindfold me for bad news, just... just get it over with."

"Fine, doofus. Just get in the damn door. We're late enough anyway," said Jessie, shoving him roughly through the door. Cloud reached up to take the blindfold off.

"SURPRISE!"

Cloud let out a yell and reflexively moved his hand from his face to the hilt of his sword before realising he recognised all the voices. He ripped the blindfold off and stared at them all, and then the room, in confusion.

There were several balloons taped to the walls, and an extravagant-looking blueberry cheesecake next to a plate of chopped fruit and sliced sausages, the fancy kind that he hadn't had in... years? It was always hard to tell. Several boxes and paper bags were piled high behind it. The windows were all opened, allowing the sun to flood the room. Lined up behind the table was his family, wearing forced smiles to hide their own anxiety.

Cloud stared blankly at it all for several moments. "...What?"

"It was Tifa's idea," said Yuffie, shrugging. "I told her, y'know, it was weird you didn't remember when your birthday was, apart from summer, and we got to thinking we'd just have to pick a day, right? First of August, so we'd remember it. But then we realised you've got a lot of lost time to make up for."

"Nine years worth, at least," said Tifa quietly. "So, why not get started this week? I made the cake myself."

"I helped!" shouted Marlene indignantly over her. "I did all the stirring!"

Barret nodded. "You did a great job, too." He turned to look at Cloud. "So, we all took the week off. You oughta do the same. Might do you some good."

Cloud could only stare numbly at them all, at a loss for words. He nervously approached the table, but couldn't make himself touch anything on it. He felt faint, and his chest hurt something powerful. He supposed it had been a little tight lately, but this felt different. Unfamiliar.

"You wanna do presents first, or...?" said Yuffie, looking uncomfortable. He stuttered. She thought he didn't like it.

"I -- I mean, the cake might --" Presents. For him. Had he ever had a present before? From Hojo, perhaps, which he'd thrown off a mountain two years ago. From his mother? He couldn't remember. He wasn't sure if she'd have had the money for it, anyway. He was sure she must have.

"You got to open Tifa's first," Marlene demanded angrily, still sore about being uncredited towards the cheesecake. "Papa and I helped pick it out. You gotta open that one first."

"Which one is it?" he asked hoarsely. Tifa gestured to a box about the size of his fist on the table. He picked it up and shook it gently. Not much noise escaped it.

Everyone was still watching him. He dug his fingers into the seam of the box and popped it open.

Inside was a pair of ear studs -- little pewter Nibel wolves, intricately shaped. Probably handmade, though he didn't know much about metalworking of this sort. His breath caught.

"You never really got proper ones," said Tifa. "No time like the present, right? And now we all match."

Cloud looked up and noticed for the first time the ring she was wearing -- a simple wolf's head on a band. Barret had one as well, though his was much thicker. Cloud briefly considered what it would be like to get punched with a ring like that.

"We figured you'd lose a ring," said Tifa. "Given all the handiwork and everything. But I don't think you'll lose those. Right?"

"I won't," breathed Cloud. His hands shook as he plucked the earrings from the cardboard they were embedded in. He stared at them in his palm even as his breath hitched again and his vision began to blur. He quickly pulled up a chair and sat there, transfixed by the two tiny bits of metal in his hand. The pain in his chest boiled over and soon he was crying, deep sobs wracking his body, his fist clenched around the earrings as the metal bit into his skin. He didn't understand; he wasn't sad. He didn't know what was going on anymore. Maybe he was sick.

"Well, good to know none of us are topping that one. Might as well leave now," grumbled Cid, rolling his eyes, but he went to grab a knife for the cheesecake anyway. Marlene looked confused and uncomfortable. She tugged on Barret's shirt.

"Why doesn't he like it?" he heard her whisper.

"He likes it just fine," replied Barret. "He's just an idiot."

Words. They'd want a response, for the earrings, for the cake, all of this. "I-I'll pay you back for all of this," he choked out after another minute. "It -- it was probably expensive, I swear, I'll --"

"No," said Tifa firmly. "You don't need to earn this. I'd say you already did already, right?"

It was too much. He didn't understand. All of it, the food, and the sun, and the earrings, and the nine years they'd decided he'd earned something for and had seen to it personally that he got it, and the next nine days filled with talking and warmth and the strange swelling feeling in his chest. He didn't understand.

Three months later, when he stole away in the middle of the night and couldn't bear to leave the earrings behind along with everything else, he still didn't.

 

---

 

Cloud put his earrings back in.

Aeris hadn’t come back yet. That was odd. Maybe something in the sedatives they’d had him breathing were preventing it.

By day four, it became much harder to keep the isolation from getting to him. He kept himself amused by keeping track of which staff brought him food or medications on which days. He’d thought about refusing to eat -- they were obviously drugging his soup, given he wasn’t taking the actual pills they’d supplied him -- but he wouldn’t be able to escape if he was skin and bones. He’d learned that the hard way.

At first, he'd been tempted to just ride out this mess on a wave of narcotics. It would certainly be less lonely or panic-inducing than four bare white walls. They'd switch the gas on every time he tried to smash something; if he wanted to he could rip the showerhead off the wall and nap through another few hours in a state of mild euphoria.

He refused to do that either. He'd done that the first time he'd given up, with Jenova. He wouldn't do it again, now that there wasn't any reason to anymore.

Jenova seemed to be noticing the widening cracks in his psyche, and had become louder than ever lately. It was getting harder to fight her like this. It had definitely been a mistake to smash the intercom. He'd fix it himself at this point. Maybe they were deliberately holding off on repairing it on purpose -- to coax good behaviour out of him.

He didn't want to play into this. But sitting there in his cell, alone, hugging his knees to himself and trying to pretend it was still a week ago when he'd been pressed up against another human that was just happy he was alive, he began remembering all too vividly what it felt like to think the world had just forgotten about you. He couldn't go through that again. Never again.

On day five, he stayed in his bed and didn't bother holding his breath and allowed them to fix the intercom. He refused to cry in front of these people. But maybe if he waited patiently enough and let them draw blood, they’d talk to him. There was no point going crazy by himself.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Strife,” said the voice a couple hours later. “Are you feeling any better?”

Cloud nodded.

“That’s good. That’s what we’re here for, you know. To help you recover.” It was a very nice voice -- in the regular way, not the way Director Crescent had sounded. He wondered if they were actually another doctor, or just a mouthpiece that they thought he might like better.

“She hasn’t spoken to me all week,” said Cloud. “So I can go now, right?”

“That’s good that you aren’t directly hearing her right now,” said the voice. “But the biggest threat to you is still subconscious influence, and that’s much more difficult to judge. Have you felt compelled to any unusual locations lately?”

“I want to go home,” he said bluntly.

“You will. In the meantime, is there anything we can get you to make your stay here more comfortable? It will need to be approved, of course.”

Cloud blinked. “What?”

“Books, perhaps? Are there any foods you’re partial to?”

“Is -- is this a joke?”

“You’re here to recover, Mr. Strife, not to be punished. A welcoming environment will encourage that.”

“...I want to go home.”

“I’m sorry, but we can’t allow that at the present time. If it would help, I could arrange a visit with your friends.”

Cloud sat up on the bed. “You -- I don’t -- what?”

“If you’d prefer these conversations remain between us until your mental state is less compromised, that’s also understandable --”

“You’d let me see them?”

“It would be inappropriate to allow non-staff into your room with you at the present time, but we would allow you to converse with them via the intercom. Would that be acceptable?”

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“I’ll be sure to contact them. Is there anything else we can do for you?”

Cloud shook his head. No point in pushing his luck.

He was going to see his family. Maybe they could help him. Maybe they’d convince them to let him out. At the very least, it would make this hell bearable.

“Now… if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions. Is that okay?”

Cloud nodded again.

“Can you describe to us what it felt like when Jenova first made contact with you?”

“I already told you, I’m not --” he began.

“You misunderstand me. I mean, when your… gene therapy first began.”

Cloud went quiet. “...I don’t want to talk about this,” he said.

“Mr. Strife, we have very little information to go off of. We’ll be able to help you if you help us.”

He swallowed. He knew how this game worked. They had something he wanted. He had something they wanted. The winner was the person who decided they didn’t need the thing the other player had first.

Cloud had always been bad at this game.

“...Just little urges at first,” muttered Cloud. “Felt like there was something missing. Sometimes the world felt wrong, but I didn’t know how.”

“At what point did Jenova begin giving you direct commands? Can you describe what it felt like?”

It felt like someone reaching into everything you were and pulling at something that should never be touched, until you weren’t sure where you ended and the someone began. It felt like being ripped apart so slowly and insidiously that by the time you noticed it it was too late. It felt like four white walls with something swimming just out of sight behind them, something big and empty and full of music and knives and ice to burn the insides of his veins --

Cloud’s breath began coming in short, panicked gasps. He backed up further into his bed against the wall. It was empty in here besides him. It would be empty for days yet. Maybe weeks. Maybe months. Maybe years.

“I don’t -- I don’t want to --” he choked out.

“You’re safe here, Mr. Strife,” said the voice, which was coming from all around him. “Just tell us what we need to hear. It figures that you’re too idiotic to understand simple Standard. A disappointment of a specimen. Or perhaps you didn’t figure out how this works from the first time. In any case, we clearly have a lot more work to do.”

“No --” His head was swimming. He stared at the door. The minute it opened, he’d be dragged away again…

The chemical smell slowly filled the air, and the voice continued speaking.

“I think we’re done for today,” it said. “It’s alright. Take your time. You can tell us when you’re ready.”

He felt himself slowly calming as his breathing evened out and he settled back into the drugged haze he’d drifted into. He was safe here. Just a cell. Safe here.

The voice didn’t come back for the rest of the day. Cloud could not bring himself to ask for it, no matter how empty his cell got.

On day six, he went through every test without resistance. He didn’t punch any of the nurses. He answered the questions he was asked as neutrally as he could. He even allowed them to knock him out for what they claimed was a bone marrow sample. He couldn’t risk doing anything that would jeopardise them rescinding visiting privileges, let alone anything else. They’d taken his shirt away briefly on day three when he’d tried to use it to strangle a guard with instead of using his earrings as a lockpick, and he’d found himself regretting the decision all day and waiting in a quiet panic while they made him promise not to do it again. He wouldn’t. Clothes were a privilege, not a right.

Jenova was roaring in his head -- a vast, empty noise, like the wind howling interspersed with the music -- or perhaps it was the music. It was as loud as it had ever been.

He'd caved and asked for another two blankets so they wouldn’t be able to tell he’d been crying. He hadn’t been crying. He was just upset. What kind of an adult felt lonely and sad and cried all the damn time? Not a stable one, that was for sure. Not the kind they’d give visiting privileges to. Even if it was a lie, he still chose to believe that if he was good enough, his family would visit him. At this point, that thought was the only thing keeping him from winding up like last time.

She was so loud. He couldn't hear himself think. He couldn't think. She pulled at him, slowly, steadily, and there was no one else to pull back. The intercom was a faint noise in the background compared to the din in his head. It was the worst it had been in years. Someone was trying to soothe him -- maybe the voice, maybe Mother. Maybe no one.

Something inside him snapped.

"Shut up!" he screamed. " Just shut up! Shut the fuck up!" He curled in on himself, clawing at his head, and began beating the back of his skull against the wall. The padding kept him from doing much damage to himself, and his screams only rose in intensity. He couldn't take another minute of it -- it was as bad as he remembered. It was worse, because now he couldn't even knock himself out to get away from it.

The gas kicked in at this point -- he wasn't sure how long it had been on -- and he blissfully sank into unconsciousness. Whatever She did to him now, at least he wouldn't be aware for it.

On day seven, Cloud stared blankly at the wall and did not move again.

 

---

 

“Reapproved, effective immediately.”

"What?" Zack looked up from the cereal box he'd been digging through and quickly swarmed over to her to read over her shoulder.

"That's what it says," said Aeris, tilting her laptop for him to see. "Request for additional staff, denied... got another pretty sizeable grant... gag order..."

"So, how are we supposed to handle the whole... first contact thing?"

Aeris stared at the screen. "They just... 'something something endeavour something additional knowledge...' they just want us to keep getting information."

"...That's it?"

"That's it," said Aeris, looking through the document again. "This is weird."

"I know."

"No, this -- this is weird. It doesn't make sense. It's like they don't even care we found an entire -- they're not even mad, is the other part. You'd think they'd be furious. Or overjoyed, or something, not just..."

"Well, they didn't shut us down," said Zack.

"Yeah..." Aeris closed her laptop. "That's weird too, actually. Not even a delay while they... I don't know. Talk to the UN, maybe."

Zack read over the letter again, in case he'd missed something the first time. They'd been denied extra staff, but permitted extra resources. There was almost no commentary on the fact that they'd discovered another civilisation. They didn't seem upset or excited. In fact, with the blunt way they'd been asked to continue their research and proceed with the project, they almost seemed... disappointed?

His mind went back to the meeting he'd had before being roughly shoved into this project. They'd been interested. Everyone had. But...

None of this sat well with him. But he didn't know for sure, so he wasn't going to jump to conclusions and make things more complicated than they needed to be. He couldn't afford to blow this. Still, he thought he'd done what he'd been asked to do. This non-reaction was even more unnerving than the pink slip he'd been dreading.

All he said out loud was, "Well, I guess that means I finally get to earn my keep in the next bit, huh?"

"Mmhm," said Aeris, looking thoughtful. She obviously seemed as bothered by this as he was, albeit probably for different reasons. "At least Cloud will be happy about it."

"You're not?"

"No, I am," she said. "Get your things. We'd better go share the good news."

Chapter 17: MMMMMM JUICY ITALICS

Notes:

Aaaaand back off hiatus. I lost internet access for four days and it was the hardest four days of my life. It seems to be stable now, though. Extra long chapter to make up for the absence (and because shit's about to get explainy again as we move into act two of the story). This chapter wasn't beta'd very much due to several IRL complications (including internet problems), and I might to back and fix it later because I'm not particularly happy with it. That being said, thank you to Belderiver, Raaj, Limbostratus, and Sanctum_C for what betaing you were able to get in over the holidays.

In other news, this fucking thing finally has a title! An actually good title also revelant to the themes, but is also a three-way pun. Nice.

I'd just like to state for the record that I had this entire thing outlined and ready back in July, long before Norman Reedus and the Funky Fetus 3 showed at the game awards. Any similarities to Death Stranding are purely coincidental. So, you know, technically Kojima ripped me off. You can send me the check in the mail, Kojima.

Man, now I'm gonna have to remove the scene where there's a baby hanging out in Cloud's throat and it gives the audience a thumbs-up or Mads Mikkelsen will come to my house and beat me to death.

That being said, I suppose this is the chapter where shit starts getting weird.

The first time they'd stepped into the fifth ring, there had been an undercurrent of excitement to the entire room, rivalling the actual physical buzz of the generator buried beneath them. Zack hadn't been able to sit still. Tseng had been stock still, tense with expectation. Angeal had carried a certain enthusiasm in his voice. Cissnei had looked confused, but eager to see where things went. Lazard had a sort of laser focus to him, and seemed oblivious to everyone else present.

There was still an energy about the group upon meeting up two days later, but it was one of apprehension and unease. Zack was still fidgeting, but he kept looking about the room as though expecting an explanation from someone. Tseng was as motionless as ever, but he seemed agitated and irritable. Angeal had been watching Aeris expectantly since he'd set foot in the room. Lazard kept turning and muttering to him, and Angeal kept shaking his head. Cissnei had apparently assumed everyone else had been briefed more thoroughly than she had, and when she found out her succinct letter had been the same as everyone else's, she'd gone from irritated at being left out to nervously checking her phone every few minutes, even though she didn't have a signal.

"Everyone excited?" said Aeris when she'd come back in from changing into her jumpsuit. Everyone nodded, probably for each other's benefit. Due to wanting to avoid another motorcycle incident, they'd decided to wait until what they were reasonably sure was night. There had been an entire day of uncomfortable smalltalk hiding nervous speculation in between. Aeris almost didn't want to get back into the tank, feeling as though it might be booby trapped somehow.

"Let's keep the lid open and turn the lights off for this one," said Lazard. "Just as a safety measure.” Aeris doubted he knew what they were taking safety measures against, but she also wasn't going to disagree. The whole day had felt as someone had gone through her house and shifted every piece of furniture she owned five degrees to the right.

It was almost a relief when the lights began flashing out of the corner of her eyes. Cloud was probably less high-strung than these people by now, and that was saying something.

She woke up in a bed slightly nicer than the one she'd been in the last time. Plenty of new, clean blankets, instead of the old worn one that had been patched a hundred times that she'd been lying on top. Someone else seemed to have tucked her in, too, judging by the position.

Something was wrong. She closed her eyes and listened for Cloud. As she'd suspected, he'd entered that strange fugue state again. She could already feel herself dragging the little scraps of blank consciousness into her own mind, and knew she'd have to filter them out from herself again.

It was both easier and more difficult this time -- easier, because she knew what needed to be done. And more difficult in that he seemed even more addled than he had been the first time. His thoughts, when he began having them again, little by little, were strangely malleable -- it was as easy for her to shape them together into what she was reasonably certain was a person as it was to accidentally dash them to pieces again just by overpowering them with her own.

It stopped, he said after a moment. She asked him to clarify, but he didn't respond. He twisted back around her, and, feeling curious, she reached back.

She had a sudden sensation of falling very slowly. For a moment she was worried perhaps she'd disconnected early, before realising she could look around. Then she wondered if she might have been dead.

She was in that strange, deep space again, the one she hallucinated about at the beginning of each jump. But now it was filled with light, and she could see things moving around her -- or at least, she could see the space they were displacing. Instead of complete darkness, she was surrounded by lights in indescribable colours that filled her with equal parts awe and dread.

She felt herself gagging, and she found herself heaving up some sort of dark fluid that dissolved into the abyss around her. And then suddenly she was outside herself, or perhaps inside herself, and some distance away from her she saw Cloud. She swam, or perhaps flew, a little closer to him to see.

He was diffused into the space around her, as was she, and the shapes she could see whipped past him and blurred him further. His skin was bare, but the scars running down his back and criss-crossing his arms and across his chest seemed smudged somehow. His eyes were vacant, but in awe of the shapes around him. While she could see vague suggestions of where they were, she had no doubt he was looking directly at them, even as they continued to drag him apart. She yelled at him to move. He didn't seem to hear her, but she could still feel him there with her -- bits of him, at least -- as though they were still lying in the bed.

They must still have been, she realised. And she was dreaming. She didn't seem to be breathing, but then she didn't seem to need to either. Still, Cloud was real -- that much she was certain of. The rest, a byproduct of her mind interpreting things as it would.

She reached out to him then, and suddenly she realised how small he was -- she hadn't been far away after all. She cupped her hands around the patch of abyss that he was diffused into, not knowing how much good it would do. Aeris opened her hands a bit, still uncertain this wasn't a dream. Just the movement caused him to swirl together into nothing again, and she quickly snapped her hands closed more tightly and pulled closer to her chest so he wouldn't wash away.

She floated there, hunched around this strange patch of matter and thought that was allegedly a man. She slowly brought her hands closer, pushing it back in towards itself, and she felt Cloud's thoughts sharpen slightly. She carefully withdrew her hand again, watching the currents her hand created pull it apart slightly. It was strange, how easily she could shape and mould something as complex as the human mind.

Fear was one of the first things she got from him, drawing out another pang of guilt. And a deep loneliness. Cloud, or whatever was left of him, seemed to sense her presence, and almost seemed to consciously wind himself back towards her, as though hungry for any sort of proximity towards anyone.

Aeris worked slowly, cautiously. She was still reasonably certain she was dreaming -- she still hadn't breathed in quite some time. It was some time before all the pieces were clinging together properly, and his gaze was still fixed and vacant and faintly awed at something she could only see that she couldn't see. The other things in the empty space didn't seem to be around anymore.

She stared down at the approximation of a person she'd moulded in her hands. That was him, wasn't it? Not really him, she knew, it couldn't be. And yet, the more she had worked, the more he had thought, known, reacted in minor ways to her presence. Even in the dream, she had shaped the culmination of another human life. She drifted there for several long moments, transfixed. He seemed a little more solid than her, actually -- her own hands didn't seem quite real, as though she didn't really belong here, in this strange empty space.

Something caught her eye off in the distance -- it was Cloud. She looked down and still saw the remains of the first one in her hands, then looked back up at the second one. This one seemed a bit more solid, and a little more reactive -- panicked and disoriented, thrashing at something only he could see. Feeling a bit uncertain, she reached out and caught that one too. He continued to flail, but didn't acknowledge the hand encircling him in any way. He didn't seem to be able to see her.

She assumed it probably wouldn't be good if she left him here to dissolve. She'd gotten ahold of him, but she didn't know where she'd take him. There didn't seem to be anywhere to leave to, and as flimsy as he was she was sure he'd run out through her fingers.

She was leaving, though, she knew that much. Anywhere was better than here. Wherever here was.

She blinked. "Here" was the bed, obviously. And she felt too stunned and confused to react to anything at the moment, so it must have been Cloud drawing tremulous, uneven breaths, digging his nails into his own arms.

Cloud? Cloud curled up further into the blanket and didn't answer.

You're here, he said after a moment. You came back.

I -- yes, I did. I probably won't be soon enough, though.

Cloud said nothing again. Aeris felt herself shaking. Her throat had a knot in it, and she felt him fight it down.

...Thank you, he said after another moment.

I'd be more willing to accept that if you explained to me what I'm being thanked for.

You -- Cloud paused. Excitement. Apprehension? ...I can't hear Her anymore.

Hear who --

I can't -- that's why it seems like She's louder after you leave, it's because I can't --

Cloud scrambled out of bed and ran over to the mirror to look at his face. He seemed rather preoccupied with, and then disappointed by, his eyes.

So if She's still here...

Who? Who is "She"?

Jenova. I can't hear Her when you're here. This is... shut up a minute.

And then he sat there, staring at one of the walls. This is what it's like. This is what it's like just to think...

The walls. They were padded. She stood up then, earning another jolt of protest from Cloud. There didn't seem to be any exits that she could see.

Cloud... what's going on?

I... they locked me up.

Aeris stood and began feeling the walls of the darkened room, looking for some sort of hidden catch or lever or button. For what?

They think you're Jenova. They think that's why you've been making me do things. Plus, I used to work for Shinra, so that's not --

And what's Shinra? snapped Aeris, losing her patience. What was any of that? Why are you in the mental ward? Why was there a mob after you? What in the world did you do?

...You wouldn't understand. There's a lot of stuff --

Then start from the beginning. Tell me what Shinra is. All of you clearly know something big, and no one will tell me. I feel like at this point it might be helpful to know. She continued running her hands over the walls. There! A spot where there was a seam about where a doorway would be. It was too small to get her fingers into it, though. She couldn't find a handle, either.

What are you doing?

Trying to get you out, obviously. Just start talking, I can multitask.

...You're not gonna get out that way. It's reinforced steel. At least two feet thick. It's like a vault door or something.

Have you tried yet?

Once. If I poke around too much they turn on the gas. Beyond that, I've... I've been asleep.

Cloud, I'm not stupid.

I wasn't --

You were. And... perhaps I've been treating you like you're stupid as well. But you have to realise, it's not like I haven't noticed you aren't quite...

Quite what? he snapped.

Oh, come off it. You picked up a motorcycle like it was nothing. You're the only person with eyes like that. None of these things are normal. Not in my world, but not in yours either. No one treats you like you're normal.

Cloud flinched.

...I'm sorry. That was a rotten thing to say.

No, he replied after a moment. You're right. They don't. And I'm not.

Aeris felt her muscles begin to contract against her will, and "stopped moving" to allow Cloud to climb back into bed. They seemed to be getting used to this, at any rate.

...I lied to you a little, said Cloud. He was gripping the blankets very tightly. Aeris's fingers hurt, but she didn't try to loosen them just yet. I'm not really a human. Not the way you're thinking. Not the way these people are thinking, either.

Aeris was quiet for a moment. Cloud's face was carefully neutral, but the fear and the loneliness still weren't something he could hide from her.

...I'm not angry, she said. But I don't understand why you'd lie about something like that.

Wanting something isn't the same as it being true. And I thought it wouldn't matter. And it -- it's not fair. Being like this. I didn't want this. I told myself I did for a long time, so it would hurt less, but wanting that didn't make it true either. Aeris felt herself retreat further into the blankets. I'm locked up because... because of what people like me did. I'm inclined to do it too, one day.

Is there a name for your species? Aeris asked as gently as possible, but apparently this had been the wrong thing to say anyway.

No, he said sharply. Just Cloud is fine. And it's not -- it's not my species, it's just a thing they did.

Who's they?

Shinra.

Shinra... he'd mentioned that group before, briefly. Something about injections. And they... what did they do?

There was another, longer pause. Aeris felt him grab a handful of blanket and squeeze. He didn't say anything for several moments. She became acutely aware of how heavily the cell they were in was soundproofed. The effect was a bit unnerving, and she found herself nervously putting notes on the whiteboard both to keep them from pulling her, and to have something to do.

...They wanted weapons, said Cloud after a while. Shinra had already taken over everything over fifty years ago. But it's hard to flush out resistance with fissions when they're sitting right under your own cities. They needed a trump card.

"Fissions"?

Fission bombs. Do you have those?

...Yes, we do. Please continue whenever you're ready.

There was another slightly shorter pause. His hand had moved from the blanket to his wrist, and he seemed to be rubbing it now for comfort.

They made Soldier. Or, they tried to. Mako makes you a lot tougher, but it does all kinds of nasty stuff to the human body too. Most of those guys died from cancer within months. Or... they said officially it was cancer, anyway. Who knows. They tried some stuff with biomechanical implants, but that was too expensive. Then they found Jenova.

...And what's Jenova?

Not what. Who. She's... they found this body. The remains of a Cetra, they thought, buried for at least two thousand years. It was only pretending to be a Cetra, though. Or maybe whatever it was infecting was a Cetra a long time ago. And they found out all that tissue was perfectly preserved, and some of it was still alive, so...

The room was absolutely quiet. Cloud seemed to have noticed this too, because he seemed alternately in a panic about it and cherishing the silence.

Jenova's a virus, he said, or something like one. We don't really know what else to call Her. She doesn't really fit into any known category we have, but She's the most like a virus, so that's what we went with in the end. They... you know, they started with a few tests on rats and things. Genetic engineering, mostly. Retroviruses, at first. Live tissue injections, too, once the hosts had gotten used to it. She'll integrate Herself into whatever DNA you put Her in front of.

Then they tried on people, but they all went mad. Yelled stuff about voices, wound up getting put down after people started getting killed. That info's not public, we found that out after... anyway, they never really got anywhere until they started with a human embryo. Sephiroth was the first, and the best. The effects of mako helped counteract some of the effects of Jenova and vice versa. Complemented them, and stuff. So after him, there were more. They called that Soldier. They were faster, and stronger, and smarter, and better than anyone else. I used to want to be one when I was a kid.

Sephiroth went mad one day, too, he added numbly. There was a sore spot on his wrist now from where he'd rubbed it raw. Burned Nibelheim. Killed Ma. He just did it because he was angry, I think. He could have chosen not to. The voices get to everyone in the end, though.

...And you, you were in Soldier? she asked. She hadn't been writing anything for a while. She wasn't sure if she should.

No. The mako gave me seizures. They said I wasn't allowed. I was -- I saw Jenova in the tank. I saw the things they had in the pods, and killed Sephiroth. They couldn't let me go after that. And they needed more samples, and -- Ma was already dead, and my CO, so nobody would notice if I was gone. Nobody did notice.

Aeris suddenly became keenly aware of the buzzing noise the fluorescents were making. She almost lifted up her shirt to look at the scars again.

...I'm sorry, said Aeris. You got out though, right?

Not because I got rescued, he said. Or because I even had plans to escape. I didn't have anywhere I would've gone.

...So, how did you get out?

Cloud paused again, and it became clear after several minutes that he didn't seem particularly up to answering this one.

...Not because anyone remembered I was there, he said eventually. Do you think anyone's noticed I'm here yet?

I... Cloud?

Nobody's come for me yet. It's been a long time. I don't think anyone's coming.

Aeris's head swam as about a hundred panicked, irrational thoughts began bubbling up in the back of her mind -- and, apparently, in the forefront of his.

They're going to leave me here I got too hard to put up with and they're going to leave me here nobody's coming for me --

Cloud --

-- caused too many problems for everyone and this is why this happens --

Aeris couldn’t recall a time when she’d been at a loss for words before now. She could feel tears welling up now, driven by that deep, profound terror that was creeping into her consciousness more and more. When her own parents had died, she’d been too stunned to cry until much, much later. Nothing had felt real. Her own life wasn’t in danger -- they’d simply been gone in an instant. There hadn’t been anyone else to comfort, and she hadn’t much felt the need to be comforted.

And really, there wasn’t anything she could say, of the things that she knew you could say to a grown man that seemed to be having some sort of panic episode. Because there was a good chance he wasn’t getting out of here for a long time, from what she knew about things like prisons and asylums. And a lie wouldn’t help anyone, if he believed it at all.

Instead, she had to settle for the truth, and hope it was enough.

Well... I came.

You -- you did. You did...

Do you want to stop talking for now?

No. Stay. I just need a moment.

She waited for several more minutes. He seemed to be intent on working himself into a lather, so she forced him to close his eyes and take deep, slow breaths.

Can you tell me a little more about Jenova? she asked. Deep breath in. Hold.

She came from space or something. She feeds on Planets. She's been doing what she did to ours for billions of years. Back out. Hold.

And you said... you hear voices? A deeper breath. She caught herself moving her hand to reach out and pat him on the back or something, only to quickly realise why that wouldn't work.

Everyone that shares Her genes does. But... I guess that's just me these days. She allowed him to breathe out himself, then took another one back in. His head seemed to be clearing a bit more. ...I can't hear Her when you're here. Maybe you drown Her out.

How long have you been in here? Back out again.

I don't know. I don't know how long I was out, and it's hard to tell without anyone making sure I know. Maybe a week or two. I don't know. The breath on the way back in hitched briefly, and she went back to doing all the deep breathing herself.

Do you know why they're keeping you here?

Yeah. They think -- they think you're Jenova. I tried telling them Jenova doesn't use words or say stupid things about why I shouldn't have snapped that nurse's neck, but they didn't listen.

The voices you hear, they --

Something clicked into place. ...You're the only one that hears them. And you said... there used to be more. About ten thousand? Half of those with... less human DNA, more Jenova? And the first one, Sephiroth, who had the most, besides perhaps you.

...Yeah. How'd you know?

...Then that means I’m Jenova.

What?

Or -- I'm using it. I think. That's why I couldn't find anyone else, that's why there were thousands before, and they all -- you're the only one left. And that big one, that -- tell me, is Sephiroth still alive?

No, he died four years ago.

...Which means you've been like this for nine or ten years, yes? Aeris stopped focusing on deep breathing exercises and immediately refocused her efforts on the whiteboard. Cloud stood up and began pacing.

If we told them, they wouldn't believe me, would they?

Why not?

Jenova's a virus. She influences unconscious behaviour. Nothing I say is taken seriously because it could just be something She wants me to say. It's... I have a history of that, too. So they don't have any reason to listen to a word I say.

...A “history?”

Being upset over nothing all the time. Hearing voices. Being used.

Aeris let out a weary sigh.

When my family came over, they thought it was Her. And I’ve never been good at… at not being used.

Aeris rolled over. Or maybe Cloud did. She’d wanted to roll over anyway. But that’s it though, isn’t it? It has to be. It fits too perfectly.

How does that work, though? You’re not anything like her, I don’t think. Jenova's... you don't have eyes in places you wouldn't think eyes would be, do you?

...Places like where?

Your tits.

Aeris stopped halfway through writing "evidence of previous incident of first contact linked to potentits", and realised far too late into the project that there was no "backspace" key on the whiteboard.

...Excuse you?

That's a no, then, he said quickly. Among other things.

What --

So then... how come you've got information that lets you track Jenova if it's got nothing to do with you?

I don't know. That's just the information my parents recovered.

Before Cloud could reply, a speaker in the ceiling clicked on and a melodious talk show host voice drifted down from the mesh.

"I'm glad to see you're awake, Mr. Strife!" said the voice warmly. "Are you feeling well?"

Cloud glowered at the speaker and said nothing.

...Who's that?

My... minder, I guess.

He seems... nice?

"Can we get you anything? I've put in arrangements for your family to visit you in a week or so. Does that sound reasonable?"

Aeris felt herself nod as shame began to heat her face. "Thank you," muttered Cloud.

...I just wanna see Tifa. This doesn't mean I'm conceding anything. I just need to see Tifa.

Aeris didn't think that was something to be quite that ashamed over, but Cloud seemed deeply humiliated at the mere act of nodding. He sat back down and stared at the wall.

"Can we get you anything else, Mr. Strife?" said the voice. Cloud shook his head. The intercom clicked off.

What the fuck do you want? he snapped at her in response to her puzzlement. I just wanna see my family. They're not winning.

That's perfectly fine, said Aeris. But you know, there's no point in making yourself miserable while you're here.

What's that supposed to mean?

...What have you been doing in here by yourself?

Push-ups, said Cloud. Sit-ups. Stretches. Keeping an eye on the staff. Staying ready.

Well, it's no wonder you're in a state. Is this part of the punishment?

Is... is what?

Having nothing to do. You're bored.

I'm not bored. It could be much worse. There's a warm shower. They even gave me clothes, look. I get new ones every day.

They had better! said Aeris. They could be worse, perhaps. You're allowed to complain, though. They couldn't even give you a magazine or anything?

...I don't know. They probably won't let me have anything I could use as a weapon.

Well, perhaps you should ask. I won't have very long to help you break out before I stop visiting, so we'll have to come up with something quickly.

Cloud stopped pacing. ...What?

Which part of that confused you?

Just... can you say that in parts?

You should ask for something to read.

The other part.

I'm going to help you break out, obviously, said Aeris a bit impatiently. Unless you'd rather stay here.

...Why?

Because I caused this. It's the least I can do, she said. And because I'm the only person that can fix it. They don't know about me -- not really. You basically have an earpiece they can't take out to six of the smartest people in the world, aren't you lucky? In my world, at least. But now there's a time constraint to worry about, so we'll have to work quickly.

Time const -- why?

...Well, we've been approved to move forward with the project. Once we can get a little more information, we can just come here ourselves. No more traffic accidents.

Doesn't matter much now, said Cloud. They're not gonna let me out if I say I've stopped hearing voices.

Not even if I show up in person and explain the whole thing myself? said Aeris.

...Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. She felt him quickly squash a brief flicker of hope, before he went back to glaring at the wall. What kind of information are we talking here?

As much as possible. Aeris took another quick look around the cell. ...They knew you were awake. Are there cameras in here? Microphones? She couldn't find anything mounted in any of the corners. The microphone was probably concealed inside the speaker on the ceiling, but there was nothing on the walls but cloth and padding. Not even a door handle.

Yeah. They can see me. I just don't know from where.

Well, that'll be something else we'll have to find out.

...So, what first?

First, said Aeris, we get some reading material. See what they're willing to give you.

He almost agreed. Almost. ...I can't.

Why not?

...If I ask for something else, they might cancel my visit.

Suppose they don't, though? They're trying to keep you happy, right? As long as you stay put and don't do anything too escapey, they'd probably let you have whatever you want.

You don't know that.

I don't, said Aeris. I could be wrong. But, listen -- if we can get out of here, you'll be able to see them whenever you want, right? Cloud said nothing. There was a deeper fear present. Aeris wasn't sure whose it was. ...I have no idea what I'm doing anymore. You're in some sort of political insane asylum. And I'm going to help you escape, because if one single thing is going to go right in this mess, it's going to be that, but I might be wrong, and I don't know what will happen if I am. But you need to trust me when I tell you that if I'm going to accomplish a single thing by the end of this, it's going to be getting you out of here.

Cloud hesitated, then gave a very small nod. Then he turned his attention back to the speaker.

"Hey. You're still there, right?" he asked. The speaker clicked back on.

"Is there something you need, Mr. Strife?"

...What do I ask for?

Just something to read. Let them set the rules. Don't box yourself in.

"...I'm bored. Can I get something to read?"

"Certainly. Was there something you had in mind?"

...What now?

Well, what do you like to read?

I don't know. I don't really read much of anything. It's hard to do.

Well, maybe you can -- wait --

"...Maybe an encyclopaedia?" asked Aeris. "Something long with a lot of information."

There was a pause as whoever was on the other end considered her request.

Why an encyclopaedia?

It'll have dry, boring information you don't have. The more we know, the sooner we can set up a chance for me to come here myself.

...So, when you say that, does that mean you're actually --

"I believe we can do that. We'll have to give you the pages sans binding," interrupted the voice, "for security reasons. I'm sure you'll understand."

"That's fine. Thank you," said Aeris.

See? It's all about seeing what you can get away with. Work the system...

This was working out smoothly so far. Aeris felt surprisingly calm about it. Too calm, actually. Maybe it was Cloud. She'd done a great job of calming him down and that's why she was feeling so happy.

Then her feet went out from under her and she noticed the chemical tang in the air.

What...?

They don't open the door if I can stand. It's not safe, said Cloud dreamily. One of them, or perhaps both of them, were staring distantly at the door, which swung open from the outside. Whatever they had given her, it wasn't just tranquiliser. There was some sort of narcotic element to it, as any thought of resistance was all but wiped from Cloud's mind as they were picked up and moved back into bed. They didn't do as much this time. Usually I'm asleep by now. Maybe they decided I'd slept enough. That was a joke, maybe.

It was another few minutes before she regained enough wits to look around her, and found a stapled packet of paper at the foot of the bed.

So they just... drug you? That's not... this can't be legal.

Why would it be illegal? asked Cloud, reaching for the packet. There's drugs in the food as well. Probably something addictive, so they can take it away if I injure the staff again and let me go through withdrawal. Hojo did that a couple times...

Hojo? asked Aeris, faintly sickened.

...The lead doctor working under Director Crescent. For the Jenova Project. Anyway, he continued, we got something to read, I guess. He held up the packet, which had Vogel Encyclopaedia, Vol. 1 printed on the first page.

...No it didn't. She knew that's what it said, but that's not what was actually written there. She looked at it again. The one was a one, obviously, and that was an E... but there were symbols from other languages, and a few she didn't recognise at all.

And yet, clearly written on the front was Vogel Encyclopaedia, Vol. 1.

She suddenly realised these had been the first printed words she'd seen since coming here.

...Cloud? What language is this written in?

...Formal... language? It's... it's a title?

No, as in the language. Which one?

Standard Continental. The one you've been speaking.

I've been speaking English. Aren't you?

...What's an English?

The thing you're speaking right now.

It's not, though. It's Standard. And my Standard's not even that good. I relearned how to talk in like... two days.

I... I suppose it's not. So then why am I reading a language I've never seen before in English?

But you're not. Are you? Seems like Standard's your first language.

But it isn't! she said, gesturing to the packet in frustration. She began flipping through the pages. All of it in gibberish. All of it perfectly legible. I've never seen this language before in my life. Why can I read it?

...Do you know how anything in your "Very Important Project" works? asked Cloud flatly.

Apparently not! she snapped, too frustrated with the entire situation to feel insulted.

Well... guess.

I don't know. I can't read this. I shouldn't be able to. And you shouldn't know English, if you haven't...

She looked around the cell. Ever since she'd begun talking with Cloud, things had been steadily making more and more sense. But not just in a figurative manner. They hadn't done anything differently between the first few runs and now that had suddenly allowed her to see clearly, to hear properly, except...

...I'm going to try something, and it'll be very brief, but unpleasant. Do you trust me?

There was a moment of hesitation, then, ...Yeah. Go for it.

Aeris steeled herself, then wrote, "shut off secondary overlap pattern for twenty seconds, resume as normal"

She tensed up. For a moment nothing happened, then --

The world was plunged back into discord. Her eyes wouldn't focus on anything again, because her brain was convinced there was nothing in existence to focus on. Sounds were strange and muffled and distorted. A low howling noise echoed in the distance. If she hadn't known she was in a cell, sitting on a bed, she wouldn't have been able to glean much more from her surroundings than "enclosed space". Even the walls seemed twisted and warped and a thousand miles away and an inch in front of her face all at once. Her own body (or rather Cloud's) felt like a vague suggestion of itself. Cloud's presence was completely absent.

Suddenly the world zoomed back into clarity, and a mildly shaken Cloud was intent on burying himself back under the covers again, clutching the packet like a security blanket and swearing under his breath. He seemed to have forgotten she was there.

It was you too, said Aeris. Not just Jenova.

What...?

Are you alright? What did that feel like?

...Didn't feel like anything. What was that for?

I can't read... Standard, or whatever it was you said. But you can. I can't see anything properly here -- but you can. You're what allows me to perceive everything here. Before, everything looked -- well, it was a mess. Nothing I'd call a building. But you can see that it's a building, so I can see it too.

...How did you do that? said Cloud eventually.

We picked up another set of electrical signals during our first run. In order for you to be conscious, it looks like we have to map them onto you at the same time as mine. Otherwise it seems you just get lost somewhere in the process.

It's Jenova, explained Cloud, to her surprise. If you're using Her to do this, then... well, She's always been stronger than me. You've been using Her to wipe me out. But... I don't know, it's never been like that.

We need to test this, said Aeris. Do you know any other languages?

Nibeli. Ever heard of that one?

Never. Speak some of that.

I'm, uh... I'm saying words. Hello. Goodbye. I miss you --

No good. Still English.

But you can’t read?

Yes. Well, no, but you can read. Get it?

Not well.

Doesn’t matter. This… she focused hard, trying to recreate the sequence of characters she saw on the whiteboard, this actually changes a lot. Suppose I got all the way over here and didn’t speak the language?

And you’re going to learn a new language? Right now?

How hard can it be? Cissnei knows about a hundred… oh, she’s going to love this.

Cissnei?

Friend of mine. And coworker. I’m sure she’ll be interested in meeting you one day, too. But first…

Aeris spent the next hour or so reading through an abridged version of the history of another world. Cloud talked her through some of the cultural barriers -- that apparently odd-toed ungulates had never evolved here, but there were a much wider variety of avians and reptiles than was found on Earth that were domesticated in their stead (and there hadn’t anything quite as jarring in a while that reminded her she was in fact speaking to an alien as, “What’s a horse?”), that apparently Shinra had owned the press for about a century so any information in most books published either before or after that period had to be taken with an absolutely massive block of salt, that because of that there were big gaps in the knowledge of any culture besides the ones focused around Midgar -- but Aeris began questioning how reliable the English she was interpreting this into was after coming across a passage that had no place being in an encyclopaedia at all.

While most accusations of witchcraft in the eleventh century were the result of moral panic, socio-political turmoil, crop failure, or fueled by property disputes, the greatest contributor was the stigma against Black magic, which was said only to manifest around thieves, murderers, adulterers, immigrants, and those possessed by evil spirits. It was not until 1733 that thaumaturgical personality theory and humouralism were debunked as pseudoscience by Dr. Eva Sitchin (p. 267). Even in light of this new evidence, it was not until 1771 that practising Black magic was decriminalised worldwide during the Kanagawa era.

Cloud?

Yeah?

What in the fresh hell am I reading?

Oh -- well, you know… it’s not like most people do stuff like that anymore. You know, they used to throw you in the stocks if you had one blue eye and one brown eye, too. Thought it was demons. Of course, that was before anybody knew what demons were. They’ll still lock you up if you say you’re hearing voices, though, he added bitterly. That never changed or anything.

No, the… She reread the passage again, still not sure if she was understanding it correctly.

Is it still illegal where you’re from? asked Cloud, clearly not understanding the question or noticing anything wrong. Which didn’t make sense. They had electricity. They had engines. They had indoor plumbing. Surely they’d moved on as a society from things like this? Perhaps Cloud in particular was just superstitious.

It’s a shame, honestly, he continued. It’s dead useful stuff. I mean, maybe I’m biased, since I’ve got an affinity for Black too. In the army, they were still on that personality-based shit -- everyone does it, we’ve all done it -- and they kept giving me White and wondered why everything I cast was so ineffective. I can do White if I need to, but it’s just not as reliable. I used to want to be a mage when I was little, y’know, but the universities for that kind of thing were way too expensive...

Aeris was about to comment on how he was still talking absolute gibberish, and how in her world they had since disproven things like magic, and how she was a scientist so she would definitely know what she was talking about. She hesitated for a moment, because he was speaking with the same sort of enthusiasm he’d had for his bike earlier, and it seemed like a shame to interrupt him just to prove how right she was, because this was the first time she’d really seen his mood pick up since getting here.

In that moment, Cloud’s hand burst into flames.

Cloud carried on, completely unconcerned by the fact that his flesh was apparently burning, and Aeris could do nothing but sit there in shock and watch as he ran his fingers through it.

...but I could probably teach a class if I wanted. Most of the people they have teaching this stuff, I bet they don’t even have a tenth of the real-world experience that I do. Trial by fire, you know? Pun kind-of intended.

What the fuck.

The fire went out on its own. The skin on her hand was completely undamaged. ...You don’t seriously still have the whole “Black magic is from making deals with the fae!” stuff, do you? I mean, I’m assuming you’ve got electricity and plumbing and things…

You were on fire.

...Not really.

Your hand was on fire.

Cloud said nothing, clearly baffled.

What was that?

It -- it was fire.

I’m bloody well aware it was fire, what did --

I… I mastered fire. You -- you know? he said, a little helplessly.

No! What was that? Explain it to me as though… Aeris sighed. ...Explain it to me as though I’m an idiot and I know nothing about what’s going on.

I, uh… I had a materia. For fire magic. And… and I mastered it, and the materia turned into two materia, because I put enough of my own knowledge back into the materia for it to be two of them, and… and then I did fire.

...That was magic?

...Yes?

That was magic. Magic is real. You did real magic.

You’ve never seen magic before?

That -- you can’t -- it isn’t -- do that again.

Cloud’s hand once again wreathed itself in fire on command, although it felt like no more than a warm draft. Aeris ripped off a tiny piece of the paper she’d been given and fed it into the flame, where it quickly burnt to hot ash. The intercom clicked on again.

“Mr. Strife, we won’t hesitate to sedate you again if you continue threatening to burn this establishment down.”

Cloud promptly held up his middle finger on the hand that was on fire toward the speaker, which made quite an image, and the fire went out. Aeris’s brain short circuited.

Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.

Are you okay?

Aeris was staring at her hand, and the fine layer of ash her fingers were dusted in. “Are you okay,” he says, she thought, not considering whether or not he could hear her. Magic was real. Magic was a real thing that people could do. She, Dr. Aeris Gainsborough, Ph. D, 26, had set out on the greatest scientific endeavour in human history and discovered actual magic.

I -- I have to go.

Wait! Did I say something wrong? Look, if you’ve got a thing about fire, that’s fine, I get it. It’s just a habit, and I’ve been trying to break it, and if it bothers you I can stop --

The hint of fear that began creeping back into her mind was enough to get her to pause.

Nothing is wrong. I just -- I have to…. Tell someone? Throw something? Celebrate? Scream?

Don’t go yet. Please. You’re the first person that’s actually talked to me in… I don’t know how long it’s been. I haven’t been able to think straight since. She’s quiet when you’re here.

Who’s quiet?

Mothe -- Jenova. Just… stay a bit longer.

Aeris listened as the intercom clicked off, leaving the cell in silence again.

...Alright. I have a lot of questions for you, anyway. About -- about magic.

I thought you were a scientist?

I am. This is… I’m a bit out of my depth here, she said faintly.

Well… what do you want to know?

Let’s start with an easy question. What… how exactly would you define magic?

Magic is… Cloud began thumbing through the encyclopaedia. There’s gotta be something in here that says it better than I do. Basically, magic is… it’s you, interacting with knowledge of how to interact with the Lifestream, which calls up all kinds of phenomena. And that can be almost anything, but all of it comes from the same action, which is manipulating energy to direct it into something, or even using that energy yourself. But there’s always rules to it.

Interacting with… you mentioned materia. What is it, exactly? How does that play into all this?

You… you’ve never seen magic before? asked Cloud, as it suddenly seemed to dawn on him.

Never, said Aeris. We don’t have it in my world. Tell me everything.

How do you not… I guess you haven’t discovered how to use it yet, but… I just don’t get it. I mean, you’re doing magic now, right?

Aeris blinked. What?

Right now. You said you were doing magic before. How do you not know what it is?

Tell me when I said I was doing magic.

You explained how you were doing this. You said it was magic.

How dare you? If you’re just going to mock everything I’ve --

You said that! You said it was magic! You told Tifa. With electrical signals and manipulating them with other signals to line up with other signals, or whatever it was. Your words.

That’s not magic. That’s science.

You literally just described magic though. And there’s science in magic, and magic in science, they’re not different things.

How. Aeris could feel herself shaking. Explain to me how they are not completely different things that have fuck-all to do with one another.

Well… I guess, let’s say you have a cup of water. If you made the water colder, it would freeze. I could also do the same thing by just freezing it myself. It’s still just as cold, and the circumstances are the same, and the water will be the same temperature either way, but… like, you’d have to introduce something to make it that way. Either you’d put it in a freezer, or you’d use magic to make the water ice over right there. Same materials, and same temperature, and same outcome, but the only thing that changed was magic, messing with the energy and what it’s doing in the system. There’s a limit to what you can do, obviously -- physics has rules that can be bent with magic, but magic’s got rules of its own.

It made sense -- which was insane enough to consider by itself, and every crackpot explanation made sense when you didn’t understand the laws of physics that would suggest otherwise. Though, before now she’d been assuming that said laws were more or less a constant across both worlds, and here was a man that could light himself on fire that was claiming otherwise. Because it couldn’t be real, but...

...But there was something else, too, that seemed strangely familiar about it...

There wouldn't happen to be some sort of… constant, would there? Representing magic.

Yeah. I’m sure it’s in the back somewhere, said Cloud, and flipped through the packet to what looked like a reference section. Aeris burned the set into her memory.

So… do you just wake up one day, knowing… magic? she asked, barely believing the words that were coming out of her own mouth, so to speak.

No. You learn it from materia. How do you not… never mind. So, materia is just the condensed knowledge of how to perform a spell -- or… it’s how to reach the Planet to call up the magic you want. We all used to know how to innately, thousands of years ago, but we all forgot. Anyone that knew died centuries ago. So, we’ve gotta relearn it from their memories. That’s what materia is.

Cloud flipped over one of the sheets of paper and began scratching a crude chart into the paper with the ash Aeris had made.

There are five kinds of magic -- Black, White, Physical, Summoning, and Innate. Innate’s the only one nobody has to learn, but because it’s usually a fight-or-flight thing, a lot of people go their whole lives without learning what their innate magic is. Summoning is… complicated, and it’s just gonna confuse you if I talk about it right now, but it’s big and flashy and dangerous and if you don’t know what you’re doing when you’re casting you’ll probably get yourself killed. And there’s still a bunch of debate over whether Time spells are Black or White, but they’re wrong and it’s obviously Black. So, Black magic --

Sorry, just… condensed knowledge? What does that… look like, exactly?

Yes. You don’t have materia either? Like… it’s one thing to not know you can use it, but…

No magic, no materia. You need to tell me everything.

Okay, so… materia is just… they’re about yea big, unused? Cloud drew a small circle about the size of a grape on the paper. And by the time you’ve mastered them, they’re about this big. He made a fist. Any time you cast a spell that’s not innate to you, you’re just piggybacking off the memories of how to do the thing you just did. And eventually, you “remember” it so often that those memories start becoming your memories, and you start pouring your own memories back into the materia, and it grows, and eventually sorta… buds off a new one. Natural materia aren’t perfectly round, and they’re usually a little bigger, but… I mean, you get the point, right?

Maybe? Continue.

So, let’s say I want to cast, uh… gotta think of something that won’t piss off the goober in the ceiling.

Aeris was reeling. She was learning magic. She was being taught magic. She almost pinched herself, but Cloud had moved his hand as it began barely snowing into his palm from three inches above it.

...Ice. You can feel that tug, right? That’s the Planet, and me knowing how to reach it.

Aeris closed her eyes and focused on the sensation, though it was nearly impossible considering how distracting the fact that there was a tiny snowstorm sitting in her palm was. It was barely there, like the whiteboard but deeper, and slightly out of her reach.

That’s it. See if you can maintain it. If we’re both seeing and reading the same things, you should know the same spells, too.

Her heart was hammering in her chest. She was going to do real magic. Magic was real and she was doing it.

She steadily pushed into that strange mental space Cloud had created, and for one fleeting moment the flurry in her hand intensified as she felt herself brush against him closer than she ever had before --

Everything had gone all wrong. He didn't know how it happened, or what he had done to make things this way. If it had been him. Or maybe nothing was wrong, and he was asleep again.

Things were bad now. He had been doing well, but now everything was bad. The first time he went to sleep, they had woken him up, and run tests, and decided it had been a fluke. Then it happened again, for longer, and then again, and again. He didn't know the right answers to the questions anymore. He lost clothes privileges and hadn't earned them back since. He never spoke out of turn, but that was because it was getting harder and harder to speak at all. All the little songs in his blood, Mother's and the other ones, the ones that were so much angrier than Mother, gave him pins and needles under his skin, and in his head, and gradually he could move less and less. He didn't have blood anymore, he realised, and the sounds they wrote into him to replace it were too big to fit. His words were starting to disappear as well, along with his time.

It had been two days. Only it hadn't, it was two weeks in between the last five minutes. It didn't mean anything to him anymore.

As much as "him" was anything. It was a fleeting concept that appeared less and less. Mother tried to spin more of "him" together, and the old voices pulled him the other way, and he crumbled in their grasp.

The Professor stood over his body on the table, and he struggled to stay him is am I am as they spoke to him.

"What is your name?" came the words. He couldn't recall if he had one, but something in the back of his head reminded him that that was a wrong answer anyway.

"What is your designation?" it came again. He didn't know what that meant, either, and he didn't know how to make his mouth do anything anymore. Not that it mattered. He was here for Mother. He wasn't here at all. Wasn't anyone anywhere isn't Reunion I am.

He fogged over again, and the next thing he was aware of was the Professor, standing over him a hundred metres tall, bigger than him, bigger than anyone. He was angry.

"You have disappointed me, Series 3. Fifty-four months of my time and energy, and this is what you manage in return. Pathetic." The Professor was getting bigger and bigger, and he was trapped on the cold metal they kept him on, ready to reach in and cut him apart. He couldn't hide anymore, because the Professor was too tall, and too strong, and could wave a hand and the walls would trap him in the cold metal again. He couldn't fight back anymore -- the walls were solid, and the Professor was everywhere, and they had taken all his parts and replaced them with paper, which folded too easily, and was so much more difficult to move, and made everything look strange and unreal with paper eyes, and sound distant and muffled with paper ears.

Not all of the paper was fresh. They wrote on a tiny part of it, on his left arm, in blue ink -- L.C. 67-2 [S3]. His number.

Something else stirred through the fog. An emotion. Fear. His fingers twitched, and his glazed eyes locked with the Professor's for an instant. The Professor turned away and addressed the walls, the white walls covered in needles that would close in around him in a second if he fought back. The wall listened closely to what he said, and he tried to as well.

"Series 3 was certainly a learning experience, but unfortunately we must conclude that this, too, was another failure. Widespread brain damage in addition to severe mako poisoning. Appears to be worsening with time, likely irreversible. A shame." A scratching, and a tapping. The walls were remembering what he said, and writing on more paper that would eventually be made part of his body. "In addition to complications stemming from the suppression procedures, it seems the subject failed to establish a direct connection with the Planet despite being given the best line of communication that could have possibly been provided."

He felt another tremor go through him at the contempt and anger in the Professor's voice, the fear momentarily blotting out all thought again and plunging him back into the voices and the green and all the other things tearing at him. When there was enough of him to be seeing, he was in another room, and the walls had changed their shape. Hours ago? Days?

"Send a notice to the President about the project's termination." A pause as one of the walls said something too fast and quiet for him to use the words in his head. "Yes, in storage."

"No!" It was the easiest word for him to make, and the first one he'd managed in months. "No, no --"

The Professor loomed over him, as big as the sky. "Hm. Too little too late, Series 3." His expression was unreadable, and he didn't seem to be addressing him anymore, so much as the walls. "Though it's likely he'll not have enough cognitive function for it to matter. Prep him for the container."

The walls pressed in around him as he was moved out of the operation room, down halls, and into the dark of the storage room. This time, there was no Box. Instead, a metal cylinder was being readied for him, and tubes and wires were forced down his throat and up his nose and into his veins. He no longer seemed able to gag. Something large and metal was tossed in the room with him. Sword. Made for him. It was important to him. He didn't know why. The part of him that was written on had probably gotten soggy and fallen off into the mako.

He tried to get another word out. Maybe "no" again. It was stifled by the tubes in his mouth, and all he got out was a strangled wail as he struggled to move his numb paper limbs against the walls' hands pushing him into the pod.

He was a failure. He was being thrown out with the rest of the other failures.

He wasn't useful anymore. To anyone.

What did I do? He could feel the fog curling in around him again, and this time he didn't know how he would wake back up. What did I do wrong? It would be so easy to let go. No more hurting. No more confusion. No thoughts, too heavy for him to think, muddying up his head.

He was shut inside the pod, which began to fill with fluid that quickly settled into his lungs, and he gently floated in the pod, the words written into him running off into the liquid, his limbs growing heavy and falling apart, and then he began to float away, in his head, away from Mother, away from the howling blue and green, away from everything. What did I do wrong? It was peaceful here. No self, no emotions, no grief, no loneliness, no Cloud.

No Cloud. No more Cloud. No more.

The door to storage was closed and locked for the last time, but the pair of glassy blue eyes pointed at the door saw none of it.

 

---

 

The sky was burning, the ugly red colour of an open wound. The music was impossibly loud, but it was easier to listen to it now. She was here. She was real. She could be part of the music, and not part of it. She'd finally understood that -- embraced it, used it, made it her own. It was just another part of her.

Tifa squeezed her hand. She squeezed back, calmly, reassuringly, and wondered if she should have been more afraid. But really, she'd done all she'd wanted to do. It wasn't a lot, perhaps, but it felt like a lot. It felt like an impossible, unreachable dream, but she had done it, she had reached it, it was here, it was real, it wasn't ever going away... today was a good enough day to die.

Aeris gasped and clutched briefly at her throat to pry out the tubes that she was sure had been there an instant ago. Or perhaps it was Cloud doing it. Although Cloud didn’t seem to be doing much of anything, and had shut down. She wondered if he had slipped into another fugue state, but thankfully he only seemed to be in shock.

Cloud?

Cloud said nothing to her, and had retreated back under the blankets, the encyclopaedia having been thrown to the floor at some point.

She wasn’t sure what she had seen. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Cloud had gone quiet again, and was steadily rubbing the spot on his left wrist, which now contained nothing but scar tissue and a sore.

Before she had a chance to say anything, she woke up in the tank, where Lazard and Angeal were hauling her out again.

“The whiteboard crashed,” said Zack. “Safety precaution. We can’t risk losing contact with you, especially now. You went quiet for a while there, too,” he added.

“I was busy,” she snapped. “I need to go back now. We were --”

“It’s okay. We started dumping what we had when you stopped communicating, just in case,” said Zack, oblivious. “Get a load of this.”

He redirected her attention to a computer screen that Cissnei was presently plastered to. She was taking frantic notes over the part of the transcript where she’d attempted to transcribe what she was seeing directly.

The witch trials 1066are 迫 ranging)))8害 early 放 し laws prevented prosecution of////////3////\/\//((; continued for 0x0001001 months until eventual deaπάγd

One of the last paragraphs she’d tried to copy verbatim. It was gibberish, but gibberish that was vaguely suggestive of the language she’d encountered. She could see where there had been characters she didn’t have the means to write, grammatical structures she could no longer understand. She remembered the paragraph, too -- it had been the last one she’d read before she was sidetracked by --

“The bug,” she said, turning to Zack. “You’ve got the proof for it, right?”

“Yeah, it’s on the de -- we just found an entire language, a world history, we know what we’ve been patching you into the whole time, don’t you care --”

Aeris was already copying the work onto the dry erase board twice; once as they had been doing it, this time with the extra variable plugged in.

“Aeris?”

She ignored them. Again, she got two answers. And one of the answers was the one that made sense, the one that indicated that their project was fundamentally impossible, and the other was that magic was real.

She stared at the board, frozen. She could say it. “ Our machinery works because in another universe, the physics are completely different, and there’s magic, and that’s what makes it go. Also by the way I think I just went digging through another man’s brain because of it.” They’d seen a lot of incredible things in the last few weeks. Surely they’d believe her? She had the numbers to back it up.

But then, so did Ifalna Gainsborough.

“...Sure. The -- the language bit, don’t know how we didn’t see it before,” she said. “No England, no English.”

“You will need someone to catalogue all of this information,” interrupted Cissnei. “It’s very fortunate you have a professional nearby who could do just that, isn’t it?” She was practically vibrating.

“Yes, it’s --”

“Shush! I have something to do now. I’m going to go do it.” She snatched up the transcript and a photograph and tore out of the fifth ring, presumably to find a computer to use where it was quieter.

Zack tapping her on the shoulder was what snapped Aeris out of the daze she’d been in, staring at the tank for the last few minutes.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh, come on. I’m a moron and I still know you’re upset about something.”

Aeris glanced back at Angeal and Tseng, who were presently staring at her curiously. Angeal, who would think she was crazy. Tseng, who was married to the project and would probably ask questions it might not be wise to answer.

Zack, who’d been nervous and jittery about something since coming back, even moreso than usual, and claimed to have seen something creeping around downstairs, and she hadn’t believed him.

“I’m fine,” said Aeris. “But could I ask you something?” She gave Zack a very hard stare.

“Uh… yeah, sure,” said Zack slowly. “What kinda question is it?”

“About the sixth ring,” said Aeris. “It’s your design, isn’t it?” She turned on her heel then, hoping Zack would take the hint and follow, and praying nobody else that was obviously suspicious would as well.

The minute they were shut away in the third ring, Aeris rounded on him.

“Magic is real.”

“...Is this a metaphor, or --”

“Magic is fucking real, Fair. I just watched a man burn paper with his mind.”

“See, I know what it sounds like you’re saying, but I’m not sure what it is you’re actually --”

“The bug,” she interrupted. “Your stupid bug, the one you’ve been fussing over the whole time.”

Zack gave her a blank stare. “You’re not seriously suggesting…”

“Check it yourself. I’m sure Angeal will have a lot of questions… I should have waited to check…. what?”

Zack was now looking at her thoughtfully, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Zack? Look, if you think I’ve lost it, then you can let me know now. I need to get back in there. I said I’d keep him company.”

This seemed to get his attention. “‘Keep him company’?”

“He has a condition,” said Aeris. “I said I’d help him manage it. It’s not like he’s in a good position to do that himself. Weren’t you reading the transcript?” She’d been cutting bits here and there for the sake of privacy, but she thought she’d gotten the gist of the conversation.

“Oh -- you mean, because he’s in the hospital? He can handle himself for a couple days while we get all this information figured out, can’t he?”

“No, he can’t. He’s…” she sighed heavily, carefully weighing each word, “...he’s not well. And it’s my responsibility, seeing as how I’m partially responsible for this --”

“Well, we’re not gonna be able to get you in there any quicker if a sixth of our team is asleep half the time,” said Zack. “What’s your angle?”

“He’s miserable, Zack,” she shot. “If you must know it’s because I walked in on a metaphorical and literal mental breakdown, and we’re the only people that have access to him.” She took a deep breath and then added, “So, in the meantime, I’m going to keep him company, and then I’m going to help him escape.”

“Like… break out?”

“That’s what ‘escape’ means, yes.”

“Aeris, you can’t just -- this is politics now, if the UN found out about getting involved in something like this --”

“But it’s the right thing to do,” she said. “Or was that all talk earlier?”

Zack groaned, kneading his forehead with his hands. After a moment, he shrugged.

“Sure. Fine, we’ll go stage a jailbreak. Just… try and keep this under wraps, yeah?”

“No one will care. We have enough information to keep us all busy until then,” said Aeris.

“And what about after?” Zack was looking at the rats, looking pensieve. “What about when you get there, and we have to start exchanging information?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Aeris. “It’s… it’s a lot to take in.”

“Tell me about it,” said Zack. “How do you think we’ve been tracking a thinking virus before we’d even heard of it?”

“My mum must have found a sample, before… well, before the whole thing collapsed,” said Aeris. “Do you think she found Cloud? Maybe she had to use magic to do it, or --”

“Cállate,” hissed Zack again. Aeris was almost affronted before she noticed he was warily glaring at a spot in the corner of the room. Aeris looked there too.

The rats continued quietly scratching about their cages. Aeris didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and apparently neither did Zack, who looked away and grimaced.

“...That’s a question for the rest of the group,” said Zack. “Come on, this place is giving me the creeps.”

Zack had spent quite a while examining the board after they had returned to the fifth ring. She watched his face go from smug to incredulous to almost panic-stricken. Not that she could blame him. Angeal, too, was watching him with a modicum of interest. Zack erased the whole thing and sat down in front of one of the computers, looking floored.

He was strangely quiet as they talked through the next two hours, too. Quiet even for someone who wasn’t Zack. Perhaps he’d decided the best way to keep a secret was to not say anything in case he let something slip. Perhaps he was just in shock. She wasn’t really sure what to think of a lot of this herself.

She’d felt those tubes. Felt the desperation and the loneliness and the confusion as she was shoved into the cylinder. She found herself looking at the tank again and feeling a faint chill. Perhaps that’s why he always seemed so angry -- with her, and more recently with his captors. Of course, she’d be angry too if someone locked her up until further notice.

So, he hadn’t been human after all. It was unexpected, but not a surprise. The strength, the smell thing… the fact that they couldn’t seem to interface with anyone else but him. That everyone else they’d met didn’t have the strange eyes he did.

It couldn’t have been too bad, though. That dog thing -- there were other things that weren’t humans around. The man with the metal arm, the woman that had body slammed her into the floor, they seemed nice enough. And he had a job, too, as a mechanic. He seemed to like that. She remembered Cid offering her a place to stay. And obviously someone had come along and gotten him out of that cylinder, too, so he could have all this in the first place.

She was angry, she realised, much to her surprise. Why was she angry? Was she jealous? Maybe. Of him? Also maybe. Of his friends? That didn’t seem right -- it was such a childish thing to be upset over, anyway. Why was she angry?

Was it about magic? That could be it. After all, she’d spent her entire life building up to the discovery that Magic Was Real™. Still… she couldn’t help but want to learn more about it. Maybe Cloud could teach her --

Cloud. He was still in that cell by himself. Should she go back and check if he was okay? But everyone was still talking. It would have to wait.

Besides, she wasn’t really sure what she’d say to him anyway.

Chapter 18: Charlie Bucket and the Asshole Factory

Notes:

We've had chapters that are one third flashback, and chapters that are half flashback. How about a chapter that is 100% free trade no additives present flashback?

I took the italics out upon further reflection. You'll have enough of those to look at in the coming chapters as it is.

Content warning: This chapters contains blink-and-you'll-miss-it allusions to child abuse, domestic violence, statutory rape, and homicide for fun and profit. And also just people being pricks in general.

Thank you to Raaj, Sanctum_C, Belderiver, and limbostratus for looking this thing over.

Cloud didn’t stop running long enough to check if his toes stung because there was a rock in his shoe, or because snow had seeped in through the holes in the leather. Marcus, the butcher’s son, thundered behind him, yelling words Cloud knew neither one of them was allowed to say. Marcus yelled them anyway because he was a big dumb baby that did things he wasn’t supposed to do and threw tantrums about little things like Cloud biting his arm.

They were well outside town now -- Cloud went exploring near the base of the mountain all the time, but this was the first time he had come this far. Of course, this was also the first time he’d challenged someone to a fight directly and scheduled a meeting place for it. They’d been pretty evenly matched, as far as he was concerned. His own face was bloodied and his nose was almost assuredly broken, and Marcus was seven years old, two years his senior, but Marcus was probably hurting just as bad from his bite, maybe.

Perhaps it was a good thing he was smaller, he thought, as he managed to duck into a dead thornbush. He managed to barely slip under the branches, which formed a natural arch, but Marcus gave up after scraping his forehead against the brambles and deciding it wasn't worth the trouble.

Cloud stayed there for what felt like an eternity, too afraid to come back out. If he went back to town, Marcus and his friends would find him and kill him and feed him to their dogs, like the ‘taians did to Shinra soldiers they caught. Marcus had certainly threatened as much. Wutai dogmeat was a favourite threat of his. “Bargain child” another, which Cloud didn’t really understand yet, but made Ma really angry when she heard it. Cloud thought being a bargain child would be kind of neat. If Ma got him from the Fae, that’d make him pretty special, but every time he asked Ma told him to not ask ever again. He didn’t see why -- being a present from the Fae would be way better than having anything to do with Father. At least he didn’t have to see him anymore.

(It was another two years before Cloud began to guess as to why asking about Father might not have been well-received. It was another nine before he began to wish he’d never wondered in the first place.)

It was so cold out, though. He’d need somewhere to hide, just for a little while, until he could sneak back home. Hopefully Ma wouldn’t worry too much while he was gone. Ma always worried.

He wandered through the snow for a while -- his hands began to hurt, and he found himself wishing for the fire materia Ma kept at home. His own innate magic hadn’t manifested yet, but Cloud hadn’t ever heard of someone’s innate magic being Become Dry and Warm. Then again, stranger things had happened.

Maybe it would soon, though. Maybe he was actually dying horribly right now and his body would notice before he did, and soon he’d be able to fly and throw cars and set fire to Marcus’s stupid face.

He was so wrapped up in his car-throwing, Marcus-smashing fantasy he almost didn’t notice when the grass under his feet gave way to cobblestones. He looked up to see he was shockingly close to the old Shinra mansion.

Maybe he could go inside.

Maybe it was really haunted.

Maybe he’d meet a ghost.

Maybe he’d make friends with a ghost, and the ghost would come back to town with him and kill Marcus and Johnny and Oskaar and Argos and the stupid mayor and his dumb baby daughter (who was a year younger than him and only four and practically an infant as far as Cloud was concerned) and everyone else but him and Ma.

Cloud couldn’t get himself into the mansion fast enough.

The doors to the front, frustratingly enough, were locked. So were the windows. For an abandoned mansion the place sure was well-maintained. There were rumours it wasn’t abandoned, and some Very Important Lady from Shinra still worked here. Cloud was willing to bet she was another ghost.

So, he was forced around to the back of the building, where he found a wooden door to a root cellar. The wood was rotten and riddled with damp, and even pulling with his numb fingers it easily gave way.

The basement of the mansion was still chilly, but it stung much less than the thin Nibel air. As soon as the doors were shut behind him, he peeled off his soaked shoes. Even the cold stone floor was warmer than the snow. He crept down the dark hallway, his teeth still chattering.

There were lights in the ceiling that were still on, which was odd for an abandoned haunted mansion. The hallway was lined with doors, but everything behind them was dark. Cloud felt a prickle of fear in his gut, and ran past them as quickly as he could, for fear that he would accidentally look in one and something would look back, and then it would see him, and…

Cloud couldn’t think of anything scarier than having it look at him.

One of the doors was wooden, and didn’t have a spooky window on it. It too was old and rotten, and gave way with a firm push. He shut himself inside the room, where none of the window doors would be able to look at him, and turned to look at his surroundings.

There were boxes everywhere here. Some of them were wooden crates; some of them metallic cylinders lining the wall; a couple were just ordinary cardboard, stacked on shelves and numbered. But there were a few laid out on the floor that almost looked like coffins.

Cloud swallowed and contemplated if it was better to get killed by a ghost or by Marcus.

He stared at the box. He felt like the box was staring back at him. The seconds crept by as he felt himself flinching at every scratch in the walls or drip from the ceiling.

Well, if something was going to kill him, he was going to know what. He marched over to the box and, with some difficulty, shoved the lid open. Then he screamed and jumped back.

There was a corpse in the box. A fresh one, given that it had all its skin on, but deathly pale, with matted, unkempt corpse hair. And glowing red corpse eyes.

That wasn’t right.

The pale man sat up and turned to look directly at Cloud, still standing there, soaking wet and empty-handed save for his drenched shoes.

Cloud began to cry.

He realised he wasn’t dead yet a moment later when the pale man spoke to him directly.

“Was it you who roused me from my nightmares?”

"I didn't mean to!" he blurted. The corpse stared at him blankly, and a metal hand emerged from the casket and rested on the edge. Cloud swallowed. Maybe it didn't speak Nibeli. It certainly hadn’t spoken it and it was staring at Cloud expectantly with its dead corpse eyes.

“I didn’t mean to,” he managed to squeak out, this time in Standard Continental. “I don’t wanna die. I-I’ll -- I’ll fight you.”

“Unnecessary,” said the pale man. “Leave this place. I shall return to my slumber.”

And then he lay back down and shut himself into the coffin again.

Cloud stopped crying right then and there out of sheer confusion.

He stared at the coffin, wiping his nose off on his sleeve.

He got up on his toes and shoved the lid off again.

The pale man continued to lie there, and Cloud wondered if he hadn't imagined the whole thing. Very carefully, he reached in and prodded his face. A red, glowing eye cracked open and stared at him. Cloud stared back.

"...Why are you going back to bed?"

The pale man continued to lay there, but Cloud held his gaze. He did not answer, so Cloud tried another question.

"Who killed you?"

And when he got tired of waiting for an answer for that one:

"What's your name? My name's Cloud."

The pale man sat up very, very slowly, and Cloud took a step back.

"Why have you come here?" said the voice. He sounded like a corpse, too -- deep and gravelly.

Cloud swallowed. "I'm exploring," he said. "I'm an explorer."

"You are much too young to be any sort of employed guide," said the pale man. Cloud glared at him.

"Well, I am! Maybe I'm just really good, so they hired me early! You just died before they announced it. I was on the news."

The pale man blinked, at a loss for words.

"I came here looking for materia," continued Cloud. "To use in the war."

"...What war?" said the pale man, a hint of curiosity creeping into his voice.

"The war against the 'taians," said Cloud. "I been finding rare materia for Shinra to use. I'm a professional materia finder. They been saying they need their secret weapon to win. That's me."

The pale man was regarding him with an odd look in his eye. "It is indeed a grim day for our nation, that they would require the use of children to win their battles for them."

"I'm old enough to fight," said Cloud, his anger bubbling to the surface again. "I been fighting just before I got here. I --"

He looked around and snatched a rounder chunk of concrete off the ground in front of him, and before he even began to consider doing anything else, threw it at the pale man's head.

"That was materia that I find!" he yelled. "It was magic, and now you're gonna die again!"

"That was a stone," said the pale man dryly. "It has no magical properties whatsoever. Leave me to my atonement." And with that, he pulled the lid of the coffin over himself again and closed it with a slam.

Cloud's eyes were filling with tears again, but this time it was out of anger and humiliation. Not even the stupid basement zombie thought he was anyone worth being.

He'd show him. He'd go find some materia right now.

"Right now" didn't happen until three days later. Partially because Cloud forgot, because Ma was tired and forgot to buy groceries again, so Cloud had to sneak into the back room of the general store and take some himself. He tried to go to school, too, but the first day back he decided he had better things to do than avoiding every other person in his class and the stupid teacher that liked him about as well as they did. Instead of attending class the next two days, he spent time combing through the caves littering the base of Mount Nibel. Most of the locals didn't bother with the mountain much, because it was supposed to be the gateway to the land of the dead (which Cloud had just apparently proven was true). But Cloud didn't have much to do in the town besides watch other people that were stupider and meaner than him enjoy themselves, so he'd taken to entertaining himself elsewhere.

"Wake up," said Cloud three days later, staring at the coffin in the basement. The pale man didn't respond, so he set down his bag with a grunt and shoved the lid off again. The pale man was indeed there, and his eyes opened and fixed on Cloud, this time regarding him rather coldly.

"I brought materia," he said, grabbing his bag and dumping the contents out onto the floor. There was now a small pile of stones of various shapes, colours, and sizes in front of him. Some he'd selected because they looked round enough. Others he thought just looked nice. "So this proves it."

He held up the first one, which was in fact an actual materia: fire, and belonging to his mother so they could light wood for the stove and heat up bathwater. "This is Ultima. I killed a dragon for it."

The pale man continued to glare at him. "You are four years old."

"I'm five and a half!" snapped Cloud. "And -- and screw you!" Ma wasn't here to hear him swear. He could swear all he wanted. The thought filled him with courage, and he pressed on. "Shinra hired me to kill the dragon and get the materia for me."

The pale man bristled. "Shinra?"

"Yeah. They're there to civilise the 'taians. There's a big war over it now. I'm helping!"

"You would do well to stay away from Shinra, Cloud," warned the voice, and Cloud realised it was the first time he'd used his name.

"Why?"

"The company is not what they seem. They cannot be trusted."

"You're just jealous because I'm a famous materia finder and you're dead." Cloud picked up another rock. "Did Shinra kill you?"

The pale man frowned. "Why have you returned here?"

"To show you all my materia. So, this one," said Cloud, reaching for a round stone he'd found inside one of the caves, "this one is Earth, and you can tell because it's brown."

"That is patently false."

"You're patenly stupid." He picked up another rock -- a big white one that reminded him a little of an egg. "And this one's ice -- and it's a summon. An ice summon."

"Summon materia are red."

"Well, this one is white, from the ice. It's extra-rare."

"You have disturbed me to lie about a pile of stones."

"But I found --"

"Leave this place."

And Cloud did leave, but not before throwing his ice summon materia at the pale man, where it missed by a good two feet. The pale man didn't even flinch.

He needed to find better stones, was the problem. Or maybe even more real materia.

It wasn't easy to get materia like that, especially in Nibelheim. He had to wait until the general store closed again, and then sneak in through the window in the back. There was a tiny crack in the window sill, enough for someone with very small, bony hands to slip their fingers through and lift the latch. Cloud would use this window if whatever he wanted (usually things like flour or kerosene) were too large to fit inside his coat.

(Sixteen years later, he would comb his hands over the windows of a building very much like this one while a stranger told him that there had never been any holes of any kind anywhere.)

They really only had two kinds here -- fire, and a remedial materia known for dealing with various poisons and minor curses. One for withstanding vicious Nibeli winters, the other for dealing with vicious Nibeli wildlife. Ma already had fire. So Cloud stole healing.

Nobody at school the next day could prove he stole anything, but everyone suspected him anyway. It went about as well as it always did, but at least this time everyone else wasn't around to watch Johnny give him a black eye and a fat lip. Which was good for Johnny, too, because this time Cloud got in a real good bite, and nobody bothered to chase him this time.

He got some rocks from Mount Nibel, too. They probably were magic. Cloud always felt like he was being watched whenever he went near the mountain.

Cloud shoved the lid off the pale man's casket without bothering to announce his arrival this time.

"Why do you continue to return here?" he said, and though his face remained as impassive as ever, Cloud was pretty sure he was angry.

"Well... you don't have anyone else to talk to, right? So... I thought maybe you'd get lonely," said Cloud, nodding sagely.

"Go away."

"No. I brought more materia this time." He dumped his bag of rocks out again, and held up the healing materia.

"This one is extra special. It grants wishes."

"There is no such materia."

"You just haven't heard of it. I discovered it myself. And -- and I wish you'd come back to the village with me, and come with me to class," said Cloud, staring at the pale man expectantly.

"No."

"I did it on the wish magic, so you have to."

"I do not," the pale man said sharply, and Cloud recoiled and fell silent. " You seek to distract yourself from some greater unpleasantness by disturbing my rest and fabricating stories about your employment for a war machine despite your young age. You stand to gain nothing by retreating into a false reality, and you are beyond help if you believe you can avoid confronting your situation, whatever that may be, by pretending there is not one. Do not return here again."

Cloud was silent for several moments. He heard the whoosh of a cloak and realised the pale man had stepped out of his coffin to retrieve the lid from the floor. Cloud's throat felt painful and hot.

"...Why can't I just pretend?" he asked. "Why do you care so much if I just pretend?" There were tears running down his face now.

"I have never found avoiding the reality of my sins, and of other people's, to be of much use to anyone," the pale man stated simply. He was looking down at Cloud, who had sat down against the side of the pale man's coffin and was beginning to cry harder.

It wasn't fair.

He didn't realise how long the pale man had been staring at him until he heard him move again. He had stepped back into his coffin and was looking at Cloud as impassively as ever.

"...What are some other arbitrary spells you have assigned to these stones?" he heard him ask.

Cloud sniffed in surprise, then reached for a reddish-brown stone. "This -- this one is a summon, like you said. It's even the right colour. I made sure when I found it."

The pale man nodded. "I suppose it is. What would you say it summons?"

"Fenrir."

"Fenrir is not a summon."

"Well, it should be. When I grow up, I'm gonna make a Fenrir summon."

"Summons take thousands of years to coagulate. Sometimes more, if their stories are lesser known."

"Hey pale man, how did you die?"

Cloud watched expectantly as the pale man blinked at the sudden shift in conversation.

"...I tried to interfere with... official Shinra business. Though, technically speaking, I am not entirely dead."

"Well, duh. You're talking. What did you interfere with?"

"...It is not for young ears to know."

Cloud gave him an odd look, then shrugged. "Well, I'm sure you didn't mean it."

That must have been the wrong thing to say, because the pale man abruptly closed his coffin lid again, and Cloud was left staring at it dejectedly.

Cloud didn't visit the pale man again for another week. He wanted to have a good collection of materia ready for him this time. He told Ma about the pale man.

"It's good you've found an imaginary friend," she said, not really looking at him. She was always tired, for as long as he could remember. Tired and nervous and always looking over her shoulder. Cloud didn't remember much from when his father had been around, but he was pretty sure she was like that when he was here too. He didn't really understand it much, though. He remembered feeling that way himself when Father had been around, but now that he wasn't, there wasn’t any reason for them to be like that. But after he left, Ma had only gotten worse. She was a lot younger than all the other mothers in Nibelheim, but she somehow managed to look older than all of them put together.

“He’s not imaginary,” he pouted. “He’s real and I met him. He lives in a coffin.”

Ma looked at him then, as though she wasn’t sure how to respond. “You haven’t been playing in that cemetery, have you?”

“No, I didn’t find him in the cemetery. I found him in a basement.” There wasn’t much point in going to the village cemetery anyway. There were only a few bodies in it so far, and according to Ma, the place was a blemish upon their village. Most bodies had been burnt to ash at the foot of the mountains to return them to the Hearth they’d been made in, but there was a growing trend to just stick them in the ground. Apparently they did it that way in Midgar and Mideel and Gongaga. Cloud thought it was a bit sickening, just leaving corpses in the ground to rot, and Ma was outraged by it (it was one of the many topics Cloud had learned not to bring up around her), but the cemetery kept getting a little bigger each year anyway; just another plot of Shinra land swallowing the village.

“Is he nice?” asked Ma, returning to patching up Cloud’s shoes as best she could.

“No. He keeps telling me to leave. I don’t know why he’d like being dead and by himself. He yelled at me about doing magic.”

"What does he look like?" asked Ma, a note of concern in her voice now. Her accent was much thicker than Cloud's since she'd learned Standard after Nibeli, and not the other way around like him. She still wasn't looking. Not really.

"I'll do a drawing," said Cloud. He sat down in front of their bed and did his best to faithfully recreate the pale man to the best of his ability. When he was done, he held the drawing in front of her face. Ma looked at it for a long time, and then looked at him, still looking as worried as ever.

"That's your friend, sweet?" The worry in her voice was now much more palpable, and Cloud wondered if perhaps he had done something wrong.

"Yes. He's dead. He lives outside the town. He's really angry all the time but he never sounds like it."

"...Just be safe, okay?" said Ma, shaking her head sadly.

He left school early the next day to try and get to the pale man before it got cold and dark. Cloud had been out in the dark many times, setting and checking snares for food, or just hiding from the townsfolk, but it was always nicer to do things with more light. As per usual, the pale man had shut himself inside his coffin, and it took Cloud banging loudly on the roof of it for him to be acknowledged.

"So, if you can walk around and stuff, why do you stay down here?" he asked, when he was halfway through categorising all the different kinds of fire materia he had (there was regular fire and then super fire, and then fission fire, which was different from and even stronger than a Flare spell).

The pale man regarded him thoughtfully for a while before answering.

"I must atone for my sins," he said.

Cloud blinked, nonplussed.

"My crime was one of inaction. I allowed someone I cared for deeply to make a terrible mistake. By the time I interfered, it was far too late to alter the course she had set for herself. She is likely long dead."

"Why didn't you stop her if it was so bad?"

The pale man said nothing, and Cloud got bored of waiting for an answer.

"...So, this one is lightning -- that one's Black magic, because it takes more control than pershison. I got teached that in school --"

"You must keep your loved ones close, lest misfortune befall them as well," said the pale man suddenly. "Do not repeat my mistakes. We must all atone for our sins eventually."

"Er... okay. I'll -- I'll watch out for Ma."

The pale man nodded. "Yes. Mothers should take care of their children."

Cloud was extremely uncomfortable, and politely excused himself. By then it had gotten darker, and he had to create a tiny light in the palm of his hand with the fire materia to see himself home. Ma said he always made the best lights -- nice and steady, and it didn't tire him out for almost four hours. Sometimes five. Cloud wasn't good at that other word he couldn't say, but he was really good at control.

"Ma?" he asked when he got home. Ma was bent over the wash basin, scrubbing it out, which Cloud thought was pointless since they washed themselves in it so it was obviously already as clean as anything could possibly be.

"What is it, sweet?" she said, managing a tired smile.

"What's a sin?"

Ma dropped the sponge she'd been using into the water and fumbled for it, muttering a word Cloud wasn't allowed to say under her breath.

"Who -- where did you hear that word?" she asked.

"The Pale Man told me it. He says we all have to tone for our sins. What's tonement? He said that too."

Ma looked unhappy with him, and Cloud shrank back, swallowing nervously. "I'm sorry," he said immediately.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong. A sin is... a very bad thing."

Cloud nodded in understanding. "He said I should be careful, and that you should look out for me."

Ma's mouth thinned into a line, and she went back to scrubbing immediately. "I don't think you should be spending so much time around the Pale Man, Cloud. He doesn't sound like a happy person."

"He's not. I don't think I ever seen him smile..."

That wasn't right, was it? Maybe the Pale Man didn't like him much. Well... not "maybe". Ma was really the only person that liked Cloud, and the Pale Man acted more like the mayor -- like he was better than Cloud, and wanted him gone as soon as possible. But the Pale Man stayed put, and that was good enough for him.

He tried his best to cheer the Pale Man up after that. He brought even more rocks. Snacks, too -- rabbit jerky and dried berries, preserved for the winter, and once a bit of bread and some honey. The Pale Man never touched any of it. That made sense -- corpses didn't need to eat.

As the weeks piled on, the ground around the pale man's coffin came to be littered with rocks and stones of all shapes and sizes. Cloud visited nearly every day. Ma would ask where he kept going. "Exploring", he would tell her. She didn't exactly approve of him going that close to the mountains, but he'd been out there on his own often enough to catch rabbits for dinner, so she made him promise not to go any deeper than the old bridge. That was fine by him; the mansion wasn't even that far.

Argos from his class picked a fight with him that day, which was unusual, since usually Cloud wound up initiating things in one way or another. But it was a weekend, so he hadn't even been in school. He was in the general store, and Ma had given him a little money from her job to buy something for a change. The owner was watching him like a hawk the whole time, only looking away to recount the money in his drawer before turning his sour, unshaven face back to Cloud. Argos had come in afterwards, with the mayor's daughter and Johnny trailing behind.

Before he had much time to register who was here and why, he was shoved face first into a shelf of candy bars. The owner yelled sharply at them over the counter as Cloud clutched at his nose. It hadn't quite healed from the last time, and now it was sore again.

"What the hell do you think you kids are doing?" the owner barked.

"He was stealing again! I seen him steal!" said Argos. Johnny glanced at Argos in confusion, and the mayor's daughter turned to look at Cloud, scandalised.

"I wasn't this time, honest!" yelled Cloud, and made to lunge at Argos. Before he could get there he and Argos were grabbed by the back of their shirts by the owner.

"Check his pockets! He's a liar!" yelled Argos.

"I en't taken anything! I didn't!"

"Then what's this?" The owner removed a candy bar that Cloud didn't recall being there from his coat.

"He put that in there! I-I didn't take it, I swear! I swear I didn't! I swear I didn't!" Cloud flailed in his grip. "I have money! I swear I didn't!"

"That's my money!" screamed Argos back. "He stole my money from my bookbag!"

"Ma gave it to me! Ma gave it to me because I been good at school!"

"Your ma doesn't got any money because she's a slut!" Cloud wasn't sure what that word meant but it was clear it was an insult.

"No she's not!"

"Yes she is!"

"NO SHE ISN'T!"

"YOUR MA'S A SLUT AND THAT'S WHY SHE WENT AND HAD YOU!"

By that point the owner was too distracted by the overwhelming cacophony of two five year olds screaming at the top of their lungs to realise he'd let go of both of them, and Cloud threw himself at Argos again. Argos was heavier and succeeded in rolling them both over for easier punching access, but by this time Cloud had gotten quite good at biting.

The mayor's daughter, Tifa, letting out a shriek as Cloud sank his teeth into Argos's hand was what finally got him to look down, and Argos was peeled off him almost as quickly as Cloud himself was hauled to his feet.

"Savage little thieving shrike," grumbled the owner, and before he had time to react he was thrown over his shoulder and carried off.

"Let me go!" he shrieked, kicking at the owner's chest as he felt his pockets being rummaged through. From his elevated position he could see Tifa looking wide-eyed and absolutely horrified with him, and Argos glaring furiously at him through his own angry tears, nursing a hand that was now bleeding quite a bit.

"I'll be returning this money to the young man you've injured," said the owner distastefully, "and having a word with that mother of yours."

"Give it back! It's mine! Ma gave it to me!" he screamed even louder. "The Pale Man will come and kill you if you don't give it back! He'll kill you like he got killed! He got ripped into a million pieces! He'll do the same thing to you! Give it back!"

"That's quite enough of that," snapped the owner, and opened the door to a closet. "Now stay put while I fetch the necessary parties."

Cloud was dropped roughly in the closet, and the door was slammed closed in front of him.

"Let me out! Ma!" His voice pitched into a panic as he began to beat at the locked doors. He heard footsteps moving away from him, and realised a minute later that the store was now empty.

He screamed louder, hoping to be heard. "Ma!" Maybe she would hear him. Maybe she would come get him, like she had before.

"You stay here, sweet, and don't come out until I say it's safe, okay?" he could almost hear her saying. The memory of that night, and the nights after it, were still burned into his brain.

"Ma!" he sobbed. His hands hurt from beating at the doors. A minute passed, then two, then ten. Ma didn't come. Cloud sat in the corner of the closet as his cries died down into whimpers. Perhaps they'd forgotten he was here. An hour passed. Maybe more. Eventually he just fell asleep from exhaustion.

He was shaken awake by the general store's owner dragging him out of the closet by the arm. Ma was there, looking even more exhausted than usual.

"I have explained the situation to your mother," said the owner flatly. "Your money will be returned to you. But this boy is not to set foot in my store, woman," he added, turning to Ma. "He's caused enough trouble for everyone in this town as it is."

Cloud ran into his mother's legs, and she gave him a short hug before standing to address the owner.

"Mr. Katrinsson, I assure you that --"

"Don't lie to me, woman, I know you put him up to it. You're lucky I don't call the police on both of you. Why don't you earn an honest living like the rest of us, eh?"

Cloud was quiet on the walk home. He felt the eyes on his back, as usual. He kept his face lowered so they wouldn't see how red it was or how badly his nose was running.

"I'm sorry I got you in trouble," said Cloud. "I really en't take anything this time."

"It's alright. I'm making a little more money now, so we'll be okay for a while," she said tiredly. "...The manager said you threatened to kill that boy, though."

"I didn't. I said the Pale Man would rip him to pieces. That's how he died, you know. I'm gonna get him to come kill them both -- him and that dumb baby what always follows him around."

Ma's grip on his hand tightened considerably, and she knelt to address him at eye level. "You can't say things like that to people. It's not nice."

"He said bad things about you," said Cloud. "I oughta get the Pale Man to kill his mama too."

"Listen, Cloud," said his mother sharply. "He's imaginary. He won't be killing anyone. And you need to stop talking to him." She sounded angry. Cloud hadn’t heard her angry in a long time.

"But..."

"You won't be talking with him anymore, Cloud. Find a new friend. You're getting a bit old for imaginary ones anyway."

"He's real, Ma!" Cloud objected. "He's real, and he --"

"I said that's enough!"

Cloud swallowed and nodded, and neither one of them spoke for the rest of the walk. Ma stroked his hair until he fell asleep that night, and hummed a song he'd heard a million times, and he wasn't sure why.

He still made one last visit to the Pale Man.

He had to move quickly, because he suspected Ma had noticed how long he was off "exploring" the base of the mountains these days. It probably wouldn't be long. He wasn't sure what to say anyway.

The Pale Man was asleep, as he always was. Cloud knocked on the lid of the coffin, and then pulled it up when he didn't respond.

The Pale Man opened his eyes and sat up and looked at him irritably, as he always did. Cloud swallowed nervously.

"...Ma doesn't want me visiting you anymore."

"Your mother is wise. Listen to her. You would do well to socialise with children your own age." For an adult, the Pale Man sure could be stupid sometimes.

Cloud rocked himself nervously. He thought words would magically show up now that he was here. Still nothing.

"...You won't forget about me, right? We'll always be friends?"

The Pale Man regarded him coolly. "It would be an embellishment to refer to us as friends. We are not well-acquainted by any stretch of the imagination," he said simply.

"...Oh." He could feel his throat tightening again.

"...But I doubt I will forget about you."

Cloud nodded. It was good enough.

"I got you a present, just to make sure," said Cloud. He reached into his coat pocket and produced the healing materia he'd stolen from the general store weeks ago.

"It's the special wish materia. It really works. Maybe you can use it to bring your wife or whoever back," explained Cloud. He dropped it in the Pale Man's coffin, ignoring his blank stare.

"I'll miss you," said Cloud. The Pale Man nodded.

He stood there for a moment, frozen to the spot. He would have badly liked to lean in, to wrap his arms around the Pale Man's midsection and be held in return. But there was almost a barrier he projected, a kind of intangible energy that told Cloud that he couldn't do that, a feeling that made it somehow impossible. It was an almost physical ache, and as much as Cloud pressed against it, it didn't stop being any less true.

Instead he just turned away and left the basement of Shinra Manor, for what he believed would be the last time.

Chapter 19: The Thrilling Conclusion to the Cash Register Arc. Story Over, You Can All Go Home Now

Notes:

And now we're back from me posting random shit from two or three years ago I found in folders on my hard drive.

So... as it stands, I may have been a liiiiiiiiiiiittle bit off with my original projection of "this thing will be like 30 chapters maybe". The first third of the story is just about wrapped up, but we've still got a ways to go.

I got called double reverse racist over this story. It was amazing and is officially the high point of my "career". I have inspired Discourse (TM). I can reach no higher.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone that's left me feedback (even the weird negative fifth root of racist anon). Your comments are what keep me going. It means a lot to me that people are actually reading this hot mess.

Also I have SO MANY THOUGHTS about Fenrir and her specs. Cloud/Fenrir is the only good ship.

Thank you to Raaj, Belderivier, limbostratus, and Sanctum_C for putting up with my endless pestering.

"So, what's it this time, toots? You here to threaten to break my neck, or just rip my balls off?"

It hadn't been easy arranging this meeting covertly. Tifa was beginning to wonder whether it was even worth it in the first place. Rude had the sense to keep quiet at least, which was fine by her, even if he did stare a little much for comfort. Reno was fucking impossible, though.

"I thought we could come to an agreement," she said shortly.

"Aw, and here I thought you didn't like me," drawled Reno. "Hear that, Rude? Looks like you might even have a chance!" Rude rolled his eyes behind his shades and turned away. "But wait -- it'd be a shame for me to compromise my good name" -- Tifa snorted -- "my good name as an officer of the law just for a stiff drink and some cash. Or a little backroom action, if that's what you're offering --"

"Out, Sinclair."

"Hey, whoa, alright, no jokes then. Joyless hag..."

"I don't need to hire you. It'd just be easier if I did."

"Oh, 'hire' me?" said Reno with a smirk. "See, that kinda makes it seem like you do need me. Because you wouldn't be hiring me if it wasn't something that you couldn't hire someone else for. Assuming I say yes, anyhow. My schedule might be too packed."

"The only reason I'm even considering this is because I know how much of a scumbag you are," said Tifa. "I still owe you for Biggs and Wedge. Keep out of this mess if you want, but don't give me a reason to think it's not worth keeping our truce." Reno rolled his eyes.

He was messing with her, she knew. But he knew she was also bluffing. She probably wouldn't be considering hiring him if it were something she could get from anyone else. And Reno hadn't gotten to be head of the Turks by being stupid -- he knew which hands were and weren't worth biting. Tifa's was not one of those hands.

Elena's flat was neutral territory. Tifa considered her decent enough -- cold, perhaps, and a little unfriendly, at least to her, and maybe a little bit unscrupulous to throw her lot in with the Turks, but decent. She was a stickler for rules, at least, so she'd probably have been the first to rat on either of them if they tried anything illegal, like assault. Or wrecked her furniture should a fight break out. She was across town for the day, but no one wanted to risk crossing her anyway.

She didn't like being this far out from Edge, especially at a time like this. But after what Reeve had said about Cloud's room being bugged, she wasn't sure if she could trust anywhere she knew that Reno would agree to come to. So, here she was, sitting on an impeccably clean L-shaped couch across from Reno, who had already sprawled out on the other side of it with his feet propped up on the armrest, Rude looming behind him looking impatient. It was strange to see him out of uniform.

Tifa had brought Yuffie along as her own insurance. Both of them might not be particularly large, but Yuffie lived nearby enough for it to be convenient, and more to the point she was unsettlingly good at concealing weapons, something that she had a nasty feeling Reno might know a thing or two about as well.

"So, did you actually have a proposition for me, or did you drag me out here so we could chat for old time's sake?" said Reno. "I got places to be."

"It's about Cloud," began Tifa. Reno held up a hand immediately.

"Even if I thought I could, which I can't, he wouldn't accept --"

"You haven't even heard what I'm gonna ask," said Tifa impatiently. "All I want is information. You can give us that much -- there's cops all over that place."

"And what makes you think I'd be willing to abuse the power given to me as an offi --"

Behind her, Yuffie was unable to stifle her laughter.

"...Yeah, alright, fair enough," said Reno, shrugging. "But you better not rat me out. I got friends. If anything happens..."

"Lips are sealed," said Tifa. "We just want to know what's going on. They've gotta be keeping documents or something, but nobody will tell us anything. They won't even let me in the same room with him. No one knows what they're doing, or..."

"Yeah, it's real sad and everything. How much?"

Tifa reached slowly into her pocket and withdrew a small stack of gil and set it out on Elena's glass coffee table. Reno waited until Tifa pulled her hand back to inspect it himself.

"FIfteen hundred," said Tifa. "You get another fifteen hundred after it's done." Three thousand gil was about all they had saved up at the moment, especially considering how long the bar had been closed. Maybe she could get some more later, but for now she hoped it would do.

Reno looked at her in disbelief. "I'm sorry, you want me to risk my job as a police officer -- at least, assuming they don't lock me up for taking bribes and spying -- for three thousand gil?

"It's all I've got right now," said Tifa. "And I already said you didn't need to break him out. Just tell us what's going on."

"Not for three thousand gil, I'm not."

Tifa took a deep breath, trying to maintain her composure. He knew she was bluffing when she said she didn't need to hire him -- she wasn't stupid enough to go sniffing around for another cop that might be open to bribes. Not without getting into a lot of trouble if she didn't find one, or even worse trouble if she did.

"How about this -- fifteen hundred up front, and thirty thousand when you're done," said Yuffie from behind her suddenly. Reno let out a low whistle. Tifa whipped around to look at her.

"What? Since when?"

"Since now," said Yuffie, then turned to Reno. "Deal?"

"I mean... shit, that's definitely a better deal... what do you think, Rude?"

"I think I might want a cut," said Rude, raising an eyebrow.

"For doing what, standing there like a shaved bear?"

"While you two work that out, I'm gonna have a private word," said Tifa faintly, before standing and heading to the bathroom, dragging Yuffie by the sleeve after her.

"Are you crazy?!" she hissed as soon as the door was closed.

"What? He was gonna say no. We need this, right?"

"And what do you think is gonna happen when they find out you don't have thirty thousand gil?"

"Thirty-one thousand, five hundred," said Yuffie. "I'm paying back your cut too. And I do." Tifa stared blankly at her. Yuffie shrugged in response. "I'm royalty, idiot. How do you think I got a flat in Junon all by myself? And if anyone's got money right now, it's Wutai. We're about the only place that didn't get Sephirothed, especially after Shinra went down and took the world with it."

"Yuffie," Tifa sighed heavily, rubbing her eyes. This whole month was just an elaborate clusterfuck of every single possible thing going wrong all at once. "If anyone finds out Lady Kisaragi bribed a cop to get information about another state's prisoner for..."

"Well, no one has to find out," said Yuffie. "And maybe I don't care even if they do."

"You can't just throw away your entire future over this!" pleaded Tifa. "Think for just five minutes --"

"Ugh, you sound like Dad now." Yuffie made a face. "Cloud would do the exact same thing for us, you know!"

"That's..." not a good thing, she wanted to say.

"And besides, what's so great about ruling a country because you're supposed to, anyway?" continued Yuffie, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, thirty gil of that is technically yours, if you wanted to feel like you were contributing. I took it from the till last time I was over."

"Yuffie..."

"It'll be fine," she said insistently. "Anything that comes up after this, we can handle once we're all back together. So don't even worry about it."

Tifa stood there for a bit as Yuffie's eyes bored into hers. She was angry, she could tell. Not at Tifa, but still angry. But there was a direction to the anger. Yuffie had probably been steering that anger all week. She realised that was something she used to know how to do as well; it was something they'd all learned during those long weeks on the run from everything and everyone, chasing and being chased, with nobody in the world to watch their backs but each other.

"...Alright. Okay. Just... don't do anything stupid."

"Wouldn't dream of it," said Yuffie, and slipped back out of the bathroom. As she left after her, Tifa could have sworn there was a hand towel missing from the rack by the sink.

"You've got a deal," said Reno as she entered the living room again. He held up the fifteen hundred gil to show her before pocketing it. "I've done this kinda thing before. Information is a guarantee. Physical documents, if I can get 'em. Anything else... depends what I find, I guess."

"What do you mean, depends on what you find?"

"All I'm saying is, why do you think they won't let you in the same room as him?" said Reno. "I worked at Shinra for seven years before the bottom went out from under it. Usually if something's quarantined like that, it's either to keep you out, or something else in, right? So, like..."

"Just let us know what they're doing with Cloud and you'll get paid," said Tifa tiredly.

"Can do," said Reno. "Just don't get your hopes up or nothin' that there's anything left to save." He forced himself to sit up, and for the first time in their meeting he looked her in the eyes.

"'Cause honestly, there's something wrong with that guy. Really wrong. And I think they know that too."

 

---

 

It was a strange feeling, becoming self-aware in real time. Most people would speculate their whole lives what the exact moment a human being recognised its own conscious existence at birth felt like. Not him. He knew exactly what it was like, and he was damn well sick of it.

He wasn't sure how long he'd been out by the time he recovered from realising he existed and that he was Cloud, who was from Nibelheim that burned down and was locked up and afraid and angry and alone when Aeris helped nudge him back to individuality. The further out he moved from where he was, the longer it had been, right? It seemed like he'd moved outward a lot. He wasn't sure how much more he'd have to go until visiting day came. Perhaps he had missed it.

Rise and shine, he heard Aeris say, the false cheeriness in her voice masking the anxiety they both knew she felt. How are you holding up?

I'm okay, he said, which they also knew was bullshit.

He felt Aeris trying to move and found his limbs heavy and sluggish. There's something wrong.

Yeah. Cloud blinked slowly. They saw me freak out last time you were here. The air's been drugged ever since.

I'm sorry. Was that... were you remembering that?

Yes.

I didn't mean for --

I know. Just... don't bring it up again.

...Just one more question, I promise.

Cloud sighed heavily. It wasn't like he was divulging information anymore, he guessed.

The bit at the end, with all the fire... you saw that too, right?

Yeah. Another one of mine. Don't know how accurate it is, but...

...It is?

What do you mean?

I've been having that same dream for a couple weeks.

Cloud very slowly began to sit up, looking around groggily for the new packet they'd given him. Volume 2. She'd want that. You sure it's the same one?

Positive.

Cloud paused. That's not possible.

What do you mean? We've been sharing memories this whole time, apparently.

Yeah, I guess so, said Cloud. He found it at the foot of his bed. Someone had laminated each page this time, to keep him from starting fires with them. It must have taken hours. They'd given him a marker to write with in compromise. Only...

What?

I only remembered it just then, when you saw it. Apart from that bit... I have almost no memory of Meteorfall.

Is... is Meteorfall that event?

Yeah.

So... I've been dreaming of an event I wasn't there for days in advance before you knew about it yourself.

Seems like it. He flipped open the packet. Another thing you don't know how it works, right?

Aeris seemed to sigh. ...What's Meteorfall? she asked after a moment.

The world almost ended.

Is that a joke? I thought you might have done jokes, because of the thing you said about your mum laying eggs, but then magic was real -- dragons, you mentioned dragons, were they real too?

Dragons are real. We all almost died. We lost ninety percent of the world's population, and another ten percent of that ten percent from the aftermath. Starvation, not enough medical supplies, collapse of infrastructure... plague.

Oh. He felt her fumble for something else to say, likely around the foot in her mouth.

That's actually what the rest of this building is for, said Cloud. The WRO -- World Regenesis Organisation, they stepped in after the power vacuum, given most of the world leaders were dead by that point.

What happened to them?

I killed 'em.

...Is... that...

Also not a joke. I had help. And I only killed some of them, mind. Lord Kisaragi's still around, he's Yuffie's dad. Yuffie will be one when Lord Kisaragi abdicates the throne. Reeve, you've met him, he was our mole into the Board of Directors. Reno's still around -- he and the rest of the Turks bailed in their own self-interest, and we figured it wasn't worth it to go after them. And Barret, he's been moving up in the world lately. Kinda took over Corel in the governor's absence, but he's been thinking about staying with the job. And President Shinra and Funsize Shinra are both dead, but contrary to what the news said about Avalanche, I didn't do those two. Someone else got to 'em first.

There was a brief chill of discomfort and underlying fear coming from her.

It's not like we did it for fun, said Cloud quickly. I'm no murderer. Unlike some. There just... wasn't anything else we could do. The last people I saw protesting got lined up in front of a firing squad on live television, and that's one of the more dignified ones they've done. You shoulda seen what they were gonna do to Tifa. Trust me, the world's undebatably a better place without 'em.

...What happened here? asked Aeris, clearly at a loss.

Cloud quietly flipped closed the packet, stifling a yawn. He had a feeling they wouldn't be getting much reading done today.

You know how I mentioned Sephiroth? The first Soldier First. A wry smile crossed his face. That one was a joke, sort of. Did you get it?

Yeah, I... I got it.

So... the thing you have to understand -- the thing you need to understand about all this is... Cloud faltered. I... I know things might seem bad now, looking at this from the outside in, but you have to understand, they... they could be so much worse. They were so much worse.

It was Tifa what hired me for Avalanche. I... she found me in the Sector 2 landfill. Just dumb luck. We both thought the other was dead, and... there was a lot going on, he said uncomfortably. More than we both thought, and definitely more than I realised. I was hired as a mercenary. Said I'd take any job, and I meant it.

Avalanche is... that's where your family is from, right?

Yeah. He closed his eyes again. The sedatives and Aeris's company were easing the constant ache of loneliness, and the memories of his family brought a strange sort of contentment to him. I was a real asshole back then. It -- it was a wonder any of them ever put up with me. I guess because they had to, but -- well, I'm getting ahead of myself... Avalanche. If there were other resistance groups, they were either dead or too small to be doing anything. Barret didn't believe in small. Hard to imagine, I know.

Is that how he lost his arm?

No. But it's part of why he formed Avalanche. We started out... small, I guess. Planted a couple bombs in reactors. Then a mission went wrong. We lost half our crew, Jessie got nabbed for interrogation when she was going back for Marlene... I guess it's a good thing, actually. If we hadn't sent her off to Sector 5, she would've... it's funny how that works out, huh? he said, though there wasn't much funny about it. He could still vividly remember Wedge's broken, twisted body on the ground; Biggs desperately gasping for air that no longer did him any good with his heart rapidly pumping more blood into his lungs; the cold pit of dread at not knowing if Marlene and Jessie had made it out before the plate fell. Too close. It had all been too close. He wished he'd been nicer to Wedge... the last thing he'd ever said to him before all that was "you useless sack of shit", because he was so much better, wasn't he? Soldier First Class. So much better. God, he should've been nicer to Wedge --

Cloud? Are you okay? Cloud jumped slightly at the voice. Aeris was still there. It hadn't been that long, had it? How long had it been?

Yeah. Sorry. So... it wasn't until then we decided to just... go down in a blaze of glory, I guess. Get Jessie back, kill the President, and/or die trying. I mean, definitely Jessie first, but the president too if we had time. And hook up. She asked me out the minute we got out of that tower. Said life was too short. And just like that he'd made himself sad again. So, er...

I thought you said the president...

Yeah. We all got caught, but someone else got to him first. Sephiroth. Which is weird, because I killed him too, actually. Five years ago. His fucking fault I spent five years getting cut to bits and sewn back together. Of course, we had to leave Midgar after that -- known terrorist cell, in the office with the dead president they were on the way to kill anyway, the only witness says it was done by a guy that died under mysterious circumstances five years ago... didn't look great. Picked up Nanaki on the way though. Hojo had him locked up. We figured we'd accidentally-on-purpose let him out of his cage as a diversion, but then he said he didn't appreciate doing all the general-mayhem-causing work for no compensation and just kinda stuck around.

I like Nanaki.

Yeah. He's a good guy.

...You mentioned Hojo before, said Aeris cautiously. Is he --

I don't want to talk about it, said Cloud immediately. You already saw more than I've ever told anyone. I -- I know you didn't do it on purpose, but... just don't talk about it. Ever.

It hurt. It still hurt as much as if it had all happened yesterday. The harder he fought against it, the deeper every minute of those five years dug its claws into him. He was supposed to be moving on, wasn't he? That was the healthy thing to do. Not being afraid all the time like an idiot. Only people that had stupid things like that happen to them were afraid all the time. Not healthy ones.

...Alright, he heard her say eventually. So... I guess you made it out, since you're standing here.

Yeah. We were on the run for a while after that. Tried not to stay in one place for too long. We didn't want to get caught, but we were looking for Sephiroth too. And... he was looking for something else -- a weapon. And Shinra was looking for that weapon, but they couldn't find it on their own, and they couldn't find Sephiroth, but I could, so... we all kinda followed each other for a while.

How did you find Sephiroth?

...I just could.

Cloud, you're lying. I can tell you're lying.

It was Reunion, he said. Sephiroth is like me -- part of M -- of Jenova. And... Jenova wants Reunion. She still wants it, even now, even though there's no one left to give it to Her.

He paused for a bit, worried that speaking about Jenova would cause his mind to drift back over to Her without meaning to, but there wasn't anyone there but Aeris, and while she still seemed intent on threading herself deeper and deeper into him, it was still very clearly Not Him, and that was something Cloud could keep up with.

It's... remember I told you about viruses, and... how nobody believes anything I say, because it could be something She wants me to say?

He felt Aeris making him nod, and he looked up nervously, wondering if anyone had seen him do it. Probably. Well, they thought he was crazy anyway. No loss there.

That's all part of Reunion. If... if any of Jenova is separated -- chunks of matter, like an arm, or Her mind, or if something's... genetically related, I guess, like me -- then all those pieces will get called back together. She wants to put Herself back together, to feed on the Planet and leave. She's been doing it for... for longer than there was a Planet, probably. Feeding and spreading and putting Herself back together and feeding and spreading and reassembling again.

...If it wants to spread so much... the others. It's just you now isn't it? Did...

They were all drawn to Reunion too, said Cloud. None of them survived. Some of them just died from exhaustion, I think. Others... I don't know what happened to them, it was like...

What? Aeris asked when he stopped talking.

...It was like they were melting.

"Melting" was a generous way to describe what he'd seen that day. He vividly remembered watching, unable to tear his eyes away from what looked like a magnet being ripped from iron filings, and bolting from the scene when he felt a tingling in his own skin and wasn't sure if it was psychosomatic or not. He'd had no desire to find out.

...Sephiroth knew about the connection. He'd been using it to draw me to Reunion for weeks. But when I got there...

He didn't know what to say to her next. He could never tell her the truth of it: how he'd been exposed before everyone, everything worthwhile about him revealed as a delusion made by a broken mockery of something that liked to call itself Cloud, a Soldier, a human being; how he'd begged, pleaded Hojo to take him back, had finally known what the numbers tattooed on his wrist were after all this time; how he had known they were a tangible, living testimony to how he'd been a success, and yet they'd taken that back from him, but he was a success, wasn't he?; how he had felt the tears running down his face, had seen Hojo's inscrutable expression morph into one of contempt; how he'd been unworthy of even being a numbered object, to be cherished and studied and regarded as something with promise; how he'd been told it was a mistake to think he ever could have been successful at anything, even being a construct, and feeling the horrible truth of every word cut him to the bone; and how he'd known that there was still one purpose left to him, one last thing he could be, and that anything was better than being a failure, than being nothing. Even being a puppet...

Nothing had changed. Millions were dead now, and still nothing had changed. He did this. He did all of this.

You know, you're very prone to spacing out. I don't know if anyone's told you that.

Cloud jumped again. ...I've been told that, yeah.

Are you... we can talk about something else if you like.

I'm okay, he said. He was helping Aeris now. That wasn't bad, was it? If he started panicking again like he had on that day, he'd be just as useless. He took a deep breath of the narcotic-laced air and allowed it to soothe his nerves. Aeris hadn't forgotten about him. His family would visit soon if he was good. Everything was alright. We couldn't stop him from getting the weapon in the end. Summoned Meteor. Most powerful Black magic there is. There wouldn't have been anything left of the Planet, but...

...But what?

I don't know.

What do you mean, you don't know?

I mean I really don't know, he said, and he knew Aeris could feel the truth in it. Big blank spot. I'm watching Meteor enter the atmosphere, and next think I know I'm being dragged out of a bunch of rubble, and they're saying, hey, the big fuck-off meteor the size of the city is gone, and the airship's toast, and so's most of Midgar, and most of the people that were in Midgar, but... y'know, Planet's still there. Mission accomplished, I guess?

And there was that Something Else that his family kept insisting on, but Cloud still wasn't convinced. It wasn't Holy, obviously -- they hadn't gotten it to work at all. Not until two years later, when Tifa finally managed it in order to purge the 'stigma, and they finally knew what it looked like. So that was their theory shot down.

Just that one city being destroyed, that did this to your planet? asked Aeris.

Well... kinda, said Cloud. Shinra was based out of Midgar. So that was all gone. And... most of humanity, they were living there too. So there was that. But before that, there was the Weapons. And Sephiroth. There wasn't really anyone that could stop him.

How? You've got magic. Just... turn him into a frog or something. Is that something you could've done?

FIrst of all, said Cloud, rolling his eyes slightly, that's a common misconception. There are a lot of very complicated circumstances and variables and everything that have to be just right for that spell to even work in the first place. And second of all, he continued, amid Aeris's disbelief, magic is just a tool. There are things you can and can't do with it, and... and anyway, Sephiroth could do things that...

He glanced over at the mirror over the sink on the other side of the room. A pair of inhuman, catlike eyes stared back. Cloud missed his sunglasses.

I don't know. Whatever it was, it wasn't magic. I saw the guy walk through a solid wall on at least one occasion.

There isn't a "walk through walls" spell?

No. No matter how much energy you move around, walls are walls.

And frogs are much smaller than people. What happens to the rest of you? Conservation of mass --

You're missing the point. There are -- there are rules, things the world says you can and can't do, and he can do things by just -- deciding he could do them. Like he decided the rules didn't apply to him, so they didn't. Go through walls. Fly. Level a building without moving a muscle. He... he moved us somewhere. Or maybe we just hallucinated it. Or maybe we didn't go anywhere, and he just... sectioned off a part of the world, and... it looked like Nibelheim. It wasn't, obviously, the whole place was on fire but Nibelheim burned years ago, and everyone acted like we were still in... I don't know. It wasn't...

I see, said Aeris, not doing a very good job of convincing either one of them.

That's not something people can just do, said Cloud. I can't do that. It's not magic when he does it, it's just... it's Jenova convincing you that you can do something, and then it happens because She wants it, or you do, or maybe there's not a difference.

Perhaps the reason he wasn't explaining this very well was because he didn't understand it properly -- not that anyone else did. He'd thought about trying the walls thing himself, but he wasn't sure how thick they were, and suppose he got caught halfway through? It was one thing to move cups around to irritate Cid, or fetch a towel without leaving the bathroom, or to panic and break something without meaning to (he was extraordinarily lucky on that front, he realised suddenly: heated glass from a light fixture raining everywhere had a nasty tendency of landing in eyes). He hadn't even been thinking about what he'd been doing during the times he'd stood on the underside of something he long since should have fallen off of. It took a special sort of focus, to let Jenova trick you into ignoring how the world should work.

Maybe he's had more time the practise than me, but -- whatever. He was lethal before he decided he could just ignore reality when he felt like it. Afterwards, nobody really stood a chance.

Well, you're not dead. So something happened to him?

Yeah. Killed him too.

Oh. Right, yes. I think I saw that, sort of. How?

Wasn't easy. He'd been using me for a while with Jenova, a bit like you're doing now. But that kind of thing goes both ways. Maybe I wasn't as strong as him, but maybe that's why he wasn't paying attention.

...Do you suppose you could see where I am now?

...I don't know. I don't think so. You're not really infected. If I could've pushed back towards you, I would've done it when you first showed up.

I see, she said again.

Maybe wherever Aeris lived was too different for her to really understand Jenova. Maybe they had things like Her everywhere. That wasn't to say Cloud understood Jenova either. Jenova was something that couldn't exist, that was an aberration to everything that had any sort of logic or familiarity to it. It made sense in a strange sort of way that so was the effect She had on the world.

The speaker clicked back on, and Cloud looked up sharply, realising far too late his lips had been silently moving the whole time. He mentally scrambled for an excuse. They probably saw him nod, too --

"Mr. Strife, your family is here to see you," said the voice.

A wave of emotion hit him like a truck (and he could definitely attest to the accuracy of that simile now), and he swallowed thickly and nodded.

The microphone went silent again, before...

"Cloud? Can you hear me?"

He felt his breathing catch. He'd forgotten what it was like, to have a hole that deep suddenly filled. He'd taken it for granted, being able to just hear Tifa's voice whenever he wanted. He should have called more, just because he could. He should call everyone. "I'm here. I missed you."

"I missed you too," she said. Cloud started to feel a bit light-headed. He was breathing too much. The drugs were making him dizzy.

"I'm sorry," said Cloud. It was all he could think of to say.

"...For what?"

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you anything. And -- and I'm sorry I hurt your arm, and got Reeve in trouble, and wrecked your bar --"

"Cloud, a bunch of angry morons wrecked my bar," said Tifa.

"And I'm sorry I put everyone through this, and I don't know how to fix any of it -- I just let you fix everything, and I know it makes you unhappy, and I'm sorry everything I do is -- is stupid. I'm sorry I'm stupid."

He couldn't stop. He hadn't meant for it to turn out like this. He'd used up so much energy pretending he was fine for... however long it had been, and there was nothing else he had in him to stop the tears or the desperate apologies that kept tumbling out of his mouth, and even as he wept he cringed in disgust at himself; that this was all he could ever do at the end of the day, was cry and rely on everyone else. No matter how hard he tried to change himself, this was always the end result. Disgusting. No wonder Hojo hadn't wanted him. Tifa shouldn't either, none of them should. He only ever got worse.

Maybe she should leave him here...

Stop that, snapped a voice in his head. Aeris. He'd forgotten she was there. Cloud was mortified. She'd seen him acting like this, they all had, everyone was watching and he couldn't stop crying --

She's not leaving. I'm not leaving. You're being stupid. You're going to feel awfully silly when all this is over and you're back with your friends, won't you?

"I don't --"

She's right there. Talk to her. Haven't you missed her?

He nodded shakily, his vision a blurry mess, either from tears or from drugs. He could smell it a bit more heavily now. They were trying to calm him down. He wanted to be awake for this visit -- he didn't know if he'd get another one.

"...I'm sorry," was all that came out again.

"Do you need a minute?" asked Tifa. He'd obviously scared her. Aeris began breathing for him again, holding him still. As strong as the urge was to begin picking at his wrist, where his tattoo no longer was to comfort him, Aeris's control seemed to be stronger.

"No, I'm okay," was his automatic response. He probably wasn't fooling anyone, but he didn't even know how to say otherwise. His head hurt, but there were still tears streaming down his face.

"It's good to see you," said Tifa uncertainly. "You've been doing a good job of holding out so far. The... the staff here says you let them draw blood the other day. That's not nothing, right?"

Cloud nodded again. The hands were just as clammy, the needle just as threatening, the smell of antiseptic just as strong after all these years. Another wave of tears hit him. He imagined what it would have been like in Nibelheim with Tifa coming by his cell to tell him he was doing a good job.

Do you want me to go? asked Aeris. He'd made her uncomfortable, there was no hiding that.

"Please don't -- please don't go. I'll stop. I can stop. I can stop, I promise, just don't go --"

"I'm not going yet," said Tifa. He was making it worse. He was scaring her and making it all worse. The world around him was swimming at the edges. Definitely the drugs this time.

"I love you," he blurted out. "I love all of you -- I never said anything, I didn't want anyone to leave --"

"Nobody would do that. Cid said he's setting up a room for you to stay for a little while. Yuffie's got space, too, if you want to stay a little closer to Edge."

Cloud nodded again. Cid was nice. So was Yuffie. They were all so nice to him. He didn't do anything, and they were still all so nice...

"I'll bet he's got a project you can help him on, too," continued Tifa. “You talked about making another bike, didn’t you?”

“Just for fun,” said Cloud. “To see if I could.”

“I bet you could,” said Tifa. “Cid said you did some real impressive stuff with the engine. You could probably make a lot of money off that kind of thing.”

“Reeve -- Reeve said I should get a patent.”

“He’s right. He said it’s really light for a V8.”

“Reeve’s an idiot. It’s not a V-anything.” He felt Aeris ease up a bit and drew a deep, shuddering breath himself. There were still tears trickling freely from his eyes, but he began to feel a bit calmer again.

“It isn’t? He said it was.”

“He assumed it was. I never let him look. Too much weight, not enough power. Size isn’t everything.”

“Then what is it?” Tifa didn’t deal in engines. She was asking for his benefit. Cloud didn’t care.

“Compression-rotary. Mythril-tipped apex seals, helps counteract the wear you’d normally see with that kind of thing.”

“I see.”

“It’s a secret, okay? I gotta figure out how to do a patent first. And if I want credit for anything, it’s that.” He told a joke. Ha ha.

“I won’t tell anyone.”

Cloud wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve. “Is… is the bar running again?”

“...Not yet,” said Tifa after a moment. “I wanna get the window fixed first. Besides, how am I supposed to run the place when I’m missing a busboy?”

“You don’t need him,” said Cloud. “I heard he got suspended without pay once for threatening the customers. They shoulda fired him years ago.”

“As his manager, I have faith he can improve,” said Tifa. “He has a great work ethic. I’ve never once seen him back off on anything.”

“...I love you.”

“I love you too. Keep at it, alright?”

He was already dizzy from the fumes, but now he was dehydrated as well, and the world began to swim around him. He was too frazzled to motivate himself to do anything about it, so Aeris carefully edged him out of the bed herself and shuffled over to the sink, using the padded wall to balance herself. He filled his hands with water, since they hadn’t given him a cup, and took a sip.

His head cleared a little, then -- he wasn’t sure if the water was drugged as well, but it was cold and refreshing and at least did something to wake him up. Something occurred to him.

“Is it just you here? They said ‘family’.”

“Me and Barret and Nanaki. They’re having us use the phone one at a time. It’s… you can’t see them? They’ve been waving.”

He blinked. “No. Should I be able to?”

“Well, yeah, definitely. I mean, I’m looking at you right through the --”

The speaker clicked off suddenly.

“Tifa?”

There was no response from either her or his minder.

“Barret? Nanaki?”

He strained his ears, listening for any sort of sound. He could very faintly make out muffled shouting. Someone was angry. Maybe multiple someones.

“Oi, jackass! Give the phone back!” he barked. No one responded.

He began to pace in his cell. Aeris suddenly cut in again.

It’s somewhere obvious. Somewhere anyone on the other side would think you could see, but you can’t. Why can’t you see it?

I don’t know. She’s looking right through the… camera? You can’t see through those. There has to be a window somewhere. A big one.

He began frantically combing the walls of his cell again. The mirror? He grabbed hold of the edges and wrenched it from the wall with a grunt, to reveal more padding behind it. There wasn’t anything he could see indicating there was a gap anywhere. The cloth seemed to be -- the cloth. The closer he got to it, the more he realised how sheer it was. Examining the torn edges, he could see it had a sort of sharktooth weave to it -- light could pass through one side and render it opaque, but from another…

Cloud created another fire in his hand and began feeling the walls, searching for any patch of it that looked as though there might be something behind it. The gas was flowing heavily now. Cloud held his breath. He only had seconds -- there was quite a lot of the stuff in his system already.

There -- a spot by the door, nearly as long as he was tall, where the light from the fire seemed to interact differently. He dug his fingers into it, but his arms had no strength left in them. Stars appeared at the corners of his vision. He was so close. They cut off his access to his family. Cloud decided the deal they’d had was off.

Cloud took in a lungful of air, enough to send him to his knees, but it gave him the burst of strength he needed. The flame in his hand flickered, then sparked, and then roared to life in a vortex that swept around the room. The noise was deafening, and Cloud was no longer devoting energy to controlling the fire, and even as he felt the heat began to curl painfully into his skin, he kept feeding it up until the minute he blacked out.

 

---

 

“We’re running out of time.”

“I know.”

The wound in his chest had been stitched closed. The stitching wasn’t particularly good, and they’d probably need to heal it properly very soon, but that wasn’t important right now. The little chunk of materia he was holding was the closest thing they’d had since this started at a real chance to fight back.

And yet, he hesitated. He got a vague sense of foreboding from the little opalescent ball clutched tightly in his fist. It was almost as though it didn’t like him. Maybe he was imagining it. He hadn’t even activated it yet, and it already felt like his hand was burning.

Still, he kept staring at it. Every breath he took was accompanied by steadily building discomfort, and the longer he held it, the further he felt like he was drifting away somewhere familiar. There were older, less-remembered places under this one, and the deeper he tried to breathe, the closer the low howling noise started to pull him --

Cloud was awakened by a sudden stabbing pain in his lungs, and began to cough immediately. The inside of his mouth was gritty with ash.

He must have been unconscious for about an hour, judging by the state of his cell. The padding in his cell was burnt off the walls, and there across from his bed was a large observation window. The glass seemed quite thick. Watching him were a couple nurses, and three cops. Cloud recognised one of them. Reno. None of them seemed to be looking at him at the moment.

Someone had moved him back to his bed, it seemed, and the blankets he’d had before had been replaced with new ones. There was soot all over the ceiling. His arm was heavily bandaged, and he could still smell scorched hair and burnt flesh.

Oh good, you’re not dead.

Seems like it.

Aeris made him get up and have another drink, which helped to wash away the grit in his mouth. They left you in here. Even though it’s all burnt up.

Yeah. I guess it’s not like there’s any other cell they could put me in where I wouldn’t just smash through the wall…

So it had been a bit of a rush-job. He supposed they must have started building as soon as they’d called in the WRO. Maybe it had been appropriated from a room they’d had already.

We know where they’re looking from, said Cloud, so we know they've got blind spots.

They also know we know, said Aeris. And they probably won't be too happy you set fire to your room.

If they're mad now, they're not gonna like the next part.

You have an idea?

Not yet. But we have something to make ideas around. That's a start.

His head was pounding, and he was dizzier than ever. He'd probably been breathing ash and sedatives for a while now.

So… said Aeris after a moment. You’ve been dating your boss?

I’ve exclusively dated my boss. She conscripted me for Avalanche, too.

That’s so trashy.

I know.

...Do you suppose we'd get along?

Dunno. He kept his face low to the sink, breathing the cool, fresh air around the running stream of water. I think talking to people scares her. You gotta force opinions out of her. It's stupid. I wouldn't mind if she just told me stuff.

You're one to talk. Getting answers from you is like pulling teeth.

Cloud ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth uncomfortably. That's different. You threw us into traffic. And I thought you were a doctor.

I am a doctor.

Not a real one. If you were a real doctor, we'd have issues.

There was a brief surge of annoyance from Aeris at his compliment. Cloud didn't bother to ask why. Maybe it was a cultural thing.

I'll have to go soon, said Aeris. I've tried to keep the notes as neutral as possible, but they'll start worrying if I lose contact for too long. And I need to start preparing for the trip over.

Come back soon, said Cloud.

I will.

Aeris vanished, and Cloud stumbled upon realising he hadn't actually been standing up on his own. Jenova flooded back into him, reclaiming what he'd managed to take for himself, but he fought harder this time. He was determined to get as much planning in as possible before he slipped under again, either due to the sedatives or Jenova.

The door was still intact. Big heavy vault door. There was probably a key. Maybe. There might not be a key. It could just be electronic. Or thumbprint based. Or...

He barely managed to make it back into bed before his mind quit on him. He'd had a flash of an idea, but it was swallowed up just as quickly. At least he wouldn't be lonely while he waited. Mother was here again. She sang him to sleep, the way She always had, and this time he tried to listen more closely.

Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. Let me out. Let me in.

Notes:

HRrhgrhrghrg so nervous. Should not have had the first fic ever be something this big. What was I thinking. Fuck.

Chapter 20: Vincent Damages Company Property

Notes:

Sorry for holding this thing back for a couple weeks. We've finally reached a turning point and I had to make sure there were actually things happening in between the dramatic plot-twisty bits. Like plot to twist in the first place.

I had a bit of extra help in that regard -- apart from my usual crowd, I'd also like to thank antisocialmimikyu and terror-billie for helping me get my thoughts in order so the rest of the story past Chapter 21 won't be a disorganised mess. And thank you guys for commenting, because that does wonders for my motivation.

The floor was immaculately clean these days.

There had been a time when it wasn't -- when it was covered in dust and dead insects from disuse. Stacks of paper from promising research projects that piled up in corners and on desks. Uniforms and equipment from new subjects. And, once upon a time, stones of all shapes and sizes and colours, and crumbs from home baked bread, and dirt tracked in by a boy that was small enough to squeeze into places he ought not to be.

All of it had been swept away long ago. The place had been cleaned and remodelled and sterilised, and not even rats would enter the mansion anymore, even long after it had been abandoned by the scientists. All that was left were the failed projects.

Something moved in the dark. There was a scraping, then a creaking of old, damp-riddled wood, and with a crash the lid of one of the coffins was knocked the floor and crashed against the Buster Sword lying on the ground next to it.

Vincent Valentine arose from the coffin. All this time he had listened. Heard the screams of defiance and anger, and then weeping, and the pleading to no one in the dark, and at long last the sound of resigned mantras, repeated one after another, and then of silence. He had listened, and he had done nothing. Until now.

Vincent had realised long ago that he could do nothing for them. It was yet another consequence of his failures. One by one, they were fed into the ravenous combine that was Shinra, and one by one they were used up and discarded. But the boy... the boy had been the first in years. The same child that had been so eager to feed himself into those whirring blades one day, and lo and behold, now he was here. Another testament to his cardinal sin.

And yet... there had been something strange about his eyes. He'd seen that look somewhere before. In fact, it had been one of the last things he'd seen before a bullet had ripped itself through his chest, tearing his old life away with it. The look those eyes had given him as he choked to death on his own blood had been full of many things, but one that they were utterly devoid of was regret. He had failed, and in the end, she had chosen this path. For better or for worse.

Lucrecia. The tissue grafts -- they were continuing her research posthumously.

This boy, the boy from the village that hadn't stopped bringing him rocks, that was now huddled in a dog crate and muttering nonsense to himself, that was half-mad already and twisted into a shell of whatever he used to be, was here because of him.

Vincent shut himself away after that, never to reemerge. There could be no atonement for this.

He would awake from time to time in response to noise -- always reminders of why he was here in the first place. Sobbing, rattling against the walls of the little metal box, incoherent rambling... he heard it less and less as time went on, until one day it ceased altogether, as did the visits to the storage room. Vincent hoped that by some miracle the boy had perhaps died in his sleep. He did not awaken for some time after that.

The sounds of a struggle dragged him back out of the deep slumber he had returned to. This was a larger group than he remembered.

"Hold its arms so I can get the legs in," said a voice. One of the lab assistants.

"I am holding. It can't move, I don't see what the big deal is."

"There's still the issue of involuntary muscle responses, and from this guy that could easily wind up taking your head off. So pay attention. I gotta get this all the way to the nerve."

A plaintive, muffled wail echoed through the room along with the voices of the lab assistants. He knew that voice. He doubted he'd be able to forget that voice. The boy was still alive?

"It's looking at me."

"No it's not, it just has its eyes open. Doesn't got any real brain function anymore. Just between you and me, this is why you don't stick a pressurised pump into someone's spinal column and fill it with mako, that's probably what did it. How can you be smart enough to grow a person in a vat and not know that?"

"The president gave him the grant money, man, I ain't gonna question it."

"Yeah, well, that's why we don't have grant money anymore, do we? Hurry up and finish the form so we can leave, it's freezing in here."

"Humanoid... purpose for archiving... organs?"

"Maybe education. It's not gonna make very interesting combat training exercise, and it's technically still alive. They'll probably want to keep it in one piece so they can figure out what not to do for the next time."

"Serial number... six seven dash two, Series three. Jenova Project."

"Project head?"

"Let's see... says here it's one of Crescent's, officially. Guess that explains why Hojo's so bummed out about the cancellation."

"Urgh. Freaks me the hell out. Her and the doc. Somethin' not right about her."

"Hey, you can't say it doesn't make sense though, right? Birds of a feather."

"Yeah, whatever." There was a loud click, followed by the sound of rushing fluid. "So... she's gotta sign off on it, right?"

"Yeah. She's in Midgar right now. The doc's planning on leaving too, so just give that form to him and he'll deliver it to her himself. Guess we're all out of a job now..."

"Yeah, guess so..."

Vincent barely heard the door close and lock behind him over the pounding of his own heart in his chest. Lucrecia was still alive. Head of the Science Department, from the sound of things. This boy -- Lucrecia had done this. To him. To both of them. And Hojo -- he was still involved in this as well? The first child, the one she'd had with Hojo, must not have made it to term. That must have been why the project was still running. The boy -- he was Series 3, it all made sense now. But Lucrecia couldn't have been his mother, could she? He had mentioned a mother quite frequently all those years ago. She did not seem like Lucrecia, and the boy looked nothing like her nor Hojo. This boy had simply been fallout.

It all made a sickening amount of sense. At least now he finally knew, so he could have some peace of mind.

But peace of mind did not return to Vincent. He waited days, and then what must have been weeks, and the men did not return for Series 3. They really were just leaving him here.

He was ill, it seemed. Severe mako poisoning, not to speak of whatever else had been done. If anyone would know how to treat this, surely it would be Lucrecia? She was in Midgar... still making choices like she had the first time he did nothing.

But Lucrecia was still alive. This boy was still alive. Surely something here could be salvaged out of this nightmare.

Vincent decided to leave his coffin.

His legs felt weak as he took his first step in what must have been at least ten years, but they held steadily enough, and he strode over to the wall and flipped the light switch.

The back of the room was lined with glass pods. Vincent did not want to think about what was in most of them, but resting in one of them, a light coat of dust covering the glass, was the boy.

It was a mistake to call him "the boy" now, he realised -- it was a much sharper face peering blankly back at him from inside the cylinder. But while his hair had grown out to his shoulders and solidified into a mat, he didn't seem to have much in the way of facial hair. Perhaps it was malnourishment? Every part of him looked chewed and diminished, and his skin was every bit as unhealthily pale as Vincent's.

He inspected the pod and found a small button in the side that seemed to open it. The fluid inside slowly drained, and Vincent watched impassively as the body inside slumped against the wall of the cylinder, being held up by the tubes coming from its mouth and nose. Vincent carefully disconnected them, and hesitated only briefly before removing the intravenous lines and the feed hooked into the back of his neck. If he had caused any damage removing them, it would be another thing that Lucrecia could fix.

The boy -- no, not a boy. And it wouldn't do to call him Series 3, either. He'd had a name that he said many years ago he would remember. Something to do with the sky. An old Nibeli one, translated into one succinct word for the sake of the Standard that everyone in Midgar spoke. Cloud. His name was Cloud.

Cloud's emaciated body fell to the floor. It appeared they had taken his clothes long ago, and he likely would not survive for long this far north, damp and naked. He pulled a couple of the Soldier First uniforms off one of the shelves and used one of them to pat him dry, then set about stuffing him into the second. It was far too big on him. Another pang went through Vincent at the thought, and he steeled himself against it. He must remain focused. It was unlikely he would have another opportunity for redemption.

The old wooden door had since been replaced with a steel one, requiring some sort of key combination to open. Vincent braced himself against the door and pushed, but it held firm. They had taken his gun from him long ago, and the two spells he had mastered during his time in the Turks worked strictly on people and not doors, and would be of no use here.

One of his sabatons clicked against something metal. The sword. His strength wasn't nearly that of a Soldier, but it was certainly much more than it should have been, and would do for his purposes.

He picked up the sword out from under the lid to his coffin and, with a loud grunt, rammed it into the door like a battering ram. It took another ten blows or so before the metal finally caved and the door opened outward, now crooked on its hinges. His arms ached, especially from disuse, but he held the sword steady and stood absolutely still, listening for the sound of boots on stone and cocking weapons. Someone must have heard that.

A minute passed, and no one came. Something stirred in one of the cylinders on the wall behind him. Vincent refused to look at it again, and dragged Cloud over to the door. Upon further reflection, he placed the sword on the magnetic harness Cloud was now sporting on the back of his uniform, then hefted them both onto his back. Until he could find a gun, it was better than nothing.

He had mastered some magic, but not much. He looked around the storage room for anything that might have been useful. Something was still shining in his coffin. The healing materia -- it was still there. Perhaps...? No, that wouldn't work. Mako poisoning, if that's what this was, was well beyond his capacity to heal with an unused materia. Still, he pocketed it anyway, just in case.

Starved as he was, Cloud was fairly light. It was just as well, since the sword weighed easily as much as he did, if not more. The mansion might be abandoned, but he was still stealing company property. Someone would notice eventually. He would have to move quickly.

Nibelheim was just as he remembered it. Perhaps his mother... no. If they had her child, Shinra would have tied up the loose ends involved. He himself had done as much during his employment. Besides, there was nothing she could have done for him. That's where Lucrecia would come in.

They both stood out rather badly, as he quickly found out. He gave Cloud an impromptu haircut with the Buster Sword's edge, and stuffed his own hair into the back of a coat he'd stolen from a guard station. Would anyone still recognise him? How long had it been since he had gone missing? Or the boy, for that matter? At least ten years, judging by how Cloud had matured. A lot could change in ten years.

The main problem was food. Cloud would not chew, and it took a fair amount of coaxing to get him to swallow. He'd managed to get him to swallow a bit of bread he'd already pre-chewed for him, but it came back up not long after: Cloud had apparently gone quite a while since eating any real food. He considered sneaking back into the mansion for a pack of glucose. He decided against it -- if they hadn't noticed Cloud was missing before, they certainly would now. He would have to figure something else out.

He wound up breaking into a clinic and stealing medical supplies when they reached the next town -- there was a military presence here too, if the massive remains of some sort of missile labelled Shinra Type 26 looming over the skyline was any indication. Vincent dimly recalled mention of a war with Wutai. Was it still ongoing? Was this meant to be used against them? He almost turned to ask Cloud before catching himself.

The expiration labels on the gelatin cups he'd purchased with the stolen money clued him in as to how long he'd been gone. Expires 09/58. Assuming these cups were new and would last about a year, he'd been gone nearly three decades.

The shock didn't really hit him. It didn't seem fully real. He supposed technically this was the "future". That explained how Lucrecia was in Midgar: it seemed they had finished building it. He wondered who was directing the Turks in his absence. Orwell, perhaps, or Avery. Assuming either one of them were still alive. It suddenly struck him that nearly everyone he knew could very well be dead. Thirty years was a lot of time for people to learn too much and become a liability, or for loyalties to waver too much for the company's comfort, or to simply catch a stray bullet at the wrong time. Nobody left the Turks except in a body bag. Or, in his case, a coffin. He was briefly amused by the mental picture of Avery covering up his death. She'd have addressed it to the wrong department, she always did...

He wondered if Cloud had any friends that were still alive. Had he actually joined the military, or had Shinra simply abducted him off the streets? He himself had taken part in such "scouting" expeditions at times, on the occasion when they couldn't simply find a poor, desperate family to volunteer. Eight to ten was the preferred age of most samples -- young enough to be impressionable, old enough to follow complicated orders. And small enough that no one cared when they went missing. The child mortality rate in the slums was quite high in his time. Nobody thought much of it if one or two children slipped through the cracks.

He never saw any of the samples again. Vincent had been a professional, though, and hadn't asked where they had gone. No Turk was stupid enough to want to know.

Next to him in the grass, Cloud made a noise of distress, his hands unconsciously groping for something. Vincent watched him for a few moments until he went limp again. He didn't seem to be responding to any stimulus that Vincent could see. His arm lay twisted at an uncomfortable-looking angle, displaying his serial number quite clearly.

Vincent carefully picked him up and moved Cloud's arm so he could more efficiently bandage it with some of the gauze he had taken from the clinic. One or two times, his hand would twitch, still grasping at nothing. Vincent ignored it. Cloud likely wasn't cognisant enough to feel pain or discomfort, let alone respond to stimuli. Any comforting he did would be lost on both of them.

He had grown quite a bit from the last time Vincent had seen him. It was difficult to tell what was him and what was Shinra's doing, though. He was still just as sickly-looking as he had been the first time they'd met. The strange bony physique he had was doubtless a product of whatever experiments they'd been running on him. His eyes were hollow now -- whatever had been there before, it was beyond Vincent's reach or help. Shinra had shaped his body, and the mako had claimed his mind, and Cloud himself seemed to have gotten lost somewhere in the middle of it all. He wondered who he could have been once, and how much of the boy he'd encountered in that crate steadily becoming more and more unhinged years ago was the person he was currently feeding gelatin and broth too. Not that it mattered much anymore.

Vincent wasn't sure if his own answers were any simpler. He was no longer a Turk -- Hojo had seen to that. Perhaps that just made him Vincent.

Who was Vincent? A dead man, he knew. A man that had failed Lucrecia. A man that wouldn’t fail a second time, though at what he wasn’t really sure. He could offer Lucrecia redemption, but only she could accept it and atone for them both.

Cloud had stopped swallowing, and Vincent didn’t have anymore success afterwards getting him to take more food. He couldn’t have possibly been full, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about that either. Another thing out of his hands.

He, Vincent, was still alive. And apparently Lucrecia had been as well. And so had Cloud. Perhaps it wasn’t so farfetched to assume someone else had returned from the grave.

A week later, and Cloud was still not taking solids. Vincent could not afford to break into a second clinic. It would give him away, if it hadn't already. He would need supplies. And money. He'd need employment on a very temporary basis, with someone that wouldn't ask too many questions -- it was highly unlikely that Shinra was looking for him specifically or expected his involvement in the first place, but he also couldn't risk leaving Cloud alone for too long. His pulse was weak and irregular, and his skin was clammy. His hands no longer twitched, reaching for something that wasn't there. He was practically dead already.

He would not have been the first, or second, or even third person Vincent had watched die. He likely would not survive long enough for Vincent to take him to Lucrecia, if she agreed to fix him at all. In the end, he'd be delivering him right back into Shinra's hands anyway. His eyes landed on the sword on Cloud's back.

It would be kinder, he knew. Whether or not Cloud was aware of it, he was still suffering. It was the principle of the thing. And it wasn't as though he would have much of a life to return to, should he recover. He would spend the rest of his days running. That was no way to live.

Vincent removed the sword from Cloud's back and levelled it at his neck. One cut. He wouldn't even feel the pain. No one recovered from mako poisoning this deep, and it was much better than letting him slowly starve to death or die of exposure. He would be free from Hojo, from Lucrecia, from Vincent's mistakes. Truly free, not out in the wild being hunted like an animal, a marked man for the rest of his life, even if they were to one day stop pursuing him. Vincent had often heard it said that one's face looked peaceful in death, but all anyone had looked like to him was a corpse. Cloud, with his eyes glazed and his face gaunt, was no exception. He sighed and adjusted the blade.

"Why can't I just pretend? Why do you care so much if I just pretend?"

The words came to him unbidden, and he frowned.

"Because it has never done anyone an ounce of good," said Vincent sharply. He realised he was talking aloud to no one. Another thing that wouldn't actually help. Cloud could not hear him.

"Why can't I just pretend?"

He still didn't know how old Cloud was. He could have been fourteen, or forty. His body was too warped, by chemicals and fear and time, for him to tell. Vincent knew he himself was fifty-seven or fifty-eight. He might not look it, after all these years, but he felt the age somewhere very deep. It had settled into him and wrapped itself around his bones, sinking into the fingers that held the sword above Cloud's neck.

Vincent put the sword back down. He was perfectly capable of pretending. He was going to pretend Cloud was awake right now.

"It gains us nothing. You being alive does not serve you any. Neither does my insistence upon talking to you. It's purely for my benefit, in order to come to terms with my thoughts."

Cloud said nothing, as expected.

He had skills he could use. A few mastered spells, though it was likely only fire would be useful to him here. He couldn’t take any jobs that wouldn’t be extremely temporary, both for Cloud’s sake and his own; the longer he was tied to an area, the sooner people would notice he was there. People were not yet asking questions about Vincent Valentine. He did not want them to start.

So, what sort of work was available for former Turks that had avoided the usual method of retirement? Most of them wound up as assassins, most likely. Or mercenaries. Once a Turk, always a Turk, he supposed.

He began picking up small jobs -- a day or two as a porter on the Corel river. That had been one of the first shocks of many -- Corel was gone. He’d expected an economic decline, of course. Coal couldn’t begin to compete with mako in price or efficiency. But Corel was gone. Turks gone. Wiped off the map by Soldier from the looks of things. The bustling little coal town he’d seen pictures of was forgotten and unspoken of.

Phones were portable now, he’d learned as well. He didn’t see much point -- any time one would be away from home long enough to necessitate a portable phone would be long enough for the battery inside it to die anyway.

President Shinra was still alive and still in power. That one was a bit of a surprise, if only because he’d expected the man to have a coronary long before now. Perhaps the science department had perfected biosynthetic organs by now. He drummed the metal fingers of his false hand against the floor of the boat he’d stowed away on -- perhaps they’d be able to grow him a new hand. He couldn’t quite recall how he’d lost it in the first place. He wasn’t sure if it would help if he did.

That was how he made ends meet from week to week: small jobs. He had to be in and out and gone in no longer than a week. Cloud began to put on a bit of weight, but he showed no signs of waking. Little by little, they made their way across the wilderness, and little by little Vincent saw things that were familiar, and things that were different, and things that perhaps had always been that way, but he had simply never bothered to look before.

Not for the first time, he wished he could ask Cloud. Perhaps he should have asked more questions when he had the chance. But then, he hadn’t wanted to know back then.

“If you felt like saying something, now would be an excellent opportunity to start,” said Vincent one day. He had propped Cloud up against a bundle of hay in the barn he’d snuck into. The birds -- chocobos, mostly, with a few aggressive swallows -- were watching them both warily.

“You must admit, there is a certain irony in risking one’s life for someone unable to appreciate the act nor the selfishness of the motivations behind it,” he added.

Cloud said nothing, as usual. Vincent sighed and sat down by the hay next to him.

“I did not care for your visits,” Vincent continued. “I do not feel they accomplished much.” He set about the task of removing his metal hand. Now that he intended to sleep -- truly sleep, not enter a state of prolonged hibernation, he’d found it was rather uncomfortable to have it on during the night.

He stared at the stump that remained of his forearm. He could dimly recall pain. That didn’t really surprise him. And a lot of yelling. And a piercing agony through his arm that seemed to be spreading, and then blissful oblivion.

“Although,” he added, “perhaps I am not without blame myself. If I had been more interested in dissuading you, we would not be here now.” He leaned back against the hay, feeling that strange heaviness building up in his bones again. “It seems my lacking skills as a conversationalist have caused more than a fair bit of misery.”

He looked at Cloud again. It was strange to see him so quiet now. Orwell had always been rather chatty in the beginning. After they'd had to dispose of Yang to prevent a security leak he went quiet. Everyone went quiet in the end.

“Of course,” said Vincent, “you cannot hear me now. This conversation between us is as pointless as the first thirty. You might not have listened then either, even when you could.”

One of the chocobos squawked at him, raising its head crest in warning. Vincent gave it a look.

“And so, here I am, a man that should be well into retirement, peddling my skills as a mercenary,” he said. “That is the hand fate has dealt me.”

He put Cloud to sleep with a quick spell. It was difficult to tell if he was actually resting. This was easier. Vincent wondered if he still dreamt.

He kicked a bit of dirt over their fire and watched it sputter out.

“We are simply what the world makes us, Cloud. No more, no less.”

 

---

 

Vincent limped his way up the staircase, the body draped over his shoulder unwieldy and making each step grind further into his knee. One of the MPs had managed to get the drop on him with a baton, and while it wasn’t broken, he could feel something grinding against something else that had no business grinding against anything in the first place. The gun he’d stolen was clutched tightly in his other hand. An assault rifle. Inelegant, but better than nothing.

There were more than a few bullets lodged in his abdomen by now. Vincent may have been a former Turk, but that was before thirty years of inactivity and the body he'd been carrying over his shoulders had dulled his skills and slowed his movements. He could heal, he knew, but he wasn't sure if there was a limit to it. He may have died before, but he was certainly alive now. Alive and mortal.

He heard the sound of a pistol firing, and Cloud let out a sharp gasp. He'd been hit. Vincent quickly ducked down a hallway by the staircase leading to the sixty-eighth floor.

It was just a graze, luckily. A gash on his leg that was already closing up right before his eyes. He tore off a bit of his cloak and quickly wrapped it anyway. There were already voices approaching them from down the hall, and he couldn’t afford to get distracted this close.

If he had been a bit less focused, perhaps he would have paid more mind to the fact that Cloud had made a noise at all.

Still, he paused outside the door of the stairwell, the ID card in his hand hovering by the reader uncertainly. There was a very good chance he wouldn't come back out of this door. Cloud might not either. Of course, that wasn't really much of a tragedy. Cloud was practically dead anyway. He would either recover or he wouldn't. And he himself... he was a relic. There were still Turks around, most likely, but the world did not need Turks. The world did not need him. He and Cloud were both relics, forgotten in a basement for too long to have any place besides the one carved out for them there. An old man lingering around older sentiments. A boy who had long since missed his chance to ever pursue newer ones. It wouldn't really be such a terrible loss for either of them.

Still, he supposed he must try. Lucrecia still had a place.

Vincent swiped the card and watched the door retract with a quiet humming noise. He adjusted his grip on Cloud and forced his knee to carry him up the stairs.

There were about twenty guns trained on him all at once the minute he set foot in the lab. He took out two right away as he turned the corner, scrambling for cover behind a desk. A third was close enough to knock out with a quick sleeping spell. That left twenty... at least until backup arrived, at which point his death warrant was signed anyway. He shoved Cloud further under the desk and risked a quick peek at the room around him.

Seventeen guards, with likely some higher ranking military personnel among their number. Five scientists that appeared to be scrambling for cover. Vincent recognised two of them.

He forced his breathing to slow. His ears were already buzzing from the sound of unshielded gunfire.

He heard something behind him and quickly flattened out on his stomach in time to shoot the man that had been sneaking around on his blind side with the rest of the cubicle. Sixteen left.

He couldn't carry Cloud with him, but couldn't leave him alone either. He doubted they'd target him given he was still drooling onto the floor, but he wasn't willing to risk the possibility that he could be wrong. Unless -- he could have sworn his eyes moved to follow him as he crept away along the wall to peek around the corner. No time to check for sure.

He encountered another two trying to flank from the front now that they knew he was headed around the other way. They were only MPs. Vincent was a former Turk. It wasn't really fair. Fourteen.

Controlled, deliberate, methodical. Two in the torso, and one in the head. Thirteen, then ten, change magazines, then eight, then seven...

 

---

 

There were noises. Things moving beyond the loudest silence. Something stopped to listen to the Other that were noises that were not the loudest silence. Not him. He was him. He was I. I am.

A loud crack sounded in Cloud's ear, making him wince in pain. It was too loud here. It was quiet before. He wanted to go back to the quiet. The noises around him began to drown it out. His eyes focused on something blurry.

White. Blurry white. And grey, and something red and black and brown that danced around him. He feebly reached for it.

The dancing stopped. He realised something had been at his back only when it was pulled away. The blurriness in his vision receded with the fog and the silence, and he could hear voices.

"...did you get here?"

"What have you done? What have you done, Lucrecia?"

The second voice... he knew that voice. Everything was a blur, not just his vision -- he couldn't seem to focus on anything but the floor beneath him, and the voices above him, which kept getting louder and louder.

"What reason could you possibly have to come back here?" A third voice. An icy, sticky voice, sharp and intent and unforgiving. Cloud hated it, and loved it, and a powerful hurt flared up in his chest. "You were a clever man. I'm sure you know how this will end."

Hojo. He hadn't been good enough for him. He could never be good enough. They'd hurt him because he wasn't good enough. He shivered.

"Behind me," said the second voice. "I brought him for you."

"The Series 3 prototype was discontinued six months ago," said the first voice. Soothing, twisting, indescribably beautiful, profoundly hungry, reaching into parts of himself that called for something he had no name for. Part of him.

Director Crescent. He'd dreamed of her touching him, the way Ma once had.

Ma... the village... Sephiroth... it was all gone now... everything was gone...

"Listen to yourself," said the second voice. "I implore you -- was this the world you wanted to create? You both set out for the betterment of mankind -- he's led you down a path much like your own in feature but unlike yours in virtue. He may have chosen, but you --"

"I thought I made my choice clear, Vincent. I thought you knew that as well."

"Your son, Sephiroth, surely --"

"Vincent... Sephiroth is dead," said the Director.

"And you would condemn another to that fate?"

He knew that voice. Cold and rough, like stone under stone under dirt and snow and frost. Magic rocks. A companion in the dark.

The Pale Man.

Cloud's eyes fixed on the shape above him -- the Pale Man was here. The Pale Man was with him. And the others -- he was real? He was real. The Pale Man was real.

"I set out for the betterment of mankind, and Series 3 was a stepping stone towards that goal." Director Crescent was looking at him coldly now. He wanted to go to her and the Professor, but he couldn't move. The Pale Man was still standing between them.

"You were always a hopeless romantic, Vincent. We both know why you came here," said the Director.

"Is it is such a crime, that I believe you are worth saving?" said Vincent.

"There is nothing to save us from," said the Professor sharply. "And certainly nothing you could provide deliverance from in the first place. You should have remained in storage. Goodbye."

The sound of weapons cocking echoed around them. He couldn't move. He was trapped in his own body, and he was useless, and he couldn't move, and the Pale Man -- Vincent, after all these years, he'd been there for him, and he, Cloud, was still as useless as ever --

The world bent. The people around them seemed to refract and waver like a passing reflection. The loudest silence howled around him, deafening beyond measure, and the ground beneath him felt as though it were about to break at any moment and let it all in. Cloud's hand spasmed, desperately reaching for Vincent, who seemed to be a million miles away and right in front of him.

Vincent was consumed in a wall of flames. It happened almost instantly -- one minute he was standing there, convulsing, and the next he was crumpled on the floor, spasming intermittently, ragged screams quickly trailing off as what was undoubtedly spellfire rapidly charred his flesh. A moment later he stopped moving entirely.

The Pale Man was gone. Everything was gone. The Pale Man -- he saved him. He saved him, and he was gone, because Cloud hadn't done anything, and he was gone and he was real and he wasn't alone in the dark and he was gone and the pale man was gone and ma was gone and he was alone and he had never once been held or wanted by the pale man the director the professor all gone it was all empty empty empty empty empty --

There were many things Cloud remembered about that day. He remembered the hands, shoving him and Vincent's charred corpse into a disposal chute in the lab. He remembered it all being too much. He remembered falling, further and further, his already limp body impacting against metal and concrete, and still there was so much further to fall, and knowing there was nothing in the world that had ever wanted him, Series 3, a failure, alone, broken, who ruined everything he touched. He remembered the other things that had been thrown out all around him in Sector 2, about not knowing where the Pale Man's -- Vincent's body was, so that maybe once he might hold it, and know that something real had wanted him, Cloud, that the something was alive. He remembered the rain leaking down from the plate below, splashing onto his face, creating mud that he felt himself sinking into. He remembered screaming and screaming and screaming, and not knowing how to stop. He remembered understanding that no one could ever want Cloud or even Series 3, that no one would miss them, that the world moved further and further away the more he realised it, and that soon enough it didn't seem real, and then soon enough he wasn't real either. He remembered lying there, the water pooling up around him even as he drifted off into unconsciousness. Some time later, perhaps days, perhaps a week, he remembered a pair of rough, work-worn hands holding him, pulling him close, and moving him out of the mud and garbage piled up around him, and carrying him to a little run down dive bar in the slums.

The one thing he didn't remember was the look of confusion on everyone's face in the tower, from the guards to Hojo to Lucrecia herself, because none of them had actually fired yet.

Notes:

Place your bets.

Chapter 21: Cloud Makes Questionable Decisions

Notes:

Sorry for the delay. A lot going on here, to say the least. (Guess who figured out how to do markup in the chapter notes?)

So much has gone into this story so far, from everyone that's left comments, to that weird lady that absolutely made my day by calling me double backwards reverse racist, to Belderiver for helping this stupid joke take off in the beginning, to Sanctum_C for always taking the time to offer encouragement, to limbostratus and Raaj for acting as excellent sounding boards, to Cat and materiodic for offering their feedback, to terror-billie and antisocialmimikyu for helping me out of a particularly sticky patch, and for Larissa for recently agreeing to beta-read this absolute disaster of a fic. And I suppose to a certain someone that said something so mindbogglingly stupid and hateful that I had to immediately drop everything and write a spite-fueled five hundred word piece that quickly evolved into the World's Pettiest Novel making fun of them and their horrible toxic attitude. None of this would have been possible without all of you. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

This thing isn't over, don't worry. We've just hit a turning point, I suppose. As has been pointed out, if I was feeling like an asshole I could just end the story here. (And I am absolutely a class-A Asshole but I hate stories without endings almost as much as I hate time travel fic so we'll keep going.)

As a semi-related side note, a few years back and for the longest time I thought ABO just referred to blood types and I was so happy people were taking an interest in science. Nope. Just dog dicks. You broke my heart, AO3.

Brief gore warning for this chapter. Just a heads up.

Tifa was awakened by the rhythmic vibration of her phone. For one wild moment, she hoped it was Cloud, before remembering where he was, and why, and how she'd been forcibly escorted out of the WRO headquarters for the second time. She fumbled for it on the desk by her bed, hearing Yuffie mutter in her sleep downstairs. She managed to flip it open before missing the call, which was fortunate, because there wasn't any number displaying.

"Can you talk?" said the voice on the other end. Reno. She hadn't expected news back so soon.

"How did you get this number?"

"This used to be my job, remember? I don't wanna be seen with you. Can you talk?"

"Yeah. Can we meet in person? I dunno if someone's listening."

"Sure, and bring the money."

"I'm sorry?" said Tifa, her voice tinged with suspicion.

"Things came up after you got kicked out. I used that to my advantage. I've got results."

"Already."

"Yeah. You better not back out on this shit now. Especially now that I've got this -- well... just show up."

Tifa sighed heavily. "...When and where?"

"Six hours. How about the last place we all saw you guys? For old time's sake."

"...Understood. See you there." She closed the phone and set it back down on the table, unable to resist a glance over her shoulder.

"The last place they'd met" was probably Midgar. To be more accurate, it was the tunnels underneath Midgar, but those had long since collapsed in on themselves, killing everyone that had thought to take refuge on them.

Still, she would be entering the ruins. Tifa didn't intend to do so alone.

She jogged downstairs and crept into the back room, where she shook Yuffie awake.

"Reno called," she said in response to the indignant glare she got. "Wants to meet in person."

"Sounds like a trap," said Yuffie with a yawn. "You're going?"

"Yeah."

"And you want me to walk into a trap with you."

"That's the idea."

"...Yeah, alright."

Tifa took another deep breath before speaking the next part. "He says to bring the money."

"What -- now? All of it?"

"That's what he says."

"I didn't think he'd be done this fast," said Yuffie. "I'm gonna have to stop to actually get that much. I don't usually carry thousands of gil around on me."

"Well, you'd better be quick about it," said Tifa. "We've got six hours, and I want to be there in five."

Tifa jogged back upstairs and began rummaging through her dresser. Eventually, she found what she was looking for: a set of old leather gloves, worn from many fights. She thought about looking for the brass knuckles too, but digging those out would take too long, and probably wouldn't help her if Reno decided to try and shoot her anyway. By the time she came back down, Yuffie was already ready to go, appearing unarmed apart from the large shuriken on her back, but Tifa knew better than to think that was the only weapon she had on her.

Between the two of them, Reno probably wouldn't be stupid enough to try anything. But still, you never knew.

One stop at an automated teller (in which Yuffie mysteriously managed to withdraw well over the twenty-five hundred gil daily limit and possibly well over thirty thousand gil as well) and five hours later, they found themselves waiting under a warped piece of sheet metal as a chilly breeze blew through the burnt out remains of Sector 5, making the whole city echo and groan for miles. Tifa shivered.

"You're early."

Tifa spun around to find Reno already approaching them from behind a chunk of concrete the size of a house, sporting a small, portable drink cooler and a nervous expression.

"So are you."

"Yeah, well... didn't wanna risk you guys ambushing me," said Reno. "You brought the money?"

"Right here," said Yuffie, patting the used shopping bag she was carrying. "Checked it for dye packs on the way over."

Tifa and Reno both gave her an odd look, but Tifa quickly turned her attention to the drink cooler. "...You brought beer?"

Reno shook his head. "Documents, and some other stuff. Cash first."

Tifa looked at Yuffie, who eventually nodded and handed over the bag. Reno peered in and prodded the contents experimentally.

"Damn. That -- alright." Reno tied the handles together and pulled it over his arm, then set down the cooler inside their alcove. "After you guys were dragged out, Spikes lost his shit and tried to blow up the facility. Everyone was too busy making sure we were all still alive to pay much attention to anything, and that's when I swiped these."

He removed a small manilla folder containing a thin stack of papers from the cooler and handed it to Tifa, who began to look through them. Something stood out as unusual right away.

"...Most of these are old Shinra documents," she said, gesturing to the watermark stamped on a few of them. They looked to be in worse shape than the others, stained with mud and slightly singed in places.

Reno nodded. "The serial number means they got these from the science department in Midgar. Shinra's stuff on the Jenova Project."

Tifa flipped back to the front and began reading. She didn't understand most of it, but a certain familiar phrase caught her eye.

REUNION THEORY

One of Jenova's most fascinating properties is its capacity for regeneration. Inert and unbonded "cells" will, if permitted, merge back together into a single entity. The same behaviour can be observed on both a cellular and multicellular level. Organisms with infused genetic material will also attempt to merge, but will at minimum consciously or unconsciously congregate into the same spot. Jenova's proclivity for repairing itself is theorised to not just be a method of self-preservation, but potentially part of its reproductive cycle.

Tifa continued reading. There wasn't anything listed here that she didn't already know know -- and a few things that she knew were wrong from firsthand experience. But then...

She found a hand-scribbled note that looked much more recent next to one of the paragraphs about wanderlust and fugue states and reported aural hallucinations, and flipped to the addendum it listed. These documents were from the WRO, and appeared to be some sort of staff notice.

The patient has confirmed a persistent pull towards Reunion, in excess of two years in duration following the eradication of geostigma. This is troubling, to say the least. If it is assumed Jenova has a measure of intelligence, it must therefore understand that the majority of its body is destroyed, save for the patient. If we assume this same intelligence is capable of grasping simple cause-and-effect, it must understand that there are no other instances of itself apart from the patient, and therefore nothing to initiate Reunion with. As expected, the patient has not experienced any particular strong pull towards any known location or entity, and yet Reunion still remains a compulsion nearing a biological imperative.

A lack of human-like intelligence is not a lack of intelligence altogether. Jenova believes there to be another part of itself in existence at an unknown location substantial enough to compel the patient to carry out the next phase of its life cycle following infection. Jenova could have the capacity to be incorrect, or perhaps said imperative is simply an involuntary fact of its biology. We may very well be wrong. But we cannot take the slightest chance that we may be right. We as a species would not survive a third encounter.

The patient is to remain in custody until the secondary host or hosts are discovered, until we can confirm the existence or nonexistence of any such entities, or until a method of eradicating Jenova's presence from any host is discovered. All staff coming into contact with the patient are to be screened for any unusual cellular activity, as well as undergo psychiatric evaluation, conducted by Dr. Grant. Under no circumstances is the patient to be allowed contact with any other living entity not in the preapproved list of medical staff until further notice.

LIST OF SUSPECTED HOSTS

Lockhart, Tifa

• Age: 24
• DOB: 03 May 5737
• Height: 166 cm
• Weight: 72 kg
• Blood type: B -- Rh (D) negative
• Method of contact: Subject has been in an intimate relationship with the patient for four years. Contamination also could have occurred in Nibelheim from 5738-5752 prior to Jenova's relocation to Midgar.

Infection status: NEGATIVE, PENDING REEVALUATION. Donated eggs tested and confirmed free of contamination. May request follow-up blood test in six months time.

Price, Charles

• Age: 41
• DOB: 16 March 5720
• Height: 190 cm
• Weight: 85 kg
• Blood type: A -- Rh (D) negative
• Method of contact: Subject was assaulted by the patient on 20 April 5760. Subject received small lacerations on the lower jaw and received damage to tooth enamel during the altercation (see photo: A #29-MO).

Infection status: NEGATIVE. Blood sample taken prior to patient's internment.

Tifa looked up to see Yuffie reading over her shoulder.

"So they're just waiting this out," said Yuffie. "It's a greater good type thing. They think there's another."

"But there's not," objected Tifa. "I made sure of it. Cloud said he couldn't feel anyone."

"So then why is Jenova still bitching at him?" interjected Reno. "Don't get me wrong, he's fuckin' crazy, but he's unstable-crazy, not voices-crazy. If he says the voices in his head are telling him to burn his house down and kill everyone in it, shit, I believe him."

Tifa shot him a look. "Well, there's nothing else here. I don't know what else to say. If anyone would know, it'd be Cloud."

Reno shrugged. "That's for you to work out. That's not all I brought, anyway. You didn't think I brought this thing for fun, did you?" he said, nudging the drink cooler with his foot.

Yuffie leaned over it and made a face. "Oh, gross. What are we supposed to do with that?"

"Do with what?" asked Tifa, already regretting asking. She rolled up the papers and stuffed them into her jacket, then knelt to look into the cooler. There were two things in it. One of those things was ice. The other was several bags and vials of blood. They were only labelled by serial number, but it didn't take a genius to figure out whose it was.

Tifa looked up at Reno, who had his arms crossed looking smug. "You're welcome, by the way. They had three times that. I dunno if they'll notice it missing right away, though. Spike made a pretty big mess of things over there."

Tifa closed the cooler and slung the strap over her shoulder. "That's a fair question, though. What are we supposed to do with this?"

"Better you guys have it than them, right?" said Reno. "You fought Jenova, right? You musta had someone doing some kinda tech work for you. Give it to them."

"Jessie isn't that kind of technician," said Tifa. "She works with computers."

"What about the other guy? The angry one."

"Cid's an aeronaut," said Yuffie.

"Well... shit. I mean, I can't take it back. Throw it out on your own time, I guess."

She rolled her eyes, but did not give the blood back. In a morbid sort of way, it was nice having it there. Like a lock of hair, but... fluids.

Tifa sighed. "Well... thanks. For... for your help."

Reno raised an eyebrow. "Damn. Never thought I'd live to see the day."

Yuffie cleared her throat. "C'mon, let's go. It's bad luck to stand around in a mass grave." She turned on her heels and began to walk back. Tifa heard Reno do the same behind her.

"So... who do you think it is?" asked Yuffie after several minutes of silence.

"...Who do I think what is?" replied Tifa, as though she didn't know.

"Could be anyone. Cloud's probably beat up a lot of folks. I saw him bite a guy once. Maybe that's --"

"There isn't anyone else," said Tifa firmly.

"How do you know?"

Tifa said nothing.

"Awful lot of blood they took," said Yuffie. "Do you think he's okay?"

"He sounded okay on the phone," said Tifa. "Didn't look beat up or anything. I don't think they took it all at once, either."

"...If they can't find anyone else infected," said Yuffie, staring at the cooler, "do you think they'd just kill him?"

Tifa shrugged. It was a possibility, and one she didn't really want to think about too hard at the moment.

"This isn't right," said Yuffie after a moment.

"Well, that's why we're --"

"No," said Yuffie. "Look around. We've been here."

Tifa looked around them and found they were approaching the bent piece of sheet metal and a large chunk of concrete.

She blinked. "...How did we get here? We've been walking in a straight line."

"Reno probably did something," said Yuffie. "Confusion spell or something. I don't get lost."

"Well..." Tifa turned around and pointed herself back towards Edge's skyline, "let's just keep a better eye on where we're going."

They continued walking in silence for another two minutes, until ahead of her she saw the same piece of bent sheet metal. Tifa turned to look at Yuffie, who was already getting her shuriken out.

"He did something. Had to have. I bet he wasn't satisfied with the money he got already. Thinks we have more."

"If we were hexed it would've worn off by now," said Tifa, though she too tensed, preparing for an ambush. "He isn't that... do you hear that?"

The wind around them wasn't much stronger than a gentle breeze, but the deep low sound of a howling gale was steadily growing louder.

"We need to get out of the open," said Tifa. Yuffie nodded and led her under the sheet metal into an old burnt out train compartment. As she ducked inside, she could have sworn that across the sky she she saw...

Well, she didn't know what she saw. But her eyes didn't want to focus on it, and Tifa was grateful for that, because she never wanted to look at it again.

"The fuck was that?" yelled Yuffie. Tifa shook her head, retreating further into the car, stumbling over something on the floor. "What --" It seemed softer than broken glass or steel piping.

Yuffie made a noise of revulsion, pointing at the thing Tifa had tripped over, prompting Tifa herself to look at what it was.

It was a corpse. A fresh one, from the look of things. Part of it looked as though they'd been torn apart by some sort of animal, gashes opened on the skin, its stomach torn with the contents spilling forth, though what organs were what was nearly impossible to discern given how badly ripped apart it all was. But everything above was simply... missing? No, it was all still here. Not all of the splatter surrounding the corpse was blood. There were bits of bone and skin and other unmentionable things mixed into the slurry. It was as though someone had run it through a food processor.

"Tifa... look."

Tifa forced herself to look where Yuffie was pointing, and saw the shredded remains of a plastic shopping bag and several bits of paper.

She gagged and grabbed Yuffie's hand, dragging them out of the train car. Whatever had gotten to Reno might very well still be there.

Something was moving around them. Shadows, perhaps, or reflections, but from what? They seemed even less solid than that, and Tifa couldn't manage to look at them for more than an instant, as though her brain didn't seem to want to see them at all. The reverberating howling sound was nearly deafening. There was a persistent scratching and tapping beneath it all. It had been sweltering earlier today, and yet Tifa could see her breath as fog in front of her.

The world seemed to warp in front of them, as something moved through it, like someone sneaking behind a projector screen. It froze for a moment, and then rushed towards them.

There was a loud bang as Yuffie let loose a blast of magic, ripping the earth from underneath them in a column of destruction. The distortion passed through it as though it wasn't even there.

"RUN!" yelled Tifa. Yuffie didn't need to be told twice, and was already sprinting past Tifa, grabbing her arm on the way. The thing, whatever it was, didn't seem to be hampered by the actual environment as it warped and rippled its way through whatever it was "behind" towards them.

Tifa gathered the magic she could feel pooling in the back of her head as her adrenaline kicked in, and released it in a crackle of gold light as the world seemed to slow around them. Haste -- not a spell Tifa cared for at the best of times, because you had to wait for it to wear off to interact with anything not under its influence properly. She would deal with the headaches later, if she was still alive.

She'd been running with Yuffie for a few seconds (or maybe a few minutes) before she risked a look over her shoulder. The distortion didn't seem to be behind them anymore. In fact, it didn't seem to be anywhere. Had she imagined it?

Yuffie staggered to a halt in front of her, leaning on a parked truck. They'd made it back to Edge at some point. They were fairly well into the city, too. Perhaps she hadn't noticed in the panic.

"What the fuck," panted Yuffie, "what the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck --"

"We've gotta tell Reeve," said Tifa, collapsing onto a nearby bench. "We've gotta --"

"Reeve's been fired, remember?" said Yuffie. "And we can't tell the WRO right now. Or the cops, or the feds, or anyone."

"Whatever that thing was, it smeared Reno over the floor like fucking peanut butter," snapped Tifa. "And it's still out there. We've gotta tell someone."

"And you're still a suspect in -- in whatever it is they're looking for," Yuffie fired back. "How well do you think that's gonna go over, now that you're seeing... whatever that was?"

"You saw it too! You can vouch for me."

"They'll just think I've been fucking Cloud too or something," said Yuffie. "They said they had the room bugged for a while. They know we've hung out in the same bed, at least. All of us have. We can't say anything. I mean, maybe Nanaki could, unless they think Nanaki's been -- "

Tifa glowered at her. "So -- what, we just do nothing?"

"Not nothing. You've got those papers, right?"

Tifa shrugged the portable cooler off her shoulder and put the papers back in it for safekeeping. "Yeah, I guess. And a bunch of blood. He could've stolen a card key, at least..."

It still didn't feel like anything. Maybe none of it ever would.

"Let's... let's get this stuff in a real freezer," said Tifa. "Look over the papers properly."

"You got a plan?" asked Yuffie.

"Not really. But maybe we can talk to someone who might."

 

---

 

"You've been quiet."

Aeris looked up from the QFT model she'd been working on (with "magic" as a contributing factor -- god, none of this was ever getting published) at Angeal, who had been watching her over his own work apparently for some time.

"Just nervous, I guess," said Aeris. "There's been so many unaccounted for variables so far as it is. A lot could go wrong." That was one of the reasons she was worried, at least.

Angeal looked at her contemplatively. "Even so, it must be worth it, right? The chance to see another world..."

"I suppose so..."

"You 'suppose'?"

She shook her head. "It's... I've wanted this forever, but -- well, look at how everything has gone so far. We made first contact and got our ambassador arrested. What's the next step in this kind of thing?"

"Spreading a disease to the indigenous population, usually," said Angeal dryly.

"Yes, that. I'm expecting that next."

"The sooner you get yourself in the sixth ring, the more we can reduce that risk," said Angeal.

"I'm worried about Cloud," said Aeris. "He's... not doing very well." Even saying that was probably too much.

"You'll be able to check up on him in person soon," said Angeal. "But I suggest you tell him you'll be gone for a while as soon as possible. The higher ups want results. If we keep getting them those results, we get funding to keep in contact with your friend."

Aeris blinked. "I'm a little surprised you care."

Angeal stared back at her, looking affronted. "Why in the world would you think that?"

She shrugged. Angeal set down the papers he'd been working on. "Aeris, do you know why I signed onto this project?"

"It was an honour for your country and it looked nice on your retainer?"

"You don't seem to think very highly of me. Can I ask why?"

"Look at what we're doing," she snapped. "Look at what we've caused. You don't think that --"

"Aeris, I joined this project to learn and discover for its own sake. That, in and of itself, is a goal worth working towards. Not so long ago, I believe you felt the same way."

"Yes, and instead we --"

"And we succeeded," he interrupted. "We've met someone from another world. We've learned from them, built connections with them. We've worked our entire lives for something like this."

Aeris shifted uncomfortably.

"Aeris, you spoke with an alien and he told you about birthday presents -- a stupid meaningless gesture surrounding an arbitrary date, by anyone's measure with no reason to exist, and yet he told you about them." There was a smile in his voice now. "I couldn't be prouder. I only wish it was me."

"Does it mean anything if you're required to do it in the first place?" asked Aeris.

"I don't know," said Angeal. "What do you think?"

Aeris said nothing. She didn't like not knowing the answers to questions.

"...Speaking of which, I know you've been censoring your transcripts," said Angeal after another moment. "There's clearly parts missing. I'd like to know why."

"...Ethical reasons," said Aeris tiredly. "He's been giving me information that isn't really useful to the project. I don't need to publish every last detail of his life."

"Are you sure that's why?" he asked. Aeris rolled her eyes. She was being rhetorical-question'd-for-learning-purposes again. She thought she'd be done with that after finishing her education.

"I'm just making sure you don't get in too deep," said Angeal. "Once you're over there, there will be more people than Cloud involved in all this."

You don't know the half of it, thought Aeris, tiredly retrieving her pencil. She prodded at the paper, trying to remember what step of the process they'd been on.

"I also joined the project because of you," said Angeal after another moment of silence.

Aeris looked up at him, puzzled.

"I taught for years at Bonn," he said. "Twenty years."

"You left tenure for this?" asked Aeris.

Angeal nodded. "I thought it would be the sort of thing I would enjoy. It was something I knew about, and I decided, well... why not share that with someone. And when I finally landed that coveted position, it was all so... pointless." He sighed. "The higher you get into the field, the more everyone just takes it all for granted. Why even teach if no want really wants to learn?

"Math is a beautiful, complicated thing. You know this, I'm sure. It's the language of the universe -- patterns everywhere, that you can find in stars and planets and our own DNA. Speaking the same language, using the same patterns. Knowing that every time you familiarise yourself with a pattern, discover another -- you're unlocking the universe. Understanding something grand and huge and..."

There was an intense look in Angeal's eyes now, and while Aeris did not look away, she felt as though she were seeing something she was not meant to.

"I hadn't seen anyone want to really... to know that, in years. And then there was you -- the paper you pushed, telling the world about the patterns you'd found, about how far you wanted to reach. It was the drive to discover, to learn, just because the world was worth learning and discovering about. I think you used to know that," he said. "I think you still know that. That's why I joined this project."

Aeris looked back down at the paper she'd been working on, then back up at Angeal, who was still steadily watching her.

"This may have gotten... a little out of hand, but it would be a great tragedy for you to lose the one thing making it all worth it in the first place."

"...I'll be sure to keep that in mind," said Aeris, after a moment.

After all, this was her project. It would be a shame to miss out on it all.

She picked her pencil back up, but instead Angeal held out his hand.

"I'll take over from here. Go talk to him. Anything we can learn is another thing we can use to keep this all from going sideways. Fair and Lazard will probably be finished prepping the room by the time you wake up."

It was Tseng that helped her into the tank and Cissnei that had her count down this time, rather than Lazard and Zack. She was distracted enough by the differences to not notice right away that she seemed to be falling for a lot longer than usual. Cloud (and there was only one of them this time, in whatever sort of strange shared hallucination this was) actually turned to look at her, and as she reached out to catch him, he seemed to melt into her skin. She recoiled in disgust, and rolled straight off the bed.

She sat up and began to rub her head, then paused when she felt something gritty in her hands. Dirt? Had she made it outside?

A quick look around confirmed she was still in the cell, but the walls and floor and ceiling were blackened and scorched. Her right arm felt sore, and this time it didn't seem to be her fault. A quick examination revealed it was badly burned, a large blister covering most of the back of her forearm.

Cloud seemed to be working with her this time as she sifted through her consciousness, actually managing to respond to her "hello" on his own in about ten minutes.

Didn't think you'd actually come back, he said, as he got to his feet using the wall to support himself. She... he... the legs that she was currently using felt sore from disuse.

Why's that?

Cloud said nothing, and went about getting a drink from the tap in his room. Every step he took seemed to be as though he were dragging his legs through a swamp.

Gonna try to get out soon, said Cloud.

Do you have a plan?

A little. Been hard to think. Mother is loud.

...Who?

He paused, blinking very slowly at the sink. Aeris caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and noticed his eyes looked fairly bloodshot. Jenova. She's loud.

He made it back over to the bed and lay back down on it with his back to the window, panting entirely too much for someone in his shape.

Been trying to wake up on my own, though. It's hard when it's this empty in here. There's a lot of stuff in the air now, too... head hurts sometimes.

They're cutting off your oxygen, Aeris realised with a burst of anger. They've --

That tracks, said Cloud, tittering slightly. Set a big fire in here earlier. Probably want to make it a little harder. He picked at a bit of fuzz on the mattress cover. Grew up in the mountains, though. Think I'm doing okay so far...

Aeris, who hadn't been deprived of oxygen for several hours prior and was noticing the contrast more or less immediately, begged to differ. You need to get out of here.

Yeah. Been thinkin' about the door.

Think you could blow it up?

Yeah. Would blow me up too, though. Could do it. Maybe I'd go to sleep. Go outside the cell when I'm asleep, then when I'm awake, I'll wake up, and be outside where I went when I was asleep.

The oxygen deprivation was clearly getting to both of them, because Aeris could have sworn that made sense to her for a split second. She would have asked Cloud to clarify, but suddenly her vision swam, and she realised Cloud had passed out.

She forced herself to sit up, uncertain of what she was allowed to do in someone else's body while they were unconscious. She stared at their arm for a moment, and then pinched it hard.

He didn't rouse right away, but he seemed to have noticed something, so she pinched him again for good measure.

I don't think you should be falling asleep right now, said Aeris.

Yeah. Don't got a lot of brain cells to work with in the first place anymore. Didn't you hear? He tittered again. Aeris found herself believing it to be extremely funny. The effect was unnerving.

The door. You were talking about the door.

Yeah. Big vault type door. Electronic lock.

Do you know the code?

No. The panel is on the other side. Can't see it.

Are there card keys you can steal?

Dunno. Jessie would know how to fake a card key. I miss Jessie...

Cloud froze. There was something -- I wanted to think...

About card keys?

No, about Jessie. She's important.

Aeris waited for him to think of what the something was, and realised that they had passed out again at some point. Her time was limited in more ways than one.

Cloud, I came here to tell you I won't be visiting you again.

...What?

I have to leave for a while.

What did I do?

You didn't do anything. I have to --

It's like Jessie. I'm a shit boyfriend.

I -- well, that's not really --

She's really nice. I shoulda been nicer. She brings me old stuff to take apart...

Cloud, listen to me. I have to go so I can come here myself soon. You won't hear from me for about a week.

Oh... can you visit Jessie for me? And Barret, I didn't get to talk to him any...

Which one is Barret?

Big metal arm gun gun arm gun... it's really complicated. Arm and a gun. Can't do computer things, though. That's what Jessie does. And Reeve. She brings me old machines, though... She writes words into 'em sometimes, too. Machines, not paper...

He was a goner like this. She thought about making an excuse to postpone her visit for just a little while longer, but it would be hard to explain to anyone -- even Zack, who was sort of in on what she was doing. She needed to come here in person, for Cloud's sake and the project's. But leaving him in this state...

Oh, said Cloud.

Oh, what? said Aeris, dreading his answer already.

I bet I could open that door. I bet I could do it.

How do you figure?

Repurposed room in a hurry. Electric Shinra Power Code Lock Company. Magnet. Really strong one... sweepers.

What?

Maintenance panel. Big metal coil… magnetic. Did the same thing with an old sweeper in the bar when you visited.

...You’re telling me some big expensive vault door is just gonna cave to some magnet? Surely there would be something computerised in place to stop that… then Aeris realised she wasn’t sure if she’d actually seen a modern PC since coming here, or even so much as a smartphone. Maybe there wasn’t.

Not just any magnet. Need a powerful one. Left mine at home… could you get it for me?

In about a week, maybe, said Aeris. But you know, once I leave, I won't be able to come back and visit you until then.

...Maybe let's just talk for a while, then.

What about?

...What's it like when you do this? asked Cloud. What am I like to you?

I'm not really sure what you mean. It's a little like falling asleep. Then I dream about being nowhere for a little bit, and then I'm you.

Do you like being me?

Aeris hesitated. The question made her uncomfortable for a number of reasons.

Well... you're, ah... you're easy enough to move around in, I suppose.

That's why they do it. They like being me.

Everything was swimming. There was something deeply unsettling about this whole conversation, but the oxygen deprivation was making it hard to fix her thoughts on exactly what.

Who's they?

Jenova and Sephiroth. I was good to use.

I mean -- I'm not -- I'm not really you. You know that, right? Just using a set of electrical signals you've got kicking around your head.

Who are the others?

...What --

When you come here, there are others watching me. Are they your friends?

...Who?

They're watching me when you show up. They want in, too.

Something still wasn't right, but this time it was a bit more obvious as to why.

...What do they look like? asked Aeris.

Don't know. Can't look at them. Deep places...

Do you feel like you're floating off somewhere? Does anything try to grab you? She could feel her breath quickening, though whether it was a response to the thin air or not, she wasn't sure.

Little bit, said Cloud. Like right now. No others, though. Just feels nice. Mother's always touching.

Cloud?

I'm glad you like being me. If anyone else needs to be me, I'm glad it's you.

Aeris would have objected, but their vision had blurred too much, and she realised, as she felt herself slowly sinking through the empty place, that they had passed out again.

She quickly made note of the hallucinations that apparently he had also been experiencing and requested the signal be cut off. She was pulled out of the tank, leaning heavily on Zack and Lazard, the latter of whom was already hovering over her anxiously to check for signs of brain damage from oxygen deprivation. It was physically impossible, but at this point it didn't hurt to be safe, she supposed.

"You were right," she said to Angeal. "We've gotta hurry."

 

---

 

Mother was here.

"Here" was a bit of a nebulous concept at present. He didn't feel as though he was in any particular place. He went nowhere, where Mother was everywhere. Inside him, singing in his blood, and outside him, curling around and into him as he fell deeper and deeper, and everywhere there was to possibly be. Mother had always been here.

He could see Her now, in all Her glory, and She called to him, urging him towards Her. His body was useless to Her now, slowly failing and no longer able to spread. She was calling him back. He obligingly opened himself to Her, ready at last to be whole. Ready for Reunion.

Something caught and tugged that wasn't him or Mother. There were Other Things, weren't there? Ones outside and away from Mother. Small things. Vessels. Ways in and out, to grow and to hide and to one day leave the way She had found the vessels in the first place.

Cloud wasn't part of Mother. Not yet. He wanted to be, but there was something he was forgetting. It was important.

He tried to shut himself away from Mother, forgetting that She already was him. She bit into him more deeply, trying to make him stay. It was agony to pull away, and he knew it would be more agonising still to continue to be apart. One day he would come back to Her. But he had to go. He had to leave. He needed to leave here. He needed out --

Cloud opened his eyes and found himself lying on his cot in the cell. Mother still hummed all around him, far louder than She had ever been before, so he knew he couldn't really be here. None of it felt properly real, the way he figured most humans must feel. He knew he was still just a part of Mother, even here.

He had been thinking about something important. Springs? Perhaps. Solenoids. He'd been thinking about solenoids, and magnets, and...

The door. He was trapped here, wasn't he? Mother needed to be -- no, he needed out. Mother needed him to get out. Mother needed him back in. He needed out. He needed a magnet to open the door. The one in the speaker would be far too weak. What else in here could be used as a magnet that they wouldn't immediately confiscate?

The head of the tap and his showerhead were made of metal. But even if they didn't gas him for ripping it out of the wall again, he didn't really have anything to magnetise it with.

The gas... it had been a while since he had taken a breath, hadn't it? He must still be asleep after all.

The minute he thought about it, he realised how starved for air his lungs were. He took a deep breath and felt his thoughts begin to blur. He rolled over on the bed to face the wall and dug his nails into his arm. He had to stay him. Aeris wasn't coming back, and he didn't know if he'd wake up again, and if he was out for too long they might have a chance to hide the window again, or move it, or install cameras.

The mattress creaked as he turned, and he frowned. He shifted his weight again. Springs. There were springs in the mattress. Maybe steel or copper?

He needed metal from somewhere else, that they wouldn't immediately take away. Maybe the mattress had some larger pieces in it? Maybe not. Even if it did, he didn't have anything he could cut them off with. The only other metal he had on him were his earrings, which weren't big enough anyway, and...

Well.

He had his materials at least.

He risked another few seconds steeling himself for what needed to be done. You've had worse. You'll be fine. You've had way worse. You've had worse. It's fine. It's... fuck it.

He slowly curled up further in on himself with his back to the window where he knew they were watching from, and pulled his arms in until his hand was touching the mattress. He carefully began to force his fingers against the fabric until he'd worked a small hole into it, which he then began to widen. It was slow work -- any sudden movements from him just tearing the cloth open would have them switching on the gas in a second, and he couldn't really exert himself too much with how little oxygen there was in the air. He was surprised he'd lasted as long as he had, and figured he owed much of his progress so far to Mother.

Once he'd opened up a small enough hole, he slowly began to insert his hand into it, probing for something firm. He found it almost immediately -- now it was just a matter of getting a big enough piece of coil out without anyone noticing. He pinched a bit of coil between his fingers and gradually began to bend it back and forth. He'd already spent half an hour picking at the mattress, but he couldn't afford to rush things. He couldn't afford to wait. He couldn't spend another minute here in this cell, slowly losing himself to four white walls again.

The coil took longer to free up. Cloud had to admit to himself eventually that he was probably stalling a little on purpose, because as much as he'd had worse, he definitely wasn't looking forward to the next part.

It wasn't very good metal, he knew, and was specifically created for him to not be able to do the thing he was going to do with it. He'd have to dump a lot of magic into the whole mess for it to work in the first place. But still... this was the only shot he had.

So it was with only another second of hesitation that Cloud snaked his improvised weapon -- a jagged bit of broken bed coil -- up to his previously-broken collarbone and dug it into his own flesh.

He managed not to scream. He really had had worse. Still, this was nothing compared to the next part.

He parted skin, and then fat, and then muscle, and then he felt what he'd been looking for: the metal plate they'd screwed into his bones to keep them in place. He must have been bleeding all over the bed by now. They would notice soon, blind spot or not. He had only seconds.

He really wished he had a better idea than this. He probably should've asked Aeris or something.

Cloud managed to get a grip on the tip of long metal plate still screwed into his collarbone and yanked.

They would have heard him scream that time, and if they hadn't, they would have heard the crunching noise of his bones cracking as the screws ripped free. All due credit to the truck (and Hojo, he supposed begrudgingly), the metal yielded before his own body did, for the most part. He took a deep breath, held it, and tumbled out of bed, stumbling towards the door.

He wound the wire around the plate, grasping either end of the wire sticking out from his hand, and began to channel a lightning spell into it, frantically rubbing it against where he thought the other (probably significantly less bloody) magnetic coil in the door might also be. He couldn't hold his breath for very long -- the pain in his shoulder was excruciating, and the amount of magic he was pouring into his improvised electromagnet in an attempt to magnetise a piece of surgical steel was making his head swim, and the wires were heating up, burning his hand badly, and gods knew what they'd do to him after this failed, probably operate on him to make sure he didn't have anymore metal left anywhere in his body --

A soft click echoed from the door. Cloud threw his weight into it, and it swung forward.

He barely had time to register the sweetness of the fresh air he was breathing before he heard the sound of an alarm being tripped, now deafeningly loud with the door no longer muffling it, and the sound of a firearm being cocked.

Cloud lunged in the direction of the noise, and heard something crunch as the unfortunate man he'd pinned impacted against the wall. He whipped around and took stock of the room he was in.

There was a desk in front of his observation window, with a telephone and a microphone sitting on it. There was an older man, perhaps in his sixties, sitting in front of it that was gaping at him in disbelief. Cloud rounded on him and lifted him up by the neck, his face twisted into a snarl from pain and fury. This, he could do. For the first time in who knew how long, he felt awake.

"Which way's the exit?" he spat.

"Hallway -- two lefts --" the man choked out. Even like this, he did in fact have a very nice voice.

"Liar," said Cloud, pulling him closer. Truth be told, he had no idea if the man was lying, but if he was, this would probably be the point he found out.

"No -- I don't know past --- third..."

Cloud reluctantly loosened his grip on the man's throat and lowered him to the floor, though another part of him wanted to see him continue to gasp for air like he'd been doing for two weeks.

"Where are they keeping my sword?" he pressed.

"I don't know. Somewhere on the first floor. Maybe in the back," said the man. "Mr. Strife, you're making a mistake. We really are here to help you --"

"Save it," he growled, beginning to tighten his grip again.

"You can't kill me," said the man quickly. "You can't kill anyone here."

"Yeah I can. I won't if I don't have to, but..."

"You can't," said the man again. "Wanted murderers can't go home to their families. Not the way you want to. I was hired to rehabilitate you. I can't do that if you're locked up for good, or in a chemically-induced coma."

Cloud seethed at the man. A part of him -- a very large, dominant, hungry part of him, the part that was howling in his ears, pushing him onwards, wanted to hurt the man very badly, the way he had been hurt.

But unlike the men from Shinra, there wasn't exactly any room to deny his involvement in this mess. Cloud really did hate it when people he didn't like were right about things.

"Thanks for the tip," said Cloud, before forcing his head into a wall and letting go, watching as he crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

He could already hear footsteps down the hall rapidly approaching him. He cast a quick healing spell on his shoulder -- not enough to seal the wound completely, like anyone that was actually good at this sort of thing should have been able to do, but enough to allow him some mobility again for the fight to come.

He tensed, listening to the movement outside. Fifty, maybe? He could handle fifty.

He couldn't stay here. He needed to get his sword and get out. It was probably in a closet somewhere. He could try to sniff it out, but it might not still be carrying his scent after this long. He should have asked for directions.

The noise outside the door snapped him out of his train of thought. Time to go.

Cloud smashed through the metal door and barrelled into the wall of guards, sending two flying. He didn't look back as the sound of gunfire erupted behind him, already streaking down the hallway and around the corner. He skidded to a halt at the first left. He needed to hide somewhere. It would have been easy enough to just kill everyone. With that not being an option, it was only a matter of time before someone got enough tranquiliser darts into him while he was wandering around the facility aimlessly, looking for the Fusion Swords.

He slowed to a jog, realising he'd probably passed several potential second lefts he could have taken, and looked up at the ceiling. Cameras. The building was probably full of them. It'd be harder to hide with them everywhere.

This was the kind of problem solving he could deal with. Find something, break it, move on.

It was with an immense amount of satisfaction that he blasted a hole in the ceiling above him, the iridescent blue flames crackling chaotically through the hallway with a high-pitched sound that made his teeth buzz before sputtering out just as quickly, the wave he'd unleashed shapeless and unfocused with no blade to channel the magic through. He hopped up through the new entrance he'd made, readying another wave as bits of drywall rained down onto the floor below him. The WRO probably didn't have as many floors as the Shinra tower.

Five floors later had him seeing stars briefly. He wasn't used to casting innate magic with no conduit but his own arm. He'd lost a lot of blood, had been drugged for weeks, partially suffocated until minutes ago, and hadn't done any serious casting in years. Jenova was still seeping into his thoughts at every turn, and it was all he could do to remember that he was Cloud, that he wasn't safe here, and that he couldn't afford to slip under again.

He pulled himself up through the last hole and saw his quarry several metres away. The fuse box and the backup generator. It had gotten colder since he'd last been outside, and a stiff breeze cooled the blood soaked into his scrubs, making him shiver. Was summer ending soon? Another thing he'd lost because of all this: the bright sun, the heavy storms, the way the rooms were always just a little too warm, reminding him how close the outdoors really were.

He kept his distance from them, even as he called forth a lightning spell. A real one, not the little jolts he and Jessie and Reeve sometimes used for their work. He couldn't build this much energy long, being this high up and the most electrically charged thing present, apart from the generator, and he'd learned from experience that a cloudless day did not necessarily mean safety.

All magic (except for summoning) lay on a spectrum between precision and control, and nowhere was Black magic more exemplified than lightning. Lack of control of a lightning spell could have him dead in an instant by his own hand, or rendered useless as the electricity arced off into another target altogether. It was a raw force of nature that now began to bead at his fingertips, and by now Cloud had mastered guiding it, shaping it, and bending it to his own will. He raised a hand, keeping his arm relaxed, to serve as a conduit, and then he opened the floodgates, allowing his own magic and the lightning's own inclination toward the path of least resistance to carry it towards the metal cylinder he'd come all this way to reach, scorching the air around him with an audible buzzing noise.

The generator exploded in a shower of sparks and metal shrapnel, deafening him even as the electricity continued to pour into the fuse box, blowing it into bits as well . He'd unloaded that sort of charge into adult behemoths before, and so it was probably a bit overkill to destroy the fuse box completely. They were lucky he was stopping there.

He hopped back down through the hole and into a now darkened hallway. Now he had a bit more time, at least. The cameras would probably be down now, and the hallways were pitch black, at least for most people. As everyone here seemed to know, Cloud wasn't most people.

He crept through the halls silently, looking for a stairwell to the lower floors with the tiny speck of light he'd created in his palm, no bigger than the head of a pin but just big enough for him to see by. Perfectly controlled. Steady for hours. Ma always said he made the best lights --

He drew a sharp gasp as the light flickered and went out. His thoughts jumbled into another indistinct mess again. Mother sang loudly in the dark.

He shook his head and continued walking. Had to stay here. Needed to be here.

The hallways were strangely empty. Perhaps they figured he'd already jumped off the roof and had made a run for it. They'd have definitely heard the explosion he'd created... perhaps they were investigating that.

He turned another corner and into the path of another pair of guards. He turned on his heel and sprinted the other direction down the hall. He could hear them plodding along behind him in the dark as a wave of cold washed over him. However fast they were, he was faster, and he risked a look over his shoulder as he heard the sound cut off behind him. Had they stopped?

Cloud turned around fully at the sight that greeted him instead and frowned. There were no guards behind him. And no hallway, for that matter. Nothing but an unmarked wall with a framed photo of a lake on it, which was rocking slightly as though it had been disturbed by something.

He stopped running. Even smashing through the plaster, he would have felt something. Perhaps he'd gotten turned around in the dark? But it wasn't even really that dark in here, at least not for him. He tapped the wall experimentally, wondering if it was perhaps a hologram, and was met with a solid surface.

He turned and left the wall to find another stairwell. He could think about it later. He needed to get his sword and get out.

The more stairs he went down, the more he could hear something moving. Smelled human. Really, so did everything in Edge, but there were a lot of them there in person. He ran another weak healing spell through his shoulder, just in case, and went down the last flight of stairs.

The minute he opened the door to the ground floor, a blinding sense of agony flooded his body and he felt his muscles lock up. He fell to the ground, dimly registering the drawn taser pointed at him, before another fired, and another.

He lay there, twitching and in pain, as he saw what must have been perhaps every officer in Edge clustered around him, between him and the back office. Of course, they must have known he'd go back for his sword. He was an idiot. He should have left it.

He screamed as another set of darts sank into his skin, spreading another fifty thousand volts throughout his body. Someone approached him out of the corner of his eye with a set of handcuffs. He couldn't go back. Not like this. The conversation they'd cut short would be the last time he'd ever get to speak to his family. He'd never wake up again. The pain was making it hard to focus, and now Mother was seeping into his thoughts as the eyes loomed around him, the world fading at the edges. Mother would take him before these people ever got the chance. He frantically pulled away, from the cops, from Mother, from everything trying to rip him to pieces as Mother tugged as hard as She could, the depth looming all around him, and he dug his fingers into the tile beneath him as it crunched in his grip, squeezing his eyes shut, things reaching, pulling, tugging, and he pulled away, because he couldn't go, not like this --

Nobody touched him. Five seconds passed. Mother -- Jenova was still buzzing beneath his thoughts, but She was... outside him, somehow. Nobody put their hands on him and dragged him away to a cell. Puzzled, Cloud opened his eyes.

The guards were gone, as were the darts from the tasers that had been embedded in his skin. He was in too much pain to move just yet, but the more he looked, the more he was certain he wasn't hallucinating. There was just nobody here.

He uneasily pushed himself into a sitting position. He couldn't hear anyone in the floors above him. The lights were back on, and presumably the cameras with them, but nobody was rushing to his position.

He slowly got to his feet. He could see a door leading to the receptionist counter, and a door leading to a room behind it. The first door was unlocked, but the second door wasn't, so he simply put his hand through the wood and opened it from the other side. Nobody came running to stop him.

He found his sword and harness propped up against a set of lockers, and found his boots and wallet in one of them. He was tempted to take his cell phone as well, but any sort of tracking device they'd put in it would be a lot harder to find than ones they could have put on his non-electronic belongings. He couldn't find his clothes. At least he finally had something covering his feet. Shoes were another thing he'd missed, and at least he still had these scrubs. As always, clothes were a privilege, not a right. And certainly not a given.

He felt himself relax as he tightened the last buckle on his harness and slipped his sword into it. Safe. He was safe now. There was nothing left in the world that could hurt him now that he couldn't hurt back first. Nobody stopped him as he walked out the front door, either. The cool night air caressed his face, the buzz of insects in the late summer air welcoming him back into the world, as it had four and a half years ago.

He sprinted away from the facility, trying to keep out of the open. It wasn't until ten minutes later that he began to see other people, though nearly everyone was indoors. He spotted a couple cops at a distance as well, and shrank back into the shadows of the alleyways. There were a lot of them out this time. He'd need to keep out of sight until...

Until what? If they were competent enough to try and cut him off downstairs, they'd almost definitely stationed a post outside Seventh Heaven by now. And even if they hadn't, it was only a matter of time before they looked for him there.

Where could he go? Everyone in his family would be watched. They'd probably put a bounty on his head, and he didn't have any glasses -- the minute anyone saw his freak eyes, they'd know who he was.

What had he even escaped for in the first place? He would never be able to see his family again. He was never --

"What are you doing here?"

He hadn't been paying attention, and now he had walked directly into a group of children occupying one of the alleyways of Edge. One of them, a boy of perhaps ten years old, had a knife, and was pointing it at him with a sour look on his face. His other hand appeared to be missing -- melted off nearly to the elbow. Cloud sighed heavily. They probably weren't a threat to him, but he was tired, and his shoulder hurt, and now that the adrenaline was wearing off there were a lot of drugs still in his system. Things would get messy far too quickly.

"...Just passing through. You were here first. I can go another way if it's closed here."

He was being stared at. It could have been because of his blood-drenched shirt, or his eyes. Probably both.

"...He's Shinra," said the boy. "It's Shinra's fault everything is like this."

"No, I'm not -- I just --"

"Is that why all the cops are out tonight? They're looking for a Shinra murderer," said a second boy. "We oughta tell them you're here. That explosion earlier -- that was you, wasn't it?"

"Wait," said a third voice. Cloud turned his head a bit to see a girl approaching him from the crowd that had formed behind him. "I think I know this guy."

A hand grabbed his left arm, holding it up for the crowd to inspect before he defensively jerked away.

"So you do have mako eyes. I always was a little curious, you know?"

Cloud blinked, actually looking at the girl's face now. "Aya?"

Aya crossed her arms. "You were really rude, you know. Just running off like that."

"He went into the rain," said the first boy, lowering the knife and approaching him to take a closer look at his arm. "Yours was higher up, looks like," he noted.

"What's with the sword?" said the second boy. "Aya, how do you know him?"

"Guys, this is Rabbit Guy," said Aya, as though this were obvious. A chorus of understanding "ohh"s went through the crowd, and a few more went a bit closer to have a better look at him, or his bloodied shoulder, or his eyes. He didn't mind it as much -- it seemed to be out of curiosity more than contempt or fear.

...He did mind a little.

"Can you, er...?" Cloud shuffled backwards uncomfortably. The children pulled back, but the second boy spoke up.

"Thanks for the meat," he said. "I figured you died of the stigma ages ago."

"...Don't mention it," said Cloud. Truth be told, he'd assumed the same of the kids he'd been feeding. He knew this definitely wasn't all of them.

"My name's Marco," said the second boy. Then he pointed to the first boy that had been missing a hand. "That's Reuv."

"I always figured you were made up," said Reuv. "Adults didn't get the stigma, I thought."

Cloud shrugged. "Most of 'em can't."

"Why are you bleeding?" asked another kid further back in the crowd.

"I..." Cloud was suddenly reminded of what was going on just outside the alleys and why he was standing here getting chills from blood loss.

"I need somewhere to hide for a few hours," said Cloud. "I'm --"

"Geez, did you kill someone?" asked Aya.

"No, this is mine," he said, gesturing to the blood. "I... I got stabbed."

"Can I see?"

"Who stabbed you?"

"Does it hurt?"

"I got stabbed once in the leg!"

"Is the knife still in it?"

Cloud knelt and pulled his shirt down off his shoulder to allow them to look. It was already healing shut well enough, but if he didn't clean it off properly soon enough it could wind up infected.

The passing sound of a car had him suddenly jerking back away from the crowd and crouching behind a dumpster, barely daring to breathe.

"I'm kind of in a hurry," said Cloud, when it had passed. "Sorry. Do any of you have any friends that might have medical supplies?"

"Yeah, but it's across the city by the ruins," said Reuv. "That's a really long way to walk. Oh! But we could take you to one of our suppliers."

"'Suppliers'?"

"Yeah," said Marco. "Nice people willing to help out. I dunno how she'd feel about the mako eyes, but she's your best bet right now."

Cloud mulled it over as another car rumbled past their location. He could get turned in if she already knew he was wanted, but staying here or going back to Seventh Heaven would get him caught anyway."Lead the way," he said eventually.

Cloud had been a little apprehensive about allowing children to lead him anywhere. As it turned out, though, most of the kids were former slum-dwellers. Staying hidden to avoid monsters and worse would have been second nature to any of them from a young age. They seemed to know the city better than he did, at any rate.

He noticed Aya staring at him as they walked. He turned to look at her. "What?"

"Your eyes. You were with Shinra"

Cloud sighed heavily. "...Yeah. I was, kind of."

Aya frowned. "Everybody says it's Shinra's fault the world is like this. For making the Planet angry, I mean."

Cloud nodded tiredly. "They're not wrong. Shinra did a lot of terrible things."

"Why did you join them, then? You don't seem stupid. Or bad."

Cloud didn't answer right away. It was difficult to get himself to actually focus on the question. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't know what he would do when he got there. He didn't know where he would go afterwards. It felt strange, knowing Aya was the last familiar face he'd see for a while. She continued looking up at him expectantly.

"...I thought it was the right thing to do," said Cloud. "And I thought I could impress people by showing everyone how great I was, doing this thing that we all thought was so great. Everyone did, back then. Or at least... maybe I did. Like I said, I do a lot of stupid stuff." He shrugged. He could feel a lot of eyes on him now, and internally he wilted a bit. Just one more companionship bridge he'd been forced to burn tonight.

"We thought we were making people safer. It wasn't until it was too late that I realised I wasn't making anything better at all. But then I was a part of Shinra. And that's all Shinra lets you be." He looked down at the scrubs he was wearing, from when they'd taken his clothes. "Doesn't matter if you realise it's wrong. Doesn't matter if you stop. Doesn't even matter if you leave. You'll always be the person who that happened to, and who did those things."

It wasn't fair.

"Well... you act more like Rabbit Guy," said Aya after a long moment.

"Sure doesn't feel like it," said Cloud.

"How would you know?" she replied.

Cloud shook his head. Going into how he was afraid all the time wasn't something he wanted to talk about with these people. He walked in silence for several more moments, keeping his face lowered.

"I like the colour," one of the other girls -- younger, perhaps around Marlene's age -- said, peering inquisitively at his eyes. "It's pretty. And I like lizards, too."

"...Thanks," said Cloud, not certain how to respond. He'd always thought it'd be neat to have mako eyes when he was younger. Another stupid opinion that drew him to Soldier.

"We're here," said Marco, pointing to the end of an alley. "It's 403. Just go really quick. We can try going across town if she sells you out."

The number sounded familiar for some reason. Cloud nodded. "Thank you for all of this," he said. As usual, it sounded lame and inadequate. "If you ever need anything... I mean, I'm good at fixing stuff, maybe I can..." he shuffled nervously. "Thank you."

"Good luck!" said Aya, flashing him a thumbs up. Cloud gave her one in return, then crept out of the alleyway and back onto the streets, making a beeline for the cluster of houses. With a small jolt, he realised he recognised where he was.

He approached the door of the house and knocked on it, swallowing nervously. He already knew she'd turn him in. This was more trouble than it was worth for her to put up with. Maybe he should just --

"Good god, you vanish for a month and you still haven't gotten a..."

Ms. Suk trailed off in shock, staring at Cloud, who was too exhausted to come up with any sort of story. The blood on his shirt seemed to have dried, mostly.

"I -- I need help," he said. "Reuv said you could -- I need to --"

"Clearly," said Ms. Suk, and dragged him inside, slamming the door shut. "Your shirt's a mess. Come with me, I'll get a towel. Make an old woman like me manage the stairs at this time of night..."

"I can --"

"Don't you go tracking blood all over my house," she said sharply, leading him up the stairs. "There's a bed in the guest room. Go there and stay put."

Cloud shuffled down the hallway until he found a room that seemed less used than the others and gingerly lay down on the bed.

He felt something in his shoulders unknot as he relaxed into the comforter. The blankets were thick and warm and a deep red colour, decorated with pictures of bright pink flowers, and his head sank into the pillows behind him, but the best part was the smell -- it smelled like... anything. It smelled like Ms. Suk, and old cooking projects and remnants of perfume and laundry detergent and an unfamiliar person that wasn't Ms. Suk and a little bit like cigarette smoke. After weeks of seeing white and smelling nothing, it was the best bed Cloud had ever laid in in his life. It was all he could do not to fall asleep right then and there.

Ms. Suk returned to the spare room, drawing the curtains shut, then set down a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a handful of cotton balls and gauze on the bedside table. Cloud hesitated to remove his shirt.

"Really, now. You think I'd have no problem with repeatedly inviting a Soldier back into my home, but I'm going to be scared off by whatever you've got under there."

"I dunno, it's..." Cloud blinked. "You -- wait, it doesn't bother -- you --"

"Knew?" she tutted. "After spending two months talking to you, and the only thing you've bothered hiding those eyes of yours behind was a pair of sunglasses that you refused to take off? And here I thought you were bright. 'Medical condition'. Pah! The shirt, dear."

Cloud sat there for a moment as his vision blurred slightly. He rubbed the moisture off on his sleeve and pulled his shirt off with some difficulty.

He was so tired.

He felt Ms. Suk staring at the tapestry of scars covering nearly every inch of skin. Some stab wounds. Some burns. Some from gunshots. The large one, covering a good portion of his chest and left arm, from the stigma.

Most, he knew, from various surgeries.

She said nothing, merely shaking her head silently and proceeding to dab at the gash on his shoulder with an alcohol-soaked cotton ball. Cloud didn't react. He'd had worse.

"...I can't stay here," he said. "They'll come find me. Run more tests. I have to go."

"Anywhere you'd planned to reach?" she said.

"Just... away, I guess. I don't know." He rubbed a bit more at his eyes, which wouldn't stop leaking. "I didn't really think it out this far."

"May I ask what it is you did in the first place?" inquired Ms. Suk as she began to apply a strip of gauze.

"They think I'm crazy. And sick. They -- they want to cure me, I think. But they can't, and they'll just lock me up again, and -- "

"If you're ill, you really should let them --"

"No," said Cloud, then inwardly cringed as he heard his voice crack. "No. I can't go back. I can't go back to that. I -- I have to go. I can't go back. Not again. Never again."

Ms. Suk tied off the gauze and pursed her lips. "Well, at the very least get your head right before you make up your mind. I'll get us dinner."

Cloud clutched his left wrist to himself, gently stroking it as Ms. Suk left the room and busied herself in the kitchen downstairs. You're safe here, that spot reminded him, and everything will work out one day, and you're wanted.

She brought back up some sort of spicy soup with little dumplings in it, as well as tea. She spoke to him the whole time he ate about how she'd made it -- really, you could throw just about anything into a pot and make good soup. Cloud didn't really understand a lot of the terms she used, but he listened to every word. The soup was warm, the blankets were soft, the tea was calming and familiar. Yuffie had made him tea like this once. Three years ago, when he'd stayed with her in Wutai.

"I wasn't in Soldier," he said after a moment, "if that's why you're helping me."

Ms. Suk looked up over her own soup at him appraisingly.

"Why do you like Shinra?" he finally asked. "You're from Wutai. I don't... I don't get it."

"Quite a lot of things improved under them," said Ms. Suk. "I was alive in the days before mako energy, before commercialised healing, or artificial materia, before any of that sort of thing. You can't imagine how it was before that, I'm sure -- it really did make life much easier for everyone. Wutai forfeited its chance to enter the new society they created as equals because of its pride, but in the end, things improved for everyone, wouldn't you say so?"

Cloud thought of the villages he'd been ordered to raze, and the crowds of slum-dwellers he'd fired into, and the language he'd grown up with that he barely even remembered anymore, and the needles in the dark. He regretted asking already, and merely shrugged.

"Shinra did this to me," was all he said. Ms. Suk did not reply.

She cleared their bowls away after he'd finished eating, but left a glass of water. She said something else to him as she left the room. He might've said something back. It was all buried under a layer of tea and warmth and blanket now.

 

---

 

He awoke either a few hours or an entire day later. It was still night out. The blanket on top of him was warm and quite heavy, and he was tempted to let himself fall back asleep before remembering that he was here on borrowed time. He reluctantly crawled back out from under the covers, feeling his foot nudge against something as he did.

There was a worn-looking bag sitting on the end of the bed, along with a folded set of clothes and an old sleeping bag tied next to it. Opening the bag revealed another set of clothes, a saucepan, a small box containing a sewing needle and some thread, and a reusable water bottle.

He changed into the clothes provided, though he kept the scrub pants in case he needed the fabric for something. They smelled like whoever's room this was, and they felt a bit big on him; but they were warm and dry, and the pants were made of the sort of light, sturdy fabric he'd usually worn for work. Feeling a little greedy as usual, he slipped the pack and the sleeping bag on over his shoulder after buckling on his sword and harness, and crept downstairs to look for Ms. Suk.

She was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee, reading a book, and did not look up right away when he walked in.

"Shouldn't you be on your way?" she said bluntly. "No telling what could happen if they find out you're here."

"Yeah, but... I mean..." He swallowed. "I'm sorry I cancelled my last appointment with you. I..."

"What, is that all? Well, if you want to apologise to me for the inconvenience, you can leave before you get me arrested. And take those clothes with you," she said brusquely. "Like I need anymore clutter around this place. Shame they don't fit -- you really should eat more, you know. Boys your age just burn it right off. I miss being able to do that, sixty years ago..."

Cloud was at a loss for words. "I --" He dug into his pockets, opening his wallet, and offered her the eighty gil he still had in it. It wasn't much, but --

She smacked his hand away sharply. "Do I look like a charity case to you? After everything I've done, you still have the gall to insult me."

Ms. Suk stood up and folded her newspaper, heading past her living room and to the back door of her house. "Prove you've still got a working head on your shoulders. You won't have much time. Get going."

"...Why are you doing this?" he said quietly.

Ms. Suk yanked him down by his shirt and planted a kiss on top of his head, then forced his shoulders back and straightened his collar. "You're a good boy, Cloud. Try and keep out of trouble, will you? Might be a bit late for that, though."

Cloud swallowed the hot lump in his throat and nodded. "S -- see you soon, then," he said, even though he didn't really understand any of it.

He forced his arms around her anyway, though. It was the least he could do. He received a firm squeeze in return. "Here's hoping. Da-chao be with you."

"You too," he said softly. He took a deep breath, and then let himself out the back door, hearing it slowly creak closed behind him with a note of finality.

He still kept to the back alleys as he made his way out of the city, leaping from catwalks to rooftops back into the alleys as soon as he began noticing the helicopters swarming around some of the taller buildings. As long as he kept out of sight, there wasn't anyone that could keep up with him on foot if he really got going. Still, every soft tap the heels of his boots made as he nimbly vaulted from building to building had his heart hammering in his chest, certain that someone had heard. He thought about going back for Fenrir, then realised that it was at Seventh Heaven, which was already a non-option, and a pang went through him at the thought of leaving it behind. It was probably better this way.

At last, he reached the outskirts of the city, keeping out of sight under the remains of partially constructed overpasses, intended to one day connect whatever other cities might be built nearby. Until then, though, the only thing that awaited anyone leaving Edge was the Wastes -- miles upon miles of barren land surrounding Midgar. A scar cut deep into the Planet itself. A reminder of what this place once was, and to an extent, what it would always be.

The terrain went on as far as the eye could see. There was an end to it, of course. Somewhere further out there. The sky was huge and empty. The wind tugged at his ill-fitting clothes, emphasising how much room there was in them that he wasn't filling. He felt painfully small.

It was into that vast, vacant cavity left in the world that Cloud forced himself to take the first step into, and then the second, and then another, and another, his body mechanically carrying him further and further away from his family, away from his life, away from Edge.

Alone.

Notes:

END OF PART ONE

Chapter 22: Oh Hey There's No Flashbacks In This One

Summary:

PART TWO
COMPOSITE

Notes:

And here we are in act two! I suppose we've reached another period of the calm before the storm.

I can't say much yet, so I won't.

Thank you to Sanctum_C and limbostratus for going over this mess with me, and to Larissa for helping me make sure this thing is readable in the first place.

Tifa had been lying in bed, rereading the documents Reno had recovered for her without really processing any of it. It had been nearly a day since she'd found his remains splattered all over the walls of that train car in the ruins. She thought about calling Reeve, before remembering that there wasn't a lot he could do, and that he was probably under observation anyway. Barret had gone back home to work on the next part of their plan and look after Marlene. Cid had left for Rocket Town as well for similar reasons, but that only left her, Yuffie, Jessie, and Nanaki in Edge. Yuffie at least was still here with her. Neither one of them had made any official decisions on what to do with the information they'd gotten yet. She flipped through the files again, hoping something would jump out at her again.

Reunion. She knew what that was. The regeneration, she knew that too. Weird biology. Dead and alive. Parasitic. Self-replicating. Hallucinations... Cloud always talked about singing, but she wasn't sure that was really a hallucination, just something only he could hear. Perhaps that was the same thing? She tried to recall the things she'd heard him mutter before. It couldn't all be nonsense, surely?

She was startled out of her train of thought by a noise.

It was a low-pitched noise, she dimly noted, staring drowsily at the wall. Not the same as a phone vibrating. She wasn't sure who would be calling her anyway. It wasn't a quiet noise either. She was pretty sure it was a loud one. Actually, a really loud one. The dishwasher was still running, maybe. That was odd. She didn’t remember putting in any dishes. And if she had, they’d be done by now. Maybe it was just her phone after all. But now that she thought about it, it couldn’t be, because that she definitely wasn't the only person that heard it, if Yuffie's startled yelp in the other room was any indication.

The noise was a fucking bomb, actually.

She sat straight up, fumbling for any sort of blunt instrument she could use to fend off whatever had tried to blow her up, before realising that if it were anywhere near where she was she'd probably be dead already.

Maybe it wasn't even a bomb, she considered, as she leaned out the window and saw a thin plume of smoke rising into the air. It hadn't quite sounded like one. Then she noted the location -- it was coming from the direction of the WRO headquarters.

Cloud had broken out. She was sure of it.

She tumbled out of bed and ran for the couch downstairs, nearly crashing into Yuffie already halfway up the steps.

"He --"

"Yeah, definitely," said Yuffie breathlessly. "Should we --"

"Don't know. He'll probably come here first, right?"

"Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. Do you think they'd come here looking for him?"

Tifa bit her lip. "I... they probably will. Dammit, I knew we should've built a hidden basement in this one too..." She began to pace nervously. "We've gotta -- we've gotta hide him?"

"Where?" asked Yuffie. "They're obviously gonna look for him here soon, if they aren't on their way already. They'll -- Tifa?"

Tifa had already vaulted to her feet, racing for the documents Reno had smuggled out for her that she'd left on her bedside table. She snatched them up, then jogged back downstairs to retrieve the miniature cooler packed with ice. She sealed the papers in a plastic bag and stuffed it into the cooler roughly.

"We definitely need to hide this, if they're coming over here," said Tifa. "The only leg up we have on them right now is that Reno was -- gods, do you think they know he's dead yet?"

"Shit. Maybe? I don't know, there's a lot going on and... shit, how many people do you think Cloud killed just getting out? Smart money's on 'all of 'em.'"

"Maybe they won't notice for a while," said Tifa.

"Rude will. Or Elena or something. Do you think they'd go to the cops?"

"No idea." Tifa opened one of the ovens in the back and yanked out the oven racks before stuffing the cooler into it. She opened another oven next to it and reinstalled the racks into the second one. "Don't let me forget which one that is," she said.

"It's not like we can go back for the body," said Yuffie. "And in the meantime they'll just ask more questions... do you think he had a girlfriend?"

"Probably at least one," said Tifa. "We can't worry about that now. We don't know if that thing is still there, and anyone we tell might think we did it, and..."

She sighed heavily. "Reno was right. Something's going on here. I just -- I don't know what. None of the pieces go together." She sank onto a stool and began fixing herself a drink. "What do you think that thing was, anyway?"

"I didn't get a good look at it," said Yuffie, now expectantly looking out the windows that hadn't been boarded up. "Too busy running."

"It... it looked like the air was... broken," she said. "It looked wrong -- I mean... it felt like it looked wrong. It didn't actually look like anything. I could only see where it wasn't, and that's also where it was at the same time." She paused. "At least, I'm pretty sure that's what did it. It... it was weird. We never heard him scream or anything. He must not have seen it coming."

"...Do you think Cloud might've had something to do with it?" suggested Yuffie, looking at Tifa as though expecting to be punched for suggesting it.

"What?"

"It sounds an awful like the sort of thing he or... or Sephiroth could do," said Yuffie. "The not-magic stuff. Something being there in a way it shouldn't be. Every time something like that happened, it was always... well..." Yuffie paused, uncertain of what to actually call the strange set of phenomena that seemed to follow Cloud and Sephiroth around. The things just a bit stranger than moving something without touching it. Things nobody should have been able to do. "I mean, they never did like each other in the first place. The timing's pretty convenient, too."

"Maybe," she said noncommittally. She took a few large swallows of her beer.

She didn't even know the explosion was Cloud for sure, either. She didn't know anything. She plucked the phone behind the bar out of its cradle and dialed his number, waiting with bated breath. If he were out, he would take his phone with him, wouldn't he? Unless he were smart enough to leave something that could be so easily bugged behind. Unless he didn't consider it. Unless he did take it, and there were no bugs. Unless, unless, unless.

Cloud's voice sounded through the tiny speaker after the sixth ring, and her heart skipped a beat.

"Strife Delivery and Repair. I can't come to the phone right now, so, uhhhhhhh... just leave your name and phone number, and I'll, um. I'll call --"

Tifa hung up without bothering to leave a message, tossing the phone aside in frustration. Then she stared at it for a while longer. Perhaps she could call Rude? Maybe Rude would know something, somehow? Or maybe Cid would know something about all of this -- he'd recognised those holes in the wall after all, and...

Worthless. All of it, worthless, and in the meantime she just had to sit here as everyone she knew just bled out somewhere while she just sipped her beer.

Tifa drained her glass with a few deep chugs. Yuffie watched her worriedly for a few moments, then sighed and poured her own drink.

The radio sitting on the back counter was off, but she watched the little digital clock display slowly tick by. One hour. Two hours. Three. She had done something very much like this three years ago -- waiting for a knock at the door, assuring her that Cloud would come back, that there was a perfectly rational reason for him to not be answering his phone, and dreading in the back of her mind that she would never see him again --

Yuffie suddenly tensed up next to her, and a second later she realised why. Cars, fast approaching them.

It was a government car, from the looks of it, that pulled up in front of the bar a few minutes later. They really had coopted everything, then. The WRO, the police... she stared at the entrance of Seventh Heaven for a while as a professionally-dressed woman knocked on the door. She didn't really want to answer it, but they still hadn't fixed the windows yet. She didn't want them kicking down her door as well.

"Can I help you?" she said politely as she pulled open the door. "I was just about to get to bed."

As expected, they filed inside. "Ma'am, forgive the intrusion, but we have reason to believe you're harbouring a fugitive."

"I don't recall giving you permission to be here," said Tifa flatly. The idea was just to make things frustrating for them. She figured they'd probably let themselves in regardless, given the circumstances. If Cloud were to flee to anywhere, it'd be here.

So then where was he?

They began to search the house. She forced herself to not even think about the oven.

"What fugitive would you happen to be looking for?" she asked. "This is just a bar --"

"Approximately three hours ago, Cloud Strife escaped federal custody, injuring fourteen officers in the process," said the woman. "We have reason to believe he may have chosen to hide himself here. You're a close associate of his, are you not?"

"He's not here," snapped Tifa, even as she felt something in her chest clench upon hearing it confirmed. "I haven't seen him since you dragged me off the last time."

"Miss Lockhart, we need you to be cooperative. It's vital for both his and the public's safety that we recover him as soon as possible."

"Well, he's not here," said Tifa. "See for yourself."

"Do you know anywhere he could potentially be hiding?" said the woman, this time turning to Yuffie. "Is it possible he may have fled to Wutai?"

"I don't see that happening, unless you know how he somehow wound up on the other side of the world in the span of three hours," said Yuffie flatly, as the men that had been with her came back from downstairs, pistols still drawn.

Something flashed across the woman's face. "Well... yes, naturally. I suppose you're right. If you do see or hear from him, please call this number immediately," she said, handing her a card. "As we mentioned before, he's very ill. We're only here to help."

"I'll keep that in mind," said Tifa coldly as she led them out to the door.

"So --" Yuffie began, before Tifa shot her a glare and held her hand up to her lips. She ripped off a piece of paper from the receipt printer and wrote BUGS on it, then showed it to Yuffie.

"...I guess this means he's okay," finished Yuffie, tapping her wrist.

ONE HOUR, wrote Tifa. "Yeah. I'm not too worried. We all know he's had worse."

"Anyway," said Yuffie. "Like I said before, I've been thinking about getting a cat. There are a whole bunch on the cat side of town. I might just take one from there if I can find one that likes me."

"Does nobody live in those buildings yet?" asked Tifa, doing her best to sound interested.

"Not yet. I'm thinking, like... a tabby, maybe? Or one of those really big fluffy ones. They're technically an invasive species from Nibel, but they look so dignified."

The wait was agonising as they pretended to talk about cats. She let Yuffie do most of the talking, since that was always something she'd been good at, but she could hear the stress of the wait cutting into her voice as well. Frequently she found herself checking the radio as the numbers slowly, slowly counted up more and more.

The minute she was certain it had been long enough, she immediately strode over to the phone and began dialing a number.

The first call went to voicemail. The second time, Jessie picked up, already sounding panicked.

"Why are you calling this late? Is he dead? Gods, he's dead isn't he, I shoulda --"

"Nobody's dead, Jessie," said Tifa as calmly as she could. "I've just been having a really hard day. I thought we could talk about it."

"Talk? What -- Tifa, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, as she motioned to Yuffie to check upstairs, just in case. "Just... it's really lonely here, you know? Maybe you could stop by and visit. Yuffie and I are here. Maybe you could make us something to eat. Show off a new recipe or something."

"...Yeah? What are you in the mood for?" said Jessie slowly. She was a terrible cook. They all knew that. It was one of the first things they'd bonded over.

"Something fancy," said Tifa. "I dunno if I'll have all the ingredients here that I'd need, and I don't want to screw anything up by just trying it myself."

"You got it," said Jessie. "Lemme get dressed. I'll be there soon."

Fortunately, Jessie lived close enough by to where Tifa didn't have to wait for too long. She did not say a word as she arrived, instead setting her bag down on the couch and removing an old, battered bug detector she'd had since joining Avalanche. Nobody dared to speak as they watched her slowly move from room to room. Eventually she picked up the wall phone in Cloud's room and began slowly dismantling it.

In the end, she removed a very small microphone and shorted it out with a quick spark, and Tifa let out the breath she'd been holding for the last fifteen minutes.

"Give it here," said Yuffie. "I wanna be sure."

Jessie obliged, and Yuffie set the microphone on the floor and crushed it under her heel.

"Okay, so first of all, you're gonna tell me why your damn phones were bugged, and then you're gonna tell me why you called me this late, and --"

"You didn't hear?" said Tifa puzzledly.

"You know I don't keep up with the news, Tifa --"

"No, I mean... literally. You didn't hear that explosion a couple hours ago? Get a visit from the WRO or the feds or anything?"

"...There was an explosion?"

"How did you not notice?" said Yuffie, staring at her in disbelief.

"I was asleep," said Jessie, sounding rather irritated. "So, no, I didn't notice any explosions of anything. What -- "

"Cloud got out," said Tifa, finally growing impatient, "and the WRO or... or whoever's running the WRO, I guess, showed up here, and they're looking for him."

"...Oh."

"But that's all we know," she continued. "Nobody knows where he is. The feds that were just here seemed to imply he'd be on the other side of the world by now, so there's something they're not telling us, but nobody has any way of contacting him right now."

"Except --" added Yuffie.

"-- except that Aeris woman, yeah," said Tifa. "If we can just -- just reach her or something... so, that's the plan."

"That barely counts as a plan," said Jessie, looking unimpressed.

"I know, but it's all we've got right now. Short of tracking him down ourselves on foot."

"Well, why not?" said Jessie. "We've done it before, remember?"

"That's when we had a compass," said Yuffie. "Nobody left magically knows where Cloud is anymore."

"We've got Nanaki. He's tracked stuff before," said Jessie.

"Not across the entire world," said Tifa. "Which -- I don't know, maybe he's still in Edge. He wouldn't just... leave, would he?" Even when he'd had the 'stigma, he'd stuck close by in the ruins, apparently unable to bring himself to abandon everything entirely. Cloud, who couldn't stand being alone, who'd latched onto her and Barret and the rest of Avalanche...

What could he possibly have to run to?

 

---

 

"I'm gonna miss these things," said Aeris, popping an allsort into her mouth for what was to be the last time for a while.

Two days, she'd been undergoing extensive training. Day one was nothing she hadn't covered before in the lead-up to this -- mostly just how to move around in the suit. Now that they knew they wouldn't be dealing with any extremes of heat or cold, she didn't have to wear as much of it as before, but there were still quite a lot of things to get used to. A single stray microbe could kill either her or Cloud instantly if one of them didn't have any natural immunity to it. Tseng and Lazard had drilled that into her about a hundred times by now, and even though it hadn't even been switched on yet, the thing in the centre of the sixth ring still made her anxious just looking at it, as though it were contaminated already.

Day two had been discussing diplomatic etiquette. Things she was and wasn't supposed to do. She'd exchanged a few questioning looks from Zack during this time, knowing she'd probably wind up discarding a lot of it due to extenuating circumstances.

She'd gone over their "plan" with him briefly. Officially, all they were supposed to be doing was talking things out with whatever government had Cloud in custody and would hope that'd be enough. The idea was to not say anything that could get her shot. Unofficially...

"Maybe you could steal a... key, or something?" said Zack. "Though you're not exactly inconspicuous, what with the suit and all."

"I don't know if they'd allow me access to him, if they won't even let his family in," said Aeris.

"We'll think of something when we get there, right?"

"Maybe. I don't know." She sat down in the chair they'd wheeled up next to the rats, where Zack had decided to say goodbye. Tomorrow they were sending the first one through to see if it lived.

You really shouldn't be encouraging this, she thought, as she watched him attempt to stick his finger into the cage. She couldn't stand the thought of petting something either Tseng or Zack would wind up killing, depending on which stage of the project it lived to.

"You're not having second thoughts, are you?" said Zack. "Bit late for that."

"No," she said decisively. "This was the entire point of going through all this, remember?"

Zack merely shrugged. "Awful lot of trouble considering you'll just wind up in a cell too. When you get there, I mean."

"Well, that's what you're here for," said Aeris, still watching him pet one of the rats. Something suddenly occurred to her.

"Why don't we just bring him with us when I leave?" said Aeris.

Zack stared at her. "I'm sure the higher-ups will just love that. 'Don't mind us, we just brought back a fucking alien with us. Have fun figuring out the logistics of any of this.'"

"Do you have a better idea?"

"Aeris, even doing nothing is a better idea than that. I mean... for starters, what would he eat?"

"He's human-adjacent. I had a turkey sandwich while I was over there."

"You heard Tseng, though, about the microbes. Just... look, after we get the first couple trips out of the way... maybe. Remember, this stuff is still technically CERN's. They've been keeping tabs on all of this. And there's everyone's respective governments to consider. I mean --"

Zack paused, then shrugged again. "...You get the picture. There's just too much going on, and right now we don't know for 100% sure that he'll survive the trip. Let's just... see how the rats do."

There was so much waiting involved in all of this. Waiting on approval from CERN, waiting on test results, waiting on computer simulations, waiting to see if Cloud was still coherent... she didn't sleep much that night and was up early the next day -- the day she was meant to move into the sixth ring in preparation for the trip. Her heart was hammering in her chest as she strode to the fifth ring for some last minute prep work on her own time while everyone was still asleep. Time had lost much of its meaning, with them spending this much time indoors, but it seemed to be very early in the morning.

She was surprised to see Zack already there, his face lit by the computer screen he was staring at with a blank expression. He didn't acknowledge her right away.

"...Zack?"

He jumped a bit, glancing nervously at her, before returning his gaze to the screen.

"Zack? Is something wrong?"

He didn't say anything. Not right away.

"I... this got sent this morning," he said, swallowing. His eyes darted between her and the screen. "I just read it now."

"Zack?"

She leaned over his shoulder, reading the email that had apparently been sent an hour and a half ago.

[This notice, addressed to the Gainsborough Extraplanar Research Team, is to inform you of an important staff change or changes which are to be implemented immediately.]

There has been a last minute staff change with regards to the second phase of the project. We have written to inform you that Dr. Zachary Fair will be embarking to the discovered universe in place of Dr. Aeris Gainsborough. Dr. Fair has proved to be an excellent addition to the team and it is of the opinion of the Board of Directors that he possesses the skillset necessary to carry out the second phase to the satisfaction of the research team.

Dr. Fair has contributed greatly to the project and the second phase of the project would not be possible without his hand in designing the facility. He has been committed to this endeavour and has offered his full support from day one. We therefore can think of no one else better suited to test it out.

Dr. Gainsborough has been invaluable to the project, having created much of the framework for it from the ground up. Her contributions are vital to the field that she herself pioneered. While we have the utmost confidence in Dr. Fair's own research, Dr. Gainsborough has been deemed too vital to the future of the project should any unexpected incidents occur.

We hope you will all join us on congratulating Dr. Fair on his outstanding performance and contributions and wishing him the best of luck in the coming days.

Best Regards,

Agnès Moreaux

Director-General

"...I didn't know," said Zack. "I swear to you, I didn't know."

Aeris didn't say anything in reply. Her mouth suddenly felt dry.

"I -- I'm sorry," he said.

Aeris turned and walked back out of the fifth ring.

"I'm sorry, okay?! I didn't fucking know! You think this was my idea?!" Zack shouted after her, before he was cut off by the door sealing shut behind her.

She went back to her room and did not come out, even as she heard the others beginning to wake. She dug her nails into her pillow and bit back the urge to scream. She knew it was dreadfully unprofessional, to be acting like this, and that sooner or later she'd have to go back out and direct her project lest she face an HR complaint and be removed from it altogether, an outcome that she was suddenly reminded was entirely within the realm of possibility.

She was still angry. And angry at herself for being angry, and angry at herself for being angry for the wrong reasons, and angry for not being angry enough, and angry at Zack, and CERN, and Cloud, and her parents.

It was about discovery, wasn't it? That's what this was about -- what it had to be about, to justify any of this -- what had happened to Cloud, her whole life, everything. Did it matter who went that much?

Maybe it didn't. But she wanted it to.

She heard someone knock on the door. Presumably they had read the notice by now.

"I'll be out in a minute!" she called as neutrally as possible.

"We need you to oversee Fair's transition into the sixth ring," said Tseng's voice on the other side, "seeing as how you are still director."

"Yes. Of course," she said, clenching her teeth. She forced herself out of bed and opened the door to Tseng, who was watching her as impassively as ever.

"You appear to have heard the news," said Tseng as she walked past him.

"Yeah, I have," said Aeris shortly.

"And?"

She turned to him, glowering. "What am I supposed to say, Tseng? Am I supposed to congratulate Fair for stealing my life's work out from under my nose? Am I supposed to hate him for being more 'expendable' than me? Am I supposed to be fine with this? Am I supposed to fight it the whole way and jeopardise everything I've ever worked for?" Tears began to fill the corners of her eyes, but she refused to acknowledge them. "What -- what would you have me say?"

Tseng said nothing.

"Exactly," she said flatly. "There's nothing to say, so I'm not going to say anything about it."

She turned to leave again.

"I am truly sorry, for what it's worth."

Aeris was quiet for a long moment.

"...Thanks," she said eventually.

She didn't know if Tseng's apology actually made her feel better. She didn't think Zack's had.

But they were here to explore. This was supposed to be a happy occasion. She had to try not to let anything take that away from herself.

 

---

 

Aeris wouldn't look at him. He hadn't expected much else, but it still hurt to see happening. Zack found himself hovering around her, mouth opening and closing like a beached fish, trying to come up with something to say. Suddenly she turned to address him directly.

"You're familiar with the procedure, yes?" she said plainly. Zack internally grimaced at how formal it suddenly sounded, in contrast to the last few days.

"I -- yeah," he said nervously. "I mean, from the other end, but --"

"Good," she said, cutting him off. "You've got five minutes to shower while Lazard and I get things ready."

This really was it. No turning back now. And she wasn't going. She would never be going, ever. He was going instead. The hot water of the shower did nothing to ease the knots of stress built up in his shoulders.

Lazard looked up at him from inspecting the airlocks as he entered the fifth ring.

"Was there something you needed?" he asked.

"No," said Lazard. "Angeal and I have simply been talking. We hope this won't impair your judgement in any way."

"Look..." he sighed, rubbing his neck, "we've been given a job, and we've gotta do the job, right?"

"...Why, yes, that is the answer I wanted to hear," said Lazard dryly. "How did you know?"

"You don't have to be an asshole about it."

"I'm not."

"You are, and I really don't need to be talked down to right now," said Zack, steeling himself as the airlock slid open. He didn't want to know if Aeris was watching him or not. None of it really mattered either way. He needed this.

"I didn't forget the plan," he said, just a bit loudly. He couldn't risk another look at Aeris to make sure she heard it, and that was probably for the best anyway.

He stepped into the airlock, and the door slid shut behind him, trapping him inside. He removed his uniform and placed it in a compartment on the wall, where it was to be incinerated.

The decontamination process he went through in the next room was similar to the one he'd undergone upon entering the facility, but it was quite a bit more thorough. While the majority of it took place in one room, the sterilising agents he was doused in were a lot stronger, if the smell was anything to go by. There was another bright flash of light as top layer of his skin was burned off, and another chemical shower, before he was finally allowed to proceed through the last airlock, collect another uniform, this one having been specially treated, and enter the sixth ring.

It was a bit of a misnomer to call it a "ring", given it was mostly just a circle at the centre of the facility. There wasn't much inside it; a simple bed, not yet made, its components still packed away in plastic; a compartment full of identical uniforms, each made of a different, cheaper, more disposable material than the ones he'd been wearing before; a larger compartment full of rations, these ones presumably much more basic and tasteless than the ones they'd been eating already; a first aid box, filled with emergency medical supplies and sealed behind glass; a sophisticated-looking hazmat suit which he slipped into with some difficulty (and noticed that it was just a tiny bit small on him with a pang of guilt); and a door to the other half of the room, inside of which was another, smaller chamber, sealed and (almost) ready to be used.

Zack tried not to think about the fact that, technically, there was a non-zero chance of him walking into that chamber and never coming back out if his suit ripped or something, and proceeded to a switch on the wall and flipped it. One of the walls, a large glass observation window, went from black to transparent, and he saw the rest of the team watching him expectantly.

"How are you feeling?" said Lazard's voice over a speaker. Aeris herself wasn't saying anything, but she was looking through the glass at him with an odd expression on her face that for some reason didn't seem aimed at him for once.

"Pretty good," said Zack. "Air pressure seems normal. Nothing busted on this end." A camera flashed at him from behind the glass. Of course. CERN would want photographs of the big day.

He chanced another look at Aeris again, who was looking away.

They continued going over security and health checks, with Zack confirming or denying as needed, his thoughts still miles away. It occurred to him he was basically meeting a stranger. He'd seen the transcripts, and he had a grainy photograph to go by, but Aeris had been the one that had spoken with him for weeks. Hell, he hadn't even seen the entire transcript, given Aeris had been cutting stuff out. There wasn't really time to ask her anything he needed to know in secret anymore.

It wasn't as if, "Hey, cheer up, I'm only here because they don't want you dying horribly and you can go on and lead another bunch of people through a process you'll never get to participate in in the future one day!" was a comforting platitude for either one of them.

He realised that that was almost definitely what was going to happen, too -- Zack was just a precedent. It was almost enough to have him asking to be let back out, and to demand a retraction from CERN, but...

...he needed this.

"First rat's coming in," came Lazard's voice, snapping him out of his train of thought. There was a compartment mounted on the wall: a glass cube that reminded him a bit of library book drops, but more tightly sealed. The "book drop" on the wall beeped, and he slid open the door to see a sealed cube containing one of the rats he'd been palling it up with for the last few weeks.

"You ready, cuz?" he said to it quietly. "You're takin' a big leap for ratkind here."

He opened the chamber in the centre and set the box down on the floor before re-sealing the door.

"Come back in one piece, you hear?" he said, though it was lost as a loud humming noise began to emanate from the chamber.

 

---

 

Cloud crouched against the rock he'd woken up next to, clutching his sword like a lifeline. He had come straight from realising he existed, was himself, to knowing he was alone, and unsafe. He didn't know how he'd gotten here. He knew that he was Cloud, and that something bad was happening to him, or was going to. He didn't know how he knew that. But something bad was going to happen. He was going to be hurting soon. Someone was going to hurt him. Maybe it was because he had ruined something. Something was going to hurt.

His thoughts scattered as soon as they formed as he tried to remember what he'd been doing before this. He was outside. He was him was outside, because he was with -- Tifa. Jessie. Barret. They were usually with him? Why weren't they here now?

The sword he had wasn't the Buster Sword. It looked like it, but it wasn't it. He needed the Buster Sword. It was important to him. He couldn't remember why, but he knew it made him whole. He had to find it.

His number was gone. Where was his number? He needed his number. He was nothing without his number. His number was proof that he was something at all. He dropped the sword he'd been holding, clutching his wrist to himself, rocking back and forth. Where was his number? Someone had given him a number.

Hojo. Hojo had... he'd killed Hojo. It had hurt to do. Hojo was the one that had made him something. He hadn't wanted to do it. But he'd needed to, because... the Planet. It was dying, and they'd... yes. They'd killed Hojo, and then Lucrecia had come, and she'd been more infested with Jenova than he had, and she'd looked at him, the way he'd always dreamed of her looking at him...

He still remembered vividly, the way her twisted, ruined body had curled around him, even though one of her claws was embedded in his gut. She'd lovingly caressed his face, and tears had welled up in his eyes, from pain or joy or maybe both, and she sang Mother through their blood, and she'd said...

Cloud blinked. That's right. It was all nonsense. She didn't want him after all. Maybe that was why his number was gone now.

Cid's spear had punched through her eye from the back of her head after that, and it had been enough for him to get away before finishing her off. He'd wanted to be the one to do it. He told the others that since Sephiroth took his mother, it was only fair he took his. Everyone had known it was bullshit. Cloud wasn't even sure he knew the real reason himself. Not that it mattered much, after Meteor had fallen...

Meteor had already fallen. He lived with Tifa in Edge, didn't he? So why was he here?

He'd had another episode, he realised, retrieving his sword -- his sword, the one he'd made for himself -- and putting it back in his harness as he began to pack up his sleeping bag. It still smelled a little of Ms. Suk. He'd have to remember to thank her for...

It all came rushing back, as it always did. He was Cloud, who was running from Edge because of the voices he was hearing. He was alone.

He'd woken up all by himself, he realised. His family would be so proud if they knew. He'd only ever managed that twice.

Another couple minutes of packing up gave him time to get his bearings. He hauled his bag back over his shoulder again and scattered the remains of the fire pit he'd made, then set back out on foot again. It had been three days, he'd been out here. Every second had been punctuated by an acute sense of dread and anxiety. He wanted to talk to someone about it, but of course there was no one around, and that just made it all worse.

Sometimes he'd sing to himself to keep himself company, though he hadn't done anything like that in years, and he still couldn't really remember the words. He really did miss that radio.

He'd gone back to eating rabbits, mostly. There were a couple roots and grasses that he recognised as edible here and there, from his days on the road. Yuffie taught him that. He remembered her taking him aside one day, and telling him how obviously he was a moron and it was up to her to keep him from starving to death if he ever got separated from the group. Cloud had rolled his eyes and crossed his arms and called her a little brat (and worse things in his head), but he had still listened to every word. He always had to wait for her to offer them, though -- god knows how she would have reacted if she knew he was interested and wanted to spend more time with her anyway. He scolded himself for the thought. He knew how she would now, obviously. She'd say yes, because they were friends, and she liked him.

But maybe she might not have. What then?

He'd tried to exchange knowledge with her about how to set snares to catch rabbits and find edible berries and mushrooms, to prove he wasn't a moron, it had just been a long time since he'd had to catch his own food was all, but there were strange holes in his knowledge where he knew lessons should be. Lessons from Ma.

They were still good lessons. And he remembered them, too. He wished Yuffie was here to see this.

Still uncertain of where exactly to go, he followed the stream he'd been camped alongside, tossing the bones of the rabbit he'd caught last night into the water. He wouldn't get far on foot, and he knew for a fact there was a bevy of chocobos a bit further to the west. Or at least there had been last time he was out here. He'd always had a way with chocobos, and contrary to what everyone kept insisting it was not just because of the hair. Honestly, some people.

He could do with the company, at any rate. Anything to distract him from the fact that for all he knew, he was never going to see his family again, and it had been nearly impossible to make the one he had now, so who knew if he'd ever hit it off that well again with anyone else for the rest of his life, it was no wonder nobody could stand him before --

Cloud picked up the pace, as though that would help. Maybe if he spent too long away from them, they'd realise how much better off they all were without him, and when he came back one day they'd tell him to leave again. Maybe he would come back, and Tifa would have a boyfriend that knew how to talk to her, and he'd probably be taller and confident and nicer and less afraid and could grow a beard and father children like a proper man could, because he still didn't know why someone like Tifa had picked someone like him when she could have had anyone she wanted, and Barret would tell him that since he'd left Marlene had been doing better in school and how he'd never really forgiven him for taking her school money and was only tolerating him because there wasn't any other choice, and Yuffie would realise how much neater her flat was now that she had time to devote to herself instead of stopping by every few weeks to wipe up his drool, and Jessie would tell him she'd had time to reflect on what a terrible person he'd been to her even before they'd dated, and who did he think he was kidding, thinking he could appease her by bringing her scrap metal and broken down computers, and Cid would tell him he was nuts if he thought he was actually serious about letting him spend time on his couch, that he was just joking and Cloud should have realised how obvious that was and shouldn't go around assuming, and Reeve would laugh at him for being so damn gullible, every time, and Nanaki --

He couldn't stand the thought of Nanaki not liking him. He stopped running. He couldn't breathe. No one would ever want him again. Nobody would come find him. He was going to die here alone. Nobody was coming for him.

He missed his number. It was as though he'd lost his entire hand, instead of just some skin and a tattoo. It was a reminder that he was wanted, was valued, had succeeded at something. Now he had to remind himself of that, and it was so much harder. Especially now. Was it bad that he missed knowing what he was and being content with it? Objects didn't have to worry about what they were or what their purpose was the way people did.

It wasn't as though he'd ever been much good at being a person, anyway.

A strange pressure went through his body before letting up a moment later, and he looked around in a panic, reaching for his sword. He felt as though he were being watched. Something wanted in.

The air in front of him warped, as though the world were little more than a projector screen with something moving behind it, and an object fell out of the air in front of him and landed at his feet. Some sort of glass box, with an electronic panel on the side.

Inside the box was a rat, which was now looking at Cloud and squeaking in alarm. He picked up the box in confusion as the panel on the side emitted a mechanical hiss.

He stood there for a moment, then sat down, watching the rat for what felt like hours. There was something strangely calming about staring at it this way. He felt less alone. Perhaps because it was the first piece of civilisation he'd encountered in a while that didn't want to kill him. Whatever the reason, there was something calming about just sitting in front of the stream, holding this box, watching the rat scratch against the walls as though trying to reach him.

Wait -- this was Aeris's doing, wasn't it?

He rummaged around in the grass until he found a rock, which he smashed against his sword to create something a bit more jagged than the smooth stones that lay around the stream, already worn round by the water.

"Try not to freak out too much," he told the rat, and he liked to imagine it did calm down a little as he began to carve a few words into the surface of the cage. He wasn't sure if they could read them, but it was better than nothing.

The rat continued to watch him. He watched it back, his fingers gently trailing along the surface of its container. He lost track of how much time he spent, just sitting there, watching it groom its fur. Probably not a healthy amount that normal people would do.

He felt the pressure again, and he quickly set the box down in the grass again a moment before it seemed to "fall" back into nothing, taking his message with it:

HELLO

I MISS YOU

-CLOUD

Hopefully they wouldn't mind too much.

Chapter 23: Very Good Bird In This One! A Quality Chakker! A Proud Girl! Wow!

Notes:

Getting close

Hoo boy

Still, we're not quite there yet, and there are still some clues we're missing that need to be introduced before things can really get out of hand like I want them to.

Special thanks to Larissa for beta'ing this and Sanctum_C for the feedback, but also thank you to limbostratus for giving me the scientific rundown on geology for idiots for a single throwaway line that no one will even notice. But I would have noticed. I would have.

"I mean... is a half hour long enough?" asked Zack, uncomfortably glancing at the door to the gateway chamber where he'd left the rat.

"Should be," said Tseng. "Any harmful radiation that might be present will have had enough time to have a noticeable effect."

Zack looked guiltily at the chamber again at the thought of "Remy", as he'd taken to calling him in his head, slowly having his organs melted on an alien planet. Then again, the entire point of this was to ensure the same thing wouldn't happen to him, but...

"Bringing it back now," said Aeris. Zack kept his eyes on the door. He didn't really want to see if she was looking at him right now.

A light on the door flashed green, indicating the object they'd send through had been returned successfully, but Zack didn't move to retrieve Remy yet. He waited as the box was thoroughly decontaminated, which took another five minutes. About halfway through, the light changed from green to yellow.

"Is that normal?" asked Cissnei. Zack hesitated, then nodded.

"It means the contents have been tampered with. It's pretty sensitive equipment, so it could be nothing, but it's still better to be sure. Even bringing back a twig or a dead bug it landed on could unleash some zombie death plague."

"If we did kill a bug, doesn't that technically mean we've doomed everything?"

"Well, if that's the case, we already crossed that bridge with the whole truck thing," said Zack, then immediately regretted it. Read the room, moron, he told himself as he received a disapproving glare from Cissnei (he still couldn’t quite bring himself to look at Aeris), then went back to waiting for the readings from the air sample they'd taken.

"Radiation levels are negligible. Maybe 300 becquerels annually," said Zack, frowning. That was definitely well within the safe range -- lower than Earth's even -- but it did raise a lot of questions about why the levels of background radiation they were picking up were so low. They'd seen firsthand there were other stars, and they clearly had a sun similar to Earth's own... perhaps there was some environmental deterrent?

The atmospheric pressure seemed only slightly lower than their own, and atmosphere seemed breathable as well, not accounting for bacteria that could very well kill them. Still, it was good to know that in a worst case scenario if he were stranded and ran out of oxygen, he wouldn't die immediately from taking off his suit to breathe.

Of course, that would leave him extra stranded, since it's not like they could ever allow him back if he got infected by something...

Zack forced himself not to think about it. It was happening either way. He might as well be positive about it.

"Temperature's 293.19143 Kelvin," he said. "Not bad. Kinda chilly."

“Says the man from Hawaii,” said Angeal. “That’s barely below room temperature.”

"Not bad" was an understatement, considering what a huge deal it was to discover an Earth-like planet in another world. Another thrill of excitement went through the team, and for a moment it was almost like it was in the beginning; no drama, no complicated moral quandaries, just the drive to discover and the joy of pioneering a mission that was the first of its kind. But...

"Hold on."

Zack finally opened the door and frowned. Remy looked fine, and he let out the breath he'd been holding on the sight of it anxiously pacing around the interior of the box, but the surface looked damaged. Or -- that wasn't right. It was too deliberate to be just impact scratches... yes, that was an E, and that was an O... a couple letters he didn't recognise. One he was pretty sure was from an Earth language, though he couldn't recall which one. Was this the writing Aeris had been attempting to transcribe this entire time?

Though now that he was looking at it, what was clearly printed below all of it was a very blocky, uneven etching of the word -CLOUD.

Looking more closely at the box, he could see traces of some sort of mineral embedded in the surface, apparently from whatever had been used to scratch in the message.

He held the box up to the window wordlessly before slotting it back into the library box, as he'd privately dubbed it. Tseng was already getting a pair of gloves and a set of tweezers to run the extra sample they'd unwittingly gathered before he was practically bowled over by Cissnei.

"This is it? The language?" she said, staring at it in awe.

"I guess so," said Zack. "Sure looks like one, anyway." He finally forced himself to look up at Aeris. "You can read this stuff, right? Any idea what it says?"

"...Apart from the name, not really," said Aeris. "'Hi', if I had to guess. I can't actually read it. It always just filtered into English for me. Thought I mentioned that," she added a bit irritably.

"How can you just not read it? You've been looking at this stuff for weeks."

"Three days," said Aeris. "And I just said it looked like English to me."

"This one looks just like a heta," interjected Cissnei nervously, "but some of these look like Roman lettering. Maybe it's a sort of pidgin construct. He did say it was called Standard Continental."

"See, this is already the first solid evidence we've had for anything," said Zack. "How come you never asked him about this stuff?"

"Fair," said Angeal in warning.

"I was a little distracted by the entire history of the world I was being frontloaded with and the fact that our contact is locked in an insane asylum," she snapped.

"Er..." Cissnei looked nervously between them.

"Well, you could've just said that instead of biting my head off."

"You ought to be paying more attention, given how important this is," said Aeris with a definite edge to her voice. "Regardless of how late you were signed on --"

"And now you're bitter I've swooped in and taken your job, so --"

The words were out of his mouth before he realised it. He stopped himself mid-sentence, staring at Aeris, whose expression had hardened. Her fists clenched and her eyes shimmered a bit. Before he could say anything else, she turned on her heel and strode away.

"I'll be in the lab," she said as she vanished behind the door. Tseng gave him a rather stern look and turned to leave with the box, Cissnei reluctantly trailing behind after it.

That left Zack with Lazard and Angeal. Zack sighed heavily and sat down on the bed after getting out of the suit and back to his living quarters, not bothering to unwrap any of the dressings.

"Like we weren't all thinking it," he said halfheartedly. Too late. It was a shitty thing to say and he'd said it anyway.

"If she doesn't file an HR report, I might," said Lazard bluntly. "I don't know what you'd call that, but it's sure as hell not helping anything right now."

"I'm sorry, alright? It's not like this was my idea."

"I'm not the one you need to apologise to," said Lazard.

"She wouldn't accept it," said Zack. "There's literally nothing I could say that wouldn't make it sound worse than it already is."

He unwrapped a pillow and wadded up the plastic, not yet throwing it into the hole in the floor that would serve as the trash. It emptied into an incinerator, where the ashes would be chemically treated and then burned again for good measure. Nothing in, nothing out.

And yet here you are, he thought to himself.

This whole situation was a goddamn mess, even before they'd known about Cloud. Something like this, there was no way it wouldn't inevitably be tinted with some sort of politics. Even the moon landing was in response to escalating conflict with the Russians. You could launch missiles from satellites, after all.

It would have been nice if this project could remain untainted as well, but he wasn't naive enough to assume this was all just for the benefit of mankind. And here he was, enabling it. It was what had gotten him here in the first place, though, so it's not like he could complain. At least, not vocally. He laid back on his bed, staring at the lights set into the ceiling, watching the little green afterimages of it burn themselves into his retinas.

"You'll know it when you see it..."

"Sorry?"

Zack jumped a bit as Angeal addressed him. He hadn't realised he'd said anything out loud.

"Nothing," said Zack. "So, I've rethought my earlier stance, vis-à-vis aliens."

"...I don't follow," said Lazard, exchanging a look with Angeal, who merely shrugged.

"Oh, right, you weren't there for that," said Zack. "Would you stick it in an alien? And now I'm thinking, I dunno, maybe."

Lazard gave him a weary look. Angeal merely rolled his eyes.

"Good to know you have your priorities in order," said Lazard, "since this is the most historically significant discovery in the history of mankind."

"Lazard, they look like humans. You totally could have stuck it in an alien, and you'd never know."

"That's an interesting observation you've made," said Angeal. "Perhaps you'd like to share that with Aeris. I'm sure it would brighten her day to know this is the bold new direction the project has chosen to go in."

"...Sorry," muttered Zack. He had a point, but it did kill the conversation, and he was forced to go back to staring at the ceiling. "...Hey, actually --"

"Fair, I swear to god I will have you personally removed from the project," said Lazard. Come to think of it, he hadn't cared for Zack's attempts at conversation when they'd gone through decon together. He hadn't been this grouchy, though. Had he? Zack liked to consider himself an expert on the behaviour of the human animal. He'd been too distracted to make any proper observations lately, it seemed.

"No, listen -- they look like humans, right? Do you think they've been here before? If they interbred, how far back they might've done it... I mean..."

Lazard's irritable expression was replaced with a more contemplative one. "...Hard to say. There's a lot of conspiracy theories out there... from what they've mentioned, we seem to be ahead of them in terms of space flight. I wonder why."

"That explains the computers," said Angeal suddenly. "Why it all seems to be behind as well. No space race, no rapid miniaturisation of computers. No smart phones, no internet."

"They have cell phones, though," said Lazard. "So there was something. And now we enter upon the Prime Directive dilemma."

"We're a little bit late for that, don't you think?" said Angeal.

"The prime what?" asked Zack, while Angeal rolled his eyes and Lazard looked at him in disbelief.

"The Prime Directive, Zack. From Star Trek," said Lazard. "What kind of doctor are you?"

"One that wasn't big on sci-fi. Not me, not any of my friends. We did this cool thing called 'going outside.'"

Lazard looked too scandalised to continue, so Angeal filled him in instead. "It refers to a policy of non-interference. But I was specifically mentioning the sharing of technology."

"Personally speaking, I really do think we should get a few more details on whatever they're doing to get someone out of the hospital in forty-eight hours following a three day coma and multiple broken bones," said Lazard. "It's very hard to misuse medicine. Not impossible, but hard."

Zack swallowed. "I mean... I guess we can ask once things sort of... calm down a little right? Get in contact with someone else? But who knows when that will be?"

"Soon, I would think," said Angeal. "Is that not the reason we're sending you over?"

Oh. Shit. That was happening, wasn't it? That's why he was in this room.

He was saved from having to reply by Tseng reentering the room, his eyes wide. Even Aeris seemed to have cheered up a bit.

“Those bits of minerals that were lodged in the gouges -- we ran an XRF test,” he said. “And it’s silica, but -- that’s about all we know. It’s -- well, clearly I’m not an expert, but… it’s a completely new substance. It looked like granite, so I’d assumed…”

“It was actually a mix of a few different types of rock,” said Aeris. “The ones it did recognise seemed to be sedimentary deposits.”

“No quartz,” said Tseng. “No granite, no feldspar, no -- no things one would typically think of when considering minerals. The soil we scraped off the bottom was the same way. Entire compounds, just… missing. Replaced with chemically similar ones I’ve never seen before.”

“Is that… is that good?” asked Zack, trying to sound as though he were following the conversation for Aeris’s sake.

“It means something is fundamentally different about the formation of the entire planet, and therefore maybe even fundamentally different about the laws of physics themselves,” said Aeris, actually looking pointedly at Zack. “I’m going to ask what.”

“Is that allowed?” asked Zack, before realising how it sounded and rapidly backpedalling. “I mean -- you know, with the… the stages…”

To his relief Aeris seemed to actually consider his question. Lazard spoke up.

“I think given the importance of what we’ve just discovered, they’ll understand if we make an exception,” he said. “Not to mention, I'm curious as to how he gained access to a sharp object and a bunch of potting soil while in a hospital room," he added, giving them a significant look as he allowed the implication to sink in. "While we’re on the subject, do you know what was scratched into that box?”

“Cissnei’s still looking at it,” said Aeris, averting her eyes again. “She’ll let us know when she’s ready.”

“There were fingerprints on the box as well,” said Tseng. “The decontamination seems to have destroyed anything in there, but perhaps we can ask for a DNA sample on a later date.”

“I… don’t think that’ll be happening for a while,” said Aeris nervously. “It’s a cultural thing.”

Zack blinked. This was the first even he’d heard of that. How much had she been cutting out of the transcript?

She walked away from his window, waving Angeal over to her to set up the tank. Zack quietly sighed and went back to setting up his new living quarters.

Shit, he wasn’t even gonna pretend like this didn’t suck. It did. The week he’d spent with Aeris had just been… nice. There hadn’t been anything to prove for once. That had always been the case before -- with the rest of his teammates on every team he’d ever made it onto, between everyone else in the field… it was all so performative. There was nothing performative about sitting on a couch watching a bunch of posh old women talking about cooking, eating strawberries, not worrying about what she’d think of him. He decided he was done caring and she was just… okay with it.

With Cloud, there would probably be a lot to prove all over again. He was a guy, for starters. Guys were all about proving who was “in charge” right off the bat. It was a lot more obvious in basketball meets, but guys in academia did it too. So that would be fun to deal with, all over again. Plus, the guy was former military, or a cop or something -- it wasn’t really clear. Zack had never been in the military, but from what he’d heard it was about a thousand times worse.

Aeris had said he was kind of high-strung. Mentioned something about assault charges, too. The man was probably a walking dick-measuring contest waiting to happen. The former military thing really didn’t make him feel any better about that fact, either. If he knew kung-fu or something, that might not be a contest he’d be able to win. Assuming he didn’t kill him right off the bat. It had taken Aeris long enough to get him to stop spitting venom at her. Zack didn’t like his chances.

Well, there was “just in case, you’re not as important to the project,” and then there was just setting him up to fail. Zack got up from his bed to watch the screen as Aeris began making contact, and tried not to think about the latter.

 

---

 

Cloud wasn’t quite ready for it when the shadows began to drag through the air again. He had another moment of panic as he dropped the ugly-looking roots he’d been holding, until the shadows faded. That wasn’t right, was it? Aeris said she wasn’t coming back until she visited in person. Was she here now?

He tried to look around, but found himself completely cut off from his body again as it flexed its fingers experimentally. Then something looked around for him, its confusion mirroring his own.

Cloud? Where are we?

...Aeris?

Yes. Who were you expecting?

Nobody. I thought you left.

He felt anger this time, and sadness, and immediately regretted asking.

Change of plans. You’ll… you’re going to be meeting a… coworker of mine. You can trust him, he’s in on the, er… the escape plan. Though you already seem to have managed that, so….

Aeris took a few cautious steps through the waist-high grasses he’d been wading through, inspecting what he realised must have been the first plants she’d seen since coming here in fascination.

...I escaped. I can’t go back anymore, he said.

Well, once I talk to them… that was the plan, right?

I can’t go back, ever.

When Aeris didn’t respond, he continued. I -- they’ll never leave me alone, he said, as long as I’m alive. It’s never gonna stop. They just want me locked up. They were gonna put me in a coma next, y’know. If I kept causing trouble.

Aeris was looking at the grass without really seeing it. …Are you sure? If I just…

I don’t know. I can’t go back to that. You… you don’t know what it was like, falling apart all over again. And Tifa… they’d look for me at Tifa’s, if they haven’t already. She deserves better than having to chaperone me all the time. It’s… this is for the best.

It’s not all bad, he added quickly. I like being outside. I’ll be fine like this.

...If you say so, said Aeris eventually. Would you say you’re an… an outdoor expert?

You have a question.

Maybe. Do you have an answer?

Maybe.

What did you use to write that message?

Oh! So -- you got it then, right? Could you read it? I don’t really know how it works.

I recognised your name, said Aeris. I figured it was for me.

It was, yeah. Just saying hi. He tried to shrug to show it wasn’t a big deal, then remembered his current predicament. I can’t move.

Oh! Sorry. There was a pause. How about now?

Cloud strained to crouch lower into the grass. Nothing happened. No. Why isn’t it working?

Well, I suppose this is the first time in a while I've checked in on you when you weren't completely out of sorts. Maybe...

Cloud would have gasped if he were capable as he felt something tap into his magic. The intrusion was clumsy and uncoordinated and wasn't the sort of directed push one did when trying to reach the Planet to call anything up.

What are you doing?!

Trying to fix this. You're going to have to trust me.

Cloud felt her root deeper into himself through the opening she had made as everything he was was torn open and shuffled through and laid bare. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened, but Cloud at least wasn't strapped to anything this time as it happened, and none of it vanished a second later either.

Instead, he felt himself twisted around the other presence, Aeris (he hoped, anyway), as she twisted deeper and deeper into himself until in spots it got harder to tell what was hers and what was his. He hoped she'd know.

Cloud dragged his hands over his scalp, still overwhelmed. What -- what did you do?

Well... it's a bit like the whiteboard, isn't it? Just -- a different whiteboard.

What the hell are you talking about?

Never mind that. You can move, can't you?

...Yeah, I guess so. He lowered his hands and sat down in the grass to get used to the strange intrusion. I was just... I was worried for a second.Thought you were gonna blow us both up.

Why would I do that?

You just about did, said Cloud. You shouldn't start to cast a spell unless you intend to go through with it. That's really dangerous.

Why, what would happen?

That’s anyone’s guess, said Cloud. The kind of magic I can do… you don’t have any experience, and it isn’t safe to --

Teach me, said Aeris almost immediately. Can you teach me magic? I don’t know what happened last time, but I promise I’ll try to keep it from happening again.

I --

You said you could teach a class, right? And how you wanted to be a… a wizard?

A mage, Cloud corrected. There’s no such thing as wizards.

...Huh?

Maybe, continued Cloud, not wanting to think about any particular crushed dream of his at the moment. Right now I’m trying to get a ride. They’ll catch up to me in no time if I don’t, and it’s not practical to sprint everywhere. He felt around in the grass before locating the vegetable he’d dropped and picking it up.

In the middle of a field?

Yeah. That’s what I’ve got these for, he said, giving the greens a shake. Gysahl. Not the best, and if I had my way I’d have a proper lure, too… but it should do. He tried moving forward again, and found that Aeris was determinedly holding still.

You’re not -- you’re not going to try and lure some wild animal towards you, are you?

Why not? I’ve done it before.

...Are you sure?

Well, I mean, sometimes you get the odd nesting female -- make ‘em mad enough, and those kicks can break bones. But I’ve done this before. Trust me.

Cloud felt his legs unlock as Aeris allowed him to move again, and couldn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes. He very slowly began walking forward, gently clicking his tongue.

What exactly are you looking for? You said you didn’t have horses. Or… or zebras or anything.

No. We’re looking for chocobos. You still haven’t really told me what a horse is. He could hear something rustling ahead, and willed himself to remain calm and still, keeping his eyes on the ground.

It’s… do you have any animals with hooves?

Yeah. Cows, goats, gighees, deer, a couple minor species of wyverns… do elephants count? They’ve got more… weird toes, I guess.

I -- There was another pause as she was apparently excited about something, or perhaps just writing something down. It was hard to tell with her. Well… I suppose imagine a cross between a goat and a deer, but taller and leaner, and with a longer face, and one big toe per foot, and no antlers, and a mane.

Yeesh.

Oh, please. You’re hardly in a position to talk, Mr. I’m-Just-Going-To-Casually-Throw-Out-Wyverns-Exist. What does a chocobo look like, then?

Like that, said Cloud, as the grass parted, revealing one suddenly looming overhead and making small, cautious snaps at the greens he was holding.

A big one. Almost twice as tall as he was. Female, judging from the crest. A rosy complexion to some of its feathers, which would hopefully mean it would be less averse to the smaller rivers he’d need it to cross soon enough. He slowly raised his arm, offering the greens more intently, holding his breath as he watched her head twitch at the movement before leaning in closer.

He heard a very soft Oh my god from Aeris as about a hundred and fifty kilos of muscle and feather stared at them with an eye bigger than his fist. Cloud held his hand still, allowing it to get used to his presence.

“Good girl,” he murmured. No sudden movements or loud noises. “What a good girl.” After another few moments, he risked a pat on the beak, and relaxed a bit as the bird pushed into his hand eagerly.

Can -- can I -- asked Aeris, transfixed.

I guess so. Nice and slow, though.

He felt his hand move involuntarily, rubbing its beak before snaking up to behind its crest. It seemed a bit early for that, and startling a chocobo at this point was a good way to lose a finger.

Wait -- he began to warn her, before the bird nudged against her hand, ruffling its feathers.

...Huh. Guess she likes you, he said. He felt his own face break into a wide grin.

“What a sweetheart,” said Aeris. “Such a beautiful girl. So pretty. Pretty bird.” The chocobo trilled eagerly, sitting down in front of her and yawning. A small, gleeful gasp escaped him, and Aeris sat him down next to the bird to continue stroking its feathers, clearly intent on commandeering this entire experience. “Did you know how beautiful you are? Wow. What a pretty bird.”

For the first time, it occurred to him how strange the whole thing was. He’d lost control of his own hands before. Had nightmares about being seconds away from plunging a blade into one of his friends, or even his own neck. He knew what it was like for someone to pull him open and rip away any control he might’ve had and not even realising it was happening until it was too late. And yet… here he was, his body at the disposal of someone he wasn’t even remotely strong enough to fight back against, smiling and curled up against a wild chocobo with the sun steadily warming his skin in between the chilly bite of the wind, forgetting he was alone as someone else was rooted so deeply into his own mind he could feel every little thrill of excitement that went through them as the greens disappeared bite by bite, little tears welling up in the corner of his eyes as, for some reason, he thought of ostriches.

This wasn’t so bad. If he had to disappear to anyone…

No. Focus. He needed to do this before the bird got bored and ran off again.

We’ve gotta get on now, he said, before something else occurred to him. Do you want to try?

Yes! Do I just get on? Will she shove me off? This isn’t someone’s pet, is it? Do you have a saddle anywhere?

No. They just don’t have a natural fear of people, usually. It’s sort of a double-edged sword, because sometimes idiots will get themselves mauled during nesting season, or they’ll wander into traffic, but… anyway, I’ve done bareback lots of times. We’ll be fine.

Oh my god, we’re bareback riding. Oh my god --

Are you okay?

Yes, absolutely. Tell me how to get on this thing.

Just… nice and slow. You’re gonna want to hold on across the chest so you don’t choke her when she gets moving.

Like this? Aeris very slowly eased them onto the chocobo’s back, and Cloud felt their hands shift to just below its neck. Are we too heavy? I thought ostriches couldn’t -- I mean… they’re sort of like ostriches. Do you have ostriches here? The sword is a bit much, don’t you think?

I -- we’ll be fine...

Are you magic? asked Aeris, still making crooning noises at the chocobo, which had begun to preen its chest. I mean -- bird-magic. How come it hasn’t shoved us off?

I told you, I’ve done this before. I guess I’ve always kind of had a way with chocobos. People say they’re kind of moody, but they’re really not that hard to get along with if you know what you’re doing.

Is it because of the hair?

...We can get off this bird right now, you know.

Touchy… so, now what?

Make sure you’re holding on tight, but don’t grip too hard with your legs or you’ll make it uncomfortable.

This is amazing. Are you some sort of horse-whisperer?

I don’t know what that is, said Cloud. Now hold on tight.

Aeris shifted again, and Cloud took a moment to make a couple minor adjustments to her posture himself. He’d reached about the end of what he could teach right now. Adjusting his legs again and settling them behind the wing joints, he gave the chocobo a squeeze with his ankles and carefully threw his weight into its neck. It warked loudly, pushing itself to its feet, and began to sprint in the direction it had been facing.

Aeris was grinning again, squinting their eyes as the landscape rushed past them, kicking up wind in their face. A wild whoop of excitement escaped them, and Cloud wasn’t really sure whose it was.

Can I name her? came the question after another moment.

I’d rather you didn’t, said Cloud. We can’t keep it. I don’t wanna get attached. I did try once, but… well, we can’t keep this one.

You had one of these things? What was its name?

Clair. You know, like the song?

I… can’t rightly say. Where are we going?

There’s a small network of streams further ahead that empty into a lake past Kalm. If I can make it to one of the islands off the coast, maybe… I don’t know. Something. I guess.

Aeris sat up very slightly, and Cloud adjusted his weight to allow her to do so without throwing them off the bird.

It’s really incredible here, she said.

I guess so, yeah. There wasn’t much to look at. Grass and some rocks. A mountain. A bunch of mandragoras shuffling through the grass in search of prey, which had him preemptively tensing up in case he heard anything. A flock of birds, the bright purple carnivorous annoying kind, wheeling overhead. I can probably show you lots better places when you make it here yourself. And if I’m not dead, I guess.

Their throat tightened, as did their grip on the chocobo, which gave an indignant squawk before Cloud forcibly loosened his legs.

That’s… no. I’m not coming.

Cloud nearly let go of the bird entirely. What?

I told you, you’ll be meeting --

Yeah, but… I mean, you’re coming too, right? I thought that was the whole plan.

...Not anymore. I’m not… I’m not allowed to go now.

...I thought you were visiting because of my message. Not because you just wanted to -- to come back here and --

Cloud, stop it. His vision had gone blurry again, and he realised that he was crying. Or rather, Aeris was.

You --

Just -- just don’t say anything, alright? Please.

...Aeris?

I don’t even know what I wanted out of any of this anymore.

Cloud went silent again as Aeris moved his hands, feeling the dirt under his nails from where he’d been digging around for the root. She buried their face in the chocobo’s neck.

The next half hour or so of their journey passed in silence. His eyes stung from the unfamiliar tears and the wind drying them out just as quickly.

He didn’t really know what to say to her. He was no good with people crying.

...Are you okay? he asked eventually. He remembered the breathing exercises Aeris had him doing in his cell and did his best to repeat it. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Nice and slow.

...It was my dream, she said, before seeming to backtrack just as quickly. I haven’t really talked about this before -- sorry --

It’s okay. What was?

Just -- this, and… and it isn’t fair. None of it is.

...I mean… I don’t want to judge, but dreaming about going to the middle of nowhere, and just… I don’t understand.

No, just… my parents always talked about doing this kind of thing for years, and… I mean, I wanted it too. I really did. There was --- I wanted see everything, and science was a way to do that, to where even someone like me could get to see the universe, and for the first time I was almost -- all of this work, it’s all -- I know how pointless it is, being upset over something like this…

Aeris hadn’t removed her face from the feathers she’d hidden it in, but it was a bit pointless as he felt every shuddering breath heave through his own body. And the sadness and the anger… come to think of it, he’d felt something like this before.

...I never made it into Soldier, said Cloud. I think I might’ve said that already, but… it was my dream for years. I thought... y'know, nobody really liked me, where I was from. I thought being in Soldier would impress them.

Aeris seemed to be listening. He wasn't sure how helpful any of this was, but it was the least he could do.

And I mean... I never made it. The mako gave me seizures, and I was too small anyway. And... it hurt a lot, knowing I was never gonna... that I wasn't ever gonna get to be that person that everyone liked. After that, I had to find a new dream.

So, what did you pick? said Aeris.

A mechanic, said Cloud after being uncertain for a few moments, and a good friend. I mean... it's not a lot, but it's enough for me.

Maybe, said Aeris, sounding disappointed. I don't know if I want to just settle down like that, though.

Cloud didn't reply. He'd had to think about his answer before, because the alternative was telling the truth: he really hadn't found a new dream after that. He hadn't known how. Not until he'd been given one, by Hojo.

It must be nice, knowing what you want to do with your life, said Aeris.

Cloud shrugged, not really wanting to reply to that either. He got the feeling neither of them were really comfortable with where the conversation had gone, so he went back to being quiet.

The landscape blurred past him as they rode in silence for several more minutes. The chocobo he was riding stopped to nibble at the grass on occasion, before Cloud nudged it onwards. It didn’t really feel all that quiet -- the steady hammering of the bird’s heart and its own heavy footsteps thundering out a steady rhythm gave him something to listen to, and between its presence and Aeris’s, it wasn’t all that lonely, either.

He allowed himself to slip off the chocobo’s back, rolling easily to his feet in a move that was apparently jarring enough to Aeris to catch her attention.

...I can try and teach you magic now, he said, straightening up and brushing off his pants as the chocobo sprinted off into the distance. The grass was still a bit wet from the nearby stream, which had presumably flooded recently.

What?

Magic. You said you were interested in it. I’ve never taught before, and I don’t have any materia, but…

Please tell me you’re not joking.

I'm not joking, said Cloud. I guess we can sort of pick up where we left off, if that's okay with you.

Yes, that's fine. Aeris's response was once again direct and to the point, but he could still feel the manic excitement just underneath. Could you start me off again? I want to do it right this time.

Finding a less swampy but still slightly damp patch in the grass and setting his bag aside, he sat down in the mud with his legs crossed, much to Aeris's displeasure.

Is this necessary?

Well, if you accidentally set us on fire, do you want to be sitting in the dry, flammable grass, or in the middle of a bunch of water and mud?

...Alright. Aren't you worried about getting sick?

I don't get sick. And I can always dry off later. He laid his hands across his lap and took a deep breath. Just... don't push it this time. Nice and easy.

A small flame sprang into being between his palms, and Aeris was grinning again with excitement. You feel that connection to the Planet? asked Cloud. Don't go straight through me, or straight through to the Planet. You pass through the spell, and then reach the Planet. You're forming a chain between yourself, that knowledge, and the Lifestream. You ever seen a dead frog get shocked and watch its legs twitch? Right now, you have to be the frog.

That's... charming. But I think I've got it.

Slowly but surely, he felt her press into the space where he'd been, wrapping herself around the memory of the spell. He gently began easing her into it, and there was the slightest hitch as she brushed even closer to him where he was surrounded by snow, with Cid helping him up another rock, and the little jolt he felt every time his hands brushed someone else's.

But when his vision cleared, his hands were still curled around a flame that he was casting but wasn't casting. It burned a bit brighter as he raised it up to his face to stare into it.

I'm -- I'm doing magic! The fire sparked and fizzled before vanishing with a loud pop, burning their hand. "Ow!"

Yup. Not bad for your first try, said Cloud, as Aeris automatically began sucking on their finger. Sorry, I guess I should've gone over the basics. See, all magic except summoning is on a spectrum between control and precision, and Black magic --

How does any of this work? asked Aeris. You told me what to do, and I knew how to do it, but... what exactly was I doing? We should start there.

You didn't -- sorry, I keep forgetting you don't have materia. That was my soul, interacting with the Lifestream.

There was a long pause from Aeris. What?

What part of that confused you?

...I promise I’m not trying to be rude, but… I really do need the verifiable facts for this one. I understand your religion may be important to you, but…

Religion?

Well, yes. That’s not to say we might have souls, but I really don’t --

Now it was Cloud’s turn to be confused. We “might” have souls?

Aeris sighed, pinching the bridge of their nose. Look, I’m really not trying to start a fight here. I just need -- let’s say, hypothetically, the soul is -- that it doesn’t figure into this --

But it does, said Cloud, now thoroughly baffled. You’re -- you’re a scientist, how do you not… they teach this stuff when you’re four. It’s -- it’s the Lifestream. It’s where we got mako from for ages. Like… have you not discovered yours? That’d explain the materia thing, at least, but… sorta hard to miss. It’s at the centre of your Planet. Or, it should be. Perhaps they just called theirs something different?

There’s no Lifestream at the centre of the Planet. It’s just a bunch of molten rocks.

No, there’s not, said Cloud, gritting his teeth slightly. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it. It’s the Lifestream. It’s where every living thing gets its soul from. And then when we die, it goes back and it gets recycled into something else.

You’re talking… reincarnation?

No, I’m talking souls. Reincarnation is a religious thing.

Well, we don’t have a Lifestream, said Aeris, because I’ve seen pictures of our planet’s core, sort of, and there’s no Lifestream, and souls are… I mean, that’s a complicated issue, isn’t it? I suppose we could, but that’s not a physical, tangible thing --

Yes it is, it’s six hundred and twenty gigajoules per human soul --

That doesn’t make any sense! said Aeris, who now had their lips moving along with her words in frustration. Look at literally any volcano. What do you call what it’s full of? Is that souls?

...Huh?

A volcano, Cloud. Explain that.

...What’s a volcano? he asked.

What’s a… it’s -- it’s a big mountain full of magma. You know, like… you’ve never seen pictures.

No. What’s magma?

It’s -- it’s molten rock at the centre of the… the Earth… Aeris had gotten them up to pace now, and Cloud was more lost than ever.

Have you ever heard of igneous rock? she asked.

Nope.

That explains the lack of granite, I suppose…

Don’t know what that is, either.

What -- so what you’re telling me, is that… that you definitely, for sure, have a soul.

Yes.

And that that lets you do magic. Because of some… some Lifestream. Which is an actual place you go to when you die. Am I correct?

Suddenly something seemed to fall into place for Cloud.

...Do you not? he asked.

No. No, the soul is more of a hypothetical concept, that… I -- I need to think about this.

So did he. Cloud was having a hard time figuring out the whole concept. Aeris didn’t have a soul. Nobody on Earth had a soul. Nobody had any connection to any sort of Lifestream.

It was a complete violation of… everything. Everything had a soul. Even trees, to an extent. Planets, in order for them to be in the first place. To just… exist, without being truly living… it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be possible.

How -- how are you alive? he asked, staring incredulously at his own hand now, and at the apparently dead-but-not-quite person somehow inhabiting them.

I -- I just am? We all are, there isn’t a… that doesn’t really figure into anything.

You don’t -- you don’t understand, that’s not -- you can’t be alive without a soul, that’s not how that works! Cloud wasn't sure which of them were pacing anymore, the muscles in their neck tense with restless energy. That’s not how anything works! What’s even keeping you up? You, that garden you said you had, your entire planet?

I… you know, cells, they… I’m not a biologist, they just… it just starts. No soul necessary. The core generates a magnetic field, since it’s mostly iron, I think --

It’s just rocks. It’s just all rocks and iron in there. How do you not all burn up? Do you guys just… did you at least run tests, so you’re sure there’s no souls in anything? You said you were humans, you all act like humans, I don’t…

Cloud kicked at a rock in frustration. The idea was simply too strange to wrap his head around. He thought perhaps they just didn’t have a need for mako energy, hadn’t harnessed magic yet, but to completely violate every single known law of nature…

...Can we go back to magic now? asked Aeris, forcing them to stop pacing. I’ve already written the things about you not having a molten core, and if I don’t keep in contact for long enough they get worried and they pull me out.

Sure. Great. Why not?

So… assuming that this is all real. This… soul business -- Cloud grunted in irritation -- what… what makes something magic and not? You said something before wasn’t actually magic. I don’t understand the difference.

...You really don’t have a soul?

Cloud.

Sorry… basically, fiddling around with any amount of energy uses up energy of your own. The Lifestream is where those phenomena come from, but it takes effort on your part to pull it up. And it all comes from the Planet in the end, right?

Yes, said Aeris, sitting them back down. Even turning people into frogs?

Even turning people into frogs. Though, any transformative materia are really hard to get ahold of, and they’re usually illegal.

What? Why?

It’s a lot easier to traffic large numbers of people against their will if they’re the size of a mouse, he explained, as he felt Aeris trying to rekindle another smaller flame. He watched with vague interest as it struggled to flicker into existence for more than a second, but even the little failed castings seemed to excite her. And obviously the destructive ones have laws against them in some places, too.

...Do you have any illegal materia? asked Aeris, suddenly losing interest in her tiny fire.

Well… not on me, no. Why do you want to know?

Magic is real. I want to see the most magic thing you can possibly do, said Aeris, practically vibrating with excitement. Legality be damned. And then I want to try it.

That seems like a good way to get myself killed. Or caught.

It’s not like I’m ever gonna get to see it in person, said Aeris, very intentionally looking wistfully out into the distance. I thought we were friends.

Cloud swallowed as his chest clenched painfully at the last word. That -- yeah, we are -- um --

Again, he forced himself to focus. Maybe she didn’t actually mean it. He didn’t care. He had a friend to impress.

...I’ll come up with something, he relented. But not right now, and you better not try it yourself. I wasn’t joking about getting yourself killed.

If you’re alive, he added privately to himself. He still couldn’t really wrap his head around… whatever she was. Maybe not a human.

But he wasn’t entirely opposed to that.

He spent a few minutes thinking about what to actually do. A summon would have seemed like the sort of thing, but quite a few of them would be seen for miles in every direction, and it wasn’t as though there were a lot of people it could belong to. He could do something very complicated and technical, but the whole point of things like that were making something very complicated look easy. Most people couldn’t appreciate what went into them as a result, so he doubted someone that had just learned about magic a few minutes ago would either. And between Aeris’s little bursts of excitement in his head and the pain in his hand, it was making it hard to focus on much of anything.

Cloud paused to look at the blister beginning to form on his hand. If it had just been a cut it would have been gone by now, but for some reason (and thankfully, when they’d been up against Jenova Herself) burns seemed to take a lot longer to regenerate than other injuries.

Do you wanna take a crack at healing? he asked, flexing his hand a few times to try and relax the muscles. If you’re gonna set me on fire again, it might be good to know how.

At… that was magic, too? I thought you said the hospital…

Well, yeah. There’s professional healers and stuff, he explained. Man, you really just… don’t have magic, do you?

Aeris did not immediately reply, leaving Cloud wondering whether or not she’d left. When she did finally speak up, there was a strange weariness to her words.

No. But… teach me everything you know, was her reply. Ready when you are.

A bit strange, but then so was everything else about all of this.

So… all magic is on a spectrum between control and precision, right? Black magic is on the control side of things. The thing that makes White magic White is that it requires less control, and a whole lot of precision. Lose control of a Black spell, and it can blow up in your face, sometimes literally, but all that magic still manifests into something, said Cloud. White magic, in contrast… it won’t do anything unexpected on its own most of the time, but it won’t do much of anything at all either unless you can direct it really specifically, and that requires a lot of precision. You have to know exactly what you’re doing before, while, and after you’re doing it.

What you’re saying is you’ve started me on the safety scissors of magic, said Aeris, a dour expression crossing their face. He wondered briefly how this must look to an outsider and began working to keep his features as blank as possible, something he’d been in the habit of doing a while ago anyway.

I mean, it’s technically safer, I guess, said Cloud. But it’s not like it’s easier. A badly cast Black spell will still get the job done, even if you take your own arm off with it. Badly cast White magic doesn’t do anything at all, and that can be even more dangerous, especially if you’re in a fight. And Black and White magic are both easier than Summoning, which most adults where I’m from can’t even do, so it’s not like I’m --

Relax, I’m sure you know what you’re doing. So, how do I… heal things? Is this really what they did at the hospital? How much can it fix?

Depends on the spell. The one I’ve mastered is good for flesh wounds and stuff. Broken bones, cuts, bruises. Burns, if they’re not too bad. Stuff where the tissue’s all in the same place, mostly, and it’s not full of chemicals that shouldn’t be there.

...Can you cure diseases with it?

No, said Cloud, not particularly relishing the memories that question brought up. There’s another curative spell that can deal with minor venoms and food poisoning. For actual diseases or viruses or anything, you need real medicine. Now hold on and let me get this set up for you.

It was a lot easier, readying the spell now that he was no longer heavily sedated. He let the connection linger, waiting for Aeris to feel her way towards it. As before, she began using him to direct the spell, this time focusing it towards his hand.

Just send it to where it needs to go, said Cloud, though she didn’t seem to need telling. Perhaps she had access to those memories, since they were technically part of what he’d absorbed from the materia. However, as he felt her work, he noticed a distinct difference. Cloud had never been much good at White magic, but this time it was Aeris’s mind shaping the energy, feeling her way around it in an analytical, almost mechanical fashion. Cloud watched as the burn on his hand faded away into fresh new skin. She hadn’t even left a scar.

He almost began to compliment her, but he hadn’t noticed she’d been winding closer and closer to him the entire time. The fact that she hadn’t been fighting against his own magic had masked it from him, but now she was too tangled, and for some strange reason he got the sense he was trapped somewhere small and dark despite the sun shining all around him, and as panic began to flare up in his chest he --

“Another fifty gil says he lands on his face.”

“No bet.”

Cloud rolled his eyes, ignoring the conversation going on behind him between Yuffie and Jessie, and rotated his shoulders a couple times to work the kinks out of them. He looked out into the distance for good point to spot himself with. The field they were standing in was a little muddy -- not ideal -- but at the very least it was mostly empty of rocks or roots or anything else he could trip over on the way for miles around.

Cloud bent his knees, jogged a couple steps, then launched himself into three backflips, an aerial cartwheel that he nearly didn’t land after slipping on a patch of mud, a backhandspring he used to cover his mistake, and a front flip that arched high into the air, where he tucked up and twisted around four times in midair, landing perfectly on his feet before dipping into a theatrical bow. Yuffie made a face in response to his smug grin as he walked back over to Jessie.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, Soldier First Class,” said Yuffie, drawing out the words just as dramatically. “Check this out.”

Cloud took his seat by Jessie, now uncomfortably aware that the rest of Avalanche had gathered around to watch at some point. He caught Tifa looking at them rather amusedly, and shrugged to show that this was just a comparison of techniques and not anything completely juvenile that had stemmed from Yuffie claiming he was too flat-footed to be a proper fighter, and Cloud telling her that she did entirely too many stunts and one day it was going to get her killed, and Jessie insisting she be the impartial judge.

There wasn’t much time to say anything else as Yuffie took off in a sprint, launching herself into the air. She couldn’t match Cloud’s height, but her routine was much more dense, with each jump blending into one another much more smoothly. Cloud knew from experience that going that quickly was a good way to make yourself dizzy, especially if you didn’t spot properly, which he doubted Yuffie was capable of. As she launched herself into a back handspring, he braced for when she would inevitably miss the dismount. He could see it happening as she fell, her legs were much too far apart with how close to the ground she was getting --

Cloud jerked and yelled as Yuffie came down out of the arc into a flawless split, locking eyes with him as his own legs clenched together involuntarily. Grinning wickedly, she climbed to her feet again and walked back to the enthusiastic applause of the rest of the group, which Cloud reluctantly joined in on.

Yuffie held out her hand, and Cloud slapped a couple bills into it. “I went easy on you, you know,” he said. He did. He could’ve jumped way higher. She was lucky it wasn’t practical to do that.

Maybe she was kind of good. He just wished she wasn’t so damn smug about it.

Gods, is that what I’m like to Barret? he thought suddenly.

Yuffie snapped her fingers in front of his face.

“Helloooo? You sure do space out a lot. You didn’t rattle your brain around in your thick skull too much, did you --

The sky was burning, the ugly red colour of an open wound. Tifa held her hand as they waited for the end. Barret's hand was draped across her shoulders, unasked for at long, long last, and welcome. Tears were steadily streaming down his face, but he was silent. His thoughts were likely in Kalm, with Marlene, who had been hidden there because it was meant to be safer. They had done everything they could, though. She might have been ready for death, perhaps. It wasn't fair that Marlene should have to be too. Tifa, too, was transfixed by the maelstrom of red light that began to shred the world beneath it. Tifa must have had things she'd wanted to do as well. It wasn't fair. But then, nothing ever was.

But it wasn't fair.

And it wasn't fair she had to be ready to die. That was bullshit. She wasn't ready to die, and no one else should have to be either. What a terrible thing to be, at this age. Of course there was more she wanted to do. It wasn't fair that she shouldn't get to do it, either.

She stared out at Meteor as it hung heavy in the sky. It called to her, just like the old magic, and the magic that wasn't magic at all. False magic. There were no rules. There had never been any rules. Not for her.

She looked at the world around him and walked towards the balcony of the Highwind, away from her family. That knowledge guided her, pulled her to the edge of the rail. She stared at Meteor as everything else in her vision fell away as unimportant, not worth noticing.

And it was unimportant and not worth noticing. He went from thinking about it to knowing it, in his heart of hearts, without a shadow of a doubt. He knew it more and more, as more and more of the world seemed to fall away around him. All of this -- everything, it was all completely arbitrary nonsense. It was subjective. Because none of it was real. Not for him, not really. Maybe it had to be real for someone else, but not him.

He knew that. He knew it. Just like he knew Meteor wasn't even necessarily there. He raised a hand, and thought about how it wasn't actually that big, especially compared to his hand. Arbitrary. Subjective. A game that everyone played along with, but he'd decided he really didn't feel like doing that anymore. It was about time he made his own decisions about these things.

Meteor ripped itself in half.

Not enough. He could do better. The halves shredded themselves into shards that hung in the air. He supposed there might have been a noise, but that wasn't important, so he didn't acknowledge it. And he could do better than that, anyway. It didn't need to exist in the first place.

So he clenched his fist and unmade it.

The blast ripped through the air, the shockwaves echoing for hundreds of miles. Cloud didn't hear that either, because the airship lurched and hurtled towards the ground, and a metal beam came flying at his face fast enough to convince him it was very, very real before he blacked out.

 

---

 

Cloud woke up to the taste of mud, and spat out a mouthful of dirty stream water. The last thing he needed was to catch some disease out in the middle of nowhere. His head sort of hurt, and he was feeling emotions that weren’t his, which was pretty weird, too. Excitement, confusion --

It was you!

Cloud groaned.

That huge fuck-off meteor -- that was -- it was you! Well, not the meteor, I mean, the other thing, where it… imploded? That was incredible, why didn’t you do that?

He didn’t need this right now. He really didn’t. Even if it was technically the first time he’d ever seen any of this. Though, now that he had, it did seem familiar…

And -- and they locked you up? When you saved everyone! What’s wrong with people here? How ungrateful can you get? If it were me --

If it were you, nobody would believe you, he said, cutting across her rather forcefully. I don’t even believe it. Not really. Tifa says that’s what I did, and Cid, and everyone else that was there, and… I mean, now I’ve seen it, so I guess that’s what happened, but who would believe me when I don’t even know how I did it?

There were a lot of things spilling out right now that perhaps weren’t aimed quite at her, but he’d started, and as usual it was a bit hard to stop.

What am I supposed to do? Just tell everyone that, y’know, “Hey, remember the time that big rock with all the tentacles coming out of it exploded for no reason? Just take my word for it -- it was definitely me! Even though I’m the reason it’s up there in the first place!” Nobody would believe it, Aeris.

...Well, I believe you.

Cloud sighed heavily, rubbing some of the dirt off his face. Great. Cool. The voice in my head that nobody else can hear believes me. I’ll be sure to tell ‘em that, too.

It’s not like I can prove it, either, he added. And trust me, I’ve tried. When they told me what happened, I just… I spent a while, thinking Jenova was just… something I could learn to control. And when I did, I wouldn’t have to hide it, because I could just show everyone what I could do, and… and it isn’t working. Sephiroth had thirty years or something to figure out how to use this stuff. I’ve had about a decade and I wasn’t even awake for all of it. So just -- just drop it. Alright?

...It doesn’t seem right, said Aeris.

That’s how it is. Cloud got back up and got started looking for a place to set up camp. It’s our little secret, with the rest of the family. In the end, we just let Reeve have all the credit. Said he mobilised a task force or something. A lot more believable than eight assholes chasing some wannabe god around the world until we caught up to him eventually.

You know, eventually you’re really going to have to tell me the whole story, said Aeris. It sounds like a good one.

...Maybe, said Cloud, not even convincing himself. He’d probably said too much already.

Any reply Aeris might’ve had was cut off by the strange pressure again.

Is that you? asked Cloud.

I don’t think so, said Aeris. Maybe it has something to do --

Aeris continued talking, but suddenly it was all words he didn’t recognise, or words he did almost recognise, but they were right next to ones he didn’t anyway. He wondered if he was having a stroke.

The air -- not the air, the space in front of him itself seemed to dent outwards, and another sealed glass box fell to the ground.

Oh, she said. Yes, I forgot about these. Didn’t realise it had been that long…

What are the boxes for? asked Cloud, as he picked up the container, peering at the disoriented rat inside.

There could be organisms in your atmosphere that might be deadly to us, or vice versa, said Aeris. It’s a very small chance, but it’s better to be safe. Or maybe the machine we use to get them here might not be safe to use in ways we didn’t expect. Although… this one, I think is scheduled to be exposed to your air.

As she said this, the panel on the side of the box hissed again, for longer this time. The rat continued pacing around its enclosure, unfazed.

Cloud set the box down, a little unnerved. Well… is it gonna be okay?

I don’t know, said Aeris. That’s what we’re finding out. Would you rather it was me that…

She trailed off, apparently suddenly remembering again, and Cloud struggled to think of something else to say.

I suppose this means I’ll have to go soon, said Aeris. But if I can, I’ll try to visit one last time before you meet Zack. He’s… a bit difficult sometimes, but he seems decent. You can trust him.

I’ll miss you, said Cloud. Should I write it again, just to be safe?

If you like, said Aeris. Is that what it said?

He nodded, setting the box down and looking for another rock.

If you want to make Cissnei’s day, just write out the alphabet, said Aeris. Or… or your syllabary. Whichever you use.

Little bit of both, said Cloud. Depends on how many syllables are in the word.

That was how they spent the last few minutes, carefully carving out each symbol all over the surface of the box. Beneath each one, Aeris wrote her own analogue based on what little they could glean about each other's’ respective languages and the sounds any of these characters were meant to represent. The end result was messy, but Aeris assured him her friend, Cissnei, would be more than able to handle it. The rat inside didn’t seem to care for the noise, and he probably wasted a lot more time than he should have pausing to calm it down, even if it might not have been able to hear him anyway. It still felt like the right thing to do. Cloud thought that if he were a rat with no control over who stuffed him into a box and sent him to another Planet, he’d want someone to calm him down, too.

He was admiring his handiwork when he noticed Aeris hadn’t replied to him in a while. She must have left. He set the box down on the grass and watched it until it disappeared. The moment it fell back into nothing, he was suddenly struck by how utterly empty the field was for miles around him.

 

---

 

Aeris got a lot of stares as she was allowed out of the tank. She was expecting that. Zack seemed to be in a bit of a panic that he was very badly hiding from everyone else. She’d expected that too. After all, she’d written a detailed log about what was by and large absolute nonsense, about spells and magic and different colours of it, and something about healing. She expected they wouldn’t really appreciate anything they’d been told, or the sheer world-changing potential being able to just wish away injuries would have. She expected (well, hoped) Zack would be able to adapt to the change in plans, even as he shot her disbelieving looks in between looking at the screen. And when, as expected, Tseng approached her, looking confused and a little annoyed at the fact that she’d just used a multi-million euro piece of equipment to play a prank on him, she merely shrugged.

“Magic is real.”

She expected there’d probably be some fallout for this later.

Chapter 24: Everyone Wanders Around The Middle of Nowhere And Accomplishes Nothing

Notes:

AAAAAAA GEEZ WE'RE GETTIN CLOSE

HRGMGLRGMHGH

Short chapter after all that delay, because there's a convention coming up, and I have a paper to write, so I've backlogged a couple chapters so I can have the next one up relatively quickly. Thanks to Sanctum_C, limbostratus, and Larissa for coming through on such short notice with so much chapter.

This chapter contains brief references to self-harm.

"I still think you're a damn fool," said Barret, as Tifa zipped up her bag and began looking for her jacket. Yuffie said she had to go back to Wutai to "work out some details", which Tifa found unnecessary considering everything had gone to hell much faster than any contingency plans they'd had would fix. She'd had Barret come all the way back out here again to watch the bar, just in case. Marlene was sleeping upstairs in Tifa's bed, but Barret had been up for the last couple hours being brought up to speed and was steadily looking more and more like he was about to go into conniptions.

"I spent years keeping tourists alive in the mountains," she replied, fishing the blood samples out of the oven. "I can handle myself outdoors just fine." She closed the cooler and carried them back upstairs to hide in her closet. She was surprised the stuff was still good. That either said something good about the containers it was stored in, or something not-as-good about Cloud's blood. Perhaps she'd find out.

"Not what I meant," said Barret, following her. "How are we even supposed to find him?"

"I called Nanaki," said Tifa. "He said he'd meet me outside the city. I've already got a ride. I'm leaving first thing tomorrow morning."

"Tifa, we don't even know what the problem is!" said Barret, standing in front of her and crossing his arms. "We don't know where he is, what's wrong with him --"

"But we do!" said Tifa. "Aeris is --"

"I ain't convinced she's real," said Barret. "I read those papers. There's someone else like Cloud running around out there, and it's already gone killed Reno. How long do you think it's gonna take for people to notice he's gone?"

"We don't know what killed him. We don't --"

"That's the whole point! We don't know who's doing what anymore, and you're about to run off to the middle of nowhere while..."

"And that's my whole point," said Tifa, glowering at him. "I'm fed up with just sitting around staring at the phone not knowing a fucking thing about what's going on! Something is happening, Barret." She shoved her way past him and went back downstairs. "And the only person that might know what can't talk to us directly, and nobody else can even guess, so we've decided to either ignore it or lock it up. I am sick of doing nothing."

"You don't even know what killed him," said Barret with a scowl. "You go looking for that thing -- what do you think you're gonna do when you find it?"

"You don't know what it is, either," said Tifa. "It was this -- this spot in the air that looked like something was pushing its way out." She began to look for her keys, and was a few seconds into the process when she realised she hadn't heard a reply.

Barret was looking through her now, seeming contemplative.

"Did either one of y'all see anything moving behind it?" he said. There was something strangely direct about his tone. "'Bout the size of a person?"

"...You've seen this before?" asked Tifa.

He nodded. "Think so. It was years ago, but..."

"But what?" she pressed.

"I don't know. I spent a long time just thinkin' maybe it was a trick of the light, or..." Barret shrugged. "I might be remembering it wrong, too."

"We don't know anything," said Tifa. "So... maybe doesn't have anything to do with this, and maybe it does."

"This was about fifteen years ago," said Barret. "Early days, before I met Myrna. Spent a little while lookin' around the world for something to do besides coal. At one point, I had a job workin' for Shinra, repairing reactors."

Tifa stared at him. Barret raised an eyebrow in amusement.

"You ain't ever thought of questioning how I knew where everything was?" he said. "I wasn't so high as to be the one planning them out, but it was just me and a few guys, hauling metal around, welding things together. It was an alright job -- paid pretty decent. Didn't start thinking about leaving until the accidents. Wouldn't you know it, breathing in mako for hours on end every day is bad for your health.

"So, I'm up on the sixty-eighth floor of that damn tower trying to submit an official complaint to the science department, since we're down there coughin' up blood at the end of our shifts, and Jacobs either has cancer or some sorta infection, or maybe both, and they tell me, 'We're sorry to hear that sir, please take a number and Department Head Crescent will be with you shortly,' and they say I gotta wait. So I sit there and wait, and then I get tired of waiting because it's been two goddamn hours, so I decide to march right in there and give them a piece of my mind, and... I guess something got out of some cage, or maybe they tried to do me in on purpose, 'cause..."

Barret paused, trying to get his thoughts in order. The fingers of his metal hand drummed against his leg, as though trying to trace out an image of what happened.

"Something showed up. Looked about man-sized, but I couldn't tell you what it actually was. When I tried to look at it... it was like I couldn't. Like tryin' to look at the inside of your eyelids, maybe. Places you ain't really supposed to look. Made some sorta noise... I can't describe that noise for the life of me, but whatever it was, it was big. Or it sounded big. It looked big too, though I could be remembering it wrong."

"You said it was the size of a person," said Tifa, frowning.

"I thought it was. See how I'm tellin' you it makes no sense, and I can't remember it right? Had to have been one of 'em, right? And..." he shrugged. "Couldn't tell you. It's been years."

"...What happened then?"

"I set it on fire with my welding materia and left," said Barret. "Figured it was Shinra, trying to get rid a' any complainers. Never saw it again, and nobody said nothin' about it after that, so maybe they just went back to shooting dissenters on television or arranging car accidents. I'll never know."

It didn't sound exactly the same -- Tifa couldn't recall if she'd actually seen anything moving. All she’d really gotten a look at was the evidence of it moving itself. Still, there was something inherently wrong about it that seemed to match up with Barret's story.

"The tower," said Tifa suddenly. "Cloud said that's when Aeris first contacted him, right? He said he saw a bunch of shapes he couldn't make himself look at."

Barret nodded, still looking troubled.

"I've gotta find him, then," said Tifa. "Find both of them. Figure out what all of this is. This has been going on for longer than Cloud was infected, but he's involved with it now, whatever the case is."

"I know you do," said Barret finally. "I just wish you'd worry about yourself here and there. You're gonna drive yourself mad, trying to juggle the whole world at once."

"You did," said Tifa. "You started Avalanche all by yourself because you decided someone had to do something."

"I started Avalanche, Teef," said Barret, looking at her tiredly, "because I lost my wife and my arm and my best friend all in one night, and I didn't know how else to make change when nothing else in the world had gone right. I don't know what else I might've done if I didn't have Marlene to look after."

"That was still something you made happen," said Tifa. "You're welcome to come with me, if you want. No one else I'd rather be stranded with in the wilderness than my ex-boss."

Barret gave a weary, rusty laugh, and shook his head. "You're a tough girl. I'm sure you'll do just fine. Don't you go doin' anything stupid now, you hear? That boy's been rubbing off on you too much."

I really wish I could believe that, she thought, as she waved goodbye to Barret and stepped out the door.

 

---

 

 

The third rat had to die, Cloud was told.

The first two are going to be observed over the next few days to see if they survive, said Aeris to him. But this one, we'll need to observe its organs directly, and rat surgery isn't really...

...It's better he dies, said Cloud. Not much fun, being awake after someone cuts you apart that much. Or during.

Aeris didn't really reply to Cloud directly. He stared at the box sitting in the grass for a moment, then reached for another stone.

You probably shouldn't be carving on all of these, said Aeris. Technically speaking anything you write will probably have huge historical significance, but I don’t know if I'll get told off for allowing these things to become damaged in the short term.

That's alright, said Cloud. I just need to do this real quick.

The rendition wasn't very good, he knew. If he'd had a reference, he could probably do better, but he hadn't seen anything like it in years. He was sure he'd looked at pictures of them every day, back when he'd idolised Sephiroth and had committed every detail of his life to memory, but once he'd seen one in person. It wasn't being presented to him, obviously; he'd merely been the honour guard present at the ceremony. Had he been a pallbearer, too? He couldn't remember. Probably not. He'd been much too scrawny back then.

What's that? asked Aeris. Cloud brushed off the dust to reveal a poorly-etched insignia of a charging elk with its antlers wreathed in thistles.

It's... a really shitty medal, he said. I mean, I wasn't making it shitty on purpose. They give 'em to people who fought really well in Wutai, or were killed in the line of duty, sometimes.

Oh.

Cloud set the box back down. He didn't feel right handling it.

When Aeris left again, there wasn't much else to think about except that technically he'd been a pallbearer this time.

 

---

 

Nanaki was waiting for her by a pile of rocks, sprawled out in a patch of sun. It was terribly irresponsible of him -- the numbers had gone down over the years, but the area around Midgar was still populated with mutated wildlife spawning from the pollution the city had produced. Maybe real wolves knew to leave him alone. She wasn't willing to bet with the other kind that had three sets of jaws and a septic bite.

Still, she couldn't resist prodding his exposed stomach with her hand and watching him flail briefly as he flipped himself back over to his feet, gazing reproachfully at her.

"That was entirely unnecessary," he said in a dignified voice. "I hope you brought supplies." Tifa nodded and patted the strap of her bag. Nanaki could catch his dinner for them both and keep himself warm, but Tifa wasn't as willing as Cloud was to just consume raw meat if he didn't feel like getting a fire started. Even on the occasions when the local insect life had been large enough to be worth catching and eating, she'd always insisted on roasting them first.

"Do you know which way he went?" she asked Nanaki, who was already sniffing at the ground.

"Not for certain. I can only guess where he may have chosen to go." Nanaki paused to snuffle around by another set of rocks that look as though they might be a good place for someone to stop and rest at. "Following him directly would be a waste of time. He has a head start and moves faster. Our best bet is to anticipate which direction the prey is likely to go and be there when it arrives."

“‘Prey’?”

“...So to speak. We are following him with the intent of catching him, aren’t we?”

“Well, yeah, but he’s not gonna love the fact that we’re basically hunting him down. And we’re not,” she added, at Nanaki’s wry look. “That’s not what we’re doing.”

Nanaki just eyed her amusedly. Tifa just shook her head.

"Well… anyway, Yuffie's got a flat in Junon," said Tifa. "It's the only place you can take an airship to from Edge, anyway. Or he could probably make it there in a week if he just sprinted. Two or three days if that shortcut through the mines hasn't caved in."

"Junon also has the second-largest government, and is close politically with Edge," said Nanaki. He let out a huff of air through his nose and began walking off. "Besides, he went north."

"You found him?"

"I've found his trail. Surprisingly distinct, given how much time has passed since his disappearance. It seems he was bleeding quite a bit."

The pit that had been nestling in Tifa's stomach over the last month somehow grew even heavier, and she found herself walking a bit faster. "He's not dead, is he?"

"I wouldn't worry if he was."

"Nanaki!"

"Dying certainly didn't kill him," said Nanaki, unconcerned. "Not the first time, anyway. But no, he doesn't smell dead. Or at least, this trail doesn't."

"You shouldn't say things like that," said Tifa. "That's... what if he is, when we find him?"

"He won't be. He is too foolish to die."

"Nanaki --"

"I have chosen to believe that the first time, he simply did not realise he was supposed to be dead," said Nanaki. "That's why he came back."

"That was a -- a gift from the Planet," she said uncomfortably, "since we were saving it and all."

"It didn't smell like one," said Nanaki.

It hadn't much looked or sounded like one, either, if the screaming was any indication. Tifa usually tried not to think about it.

"It's nice to be on the road with you again," said Nanaki. "I was sort of hoping we could do this for our own amusement, but everyone else seems content with calling one another over the phone."

"You aren't?"

"I miss spending time with you all," said Nanaki. And then, as an afterthought, "and it's hard to use a phone when you don't have thumbs. You all ought to appreciate your thumbs more."

 

---

 

The fourth and fifth rats arrived at the same time. Aeris hadn't been there at the time, but she'd later explained to him it was to test whether one could safely send multiple living beings through without anything messing up. And then she'd spent the next half hour talking to him about flies and a man named Jeff Goldblum, and Cloud had felt very ill by the end of it. He'd been reasonably certain he'd decapitated something like that once.

At the time, however, he simply set the two boxes next to one another and talked. His voice was a bit scratchy from disuse, and he realised how long it had been before he'd spoken to anyone else. Rats 4 and 5, whom he'd chosen to call Marcus and Argo (he wasn't really sure why, those names just stood out to him for some reason) because he didn't feel right calling them numbers, even in his head, proved to be dull company. He looked for a seam on the box so he could perhaps take one out and stroke it, but they seemed to be sealed behind the keypad. He entertained the thought of smashing the box, but Aeris probably wouldn't approve of that.

...Can you tell me more about the Lifestream? she'd asked, when she arrived. She'd been more professional then, though no less excited.

He'd done his best to explain it to her, though he didn't know how good of a job he was doing getting it through to her, when no such concept seemed to exist in her world. The Planet was alive, he'd told her, and the Lifestream was its blood, its soul, what-have-you. Every living thing was a part of the Planet, even while alive. It was a place as much as it was a substance, he'd said, and he wasn't really sure if being inside it still meant you were there. Was there an inside to the Lifestream? How much of what he'd seen had been a hallucination? Had he really gone anywhere when he'd fallen in? He wasn't sure.

That's why everything is dead around Edge, though, he'd said. I told you before mako isn't used anymore -- it's made from the Lifestream. They'd pump it out of the ground, and process it into a chemical substance. But after that, it wasn't really Lifestream anymore. It couldn't return to the Planet, and it would just get burned up. That's what we were fighting for in Avalanche -- the world had maybe twenty... maybe thirty years left in it before the Planet couldn't take it anymore.

Why wasn't it outlawed sooner?

Because it was profitable, he'd said. They knew what it did. They didn't care, and the whole company was rotten to the core -- even Reeve, before he bailed. They weren't gonna be around in twenty or thirty years, after all. Still, we could all feel it coming. Plants dying, animals mutating or getting really hostile, higher and higher stillbirth rates... and that's not even taking into account the pollution produced from the refinement process. Shinra knew exactly what they were doing, or at least had a pretty good idea. That's why they had to go.

Aeris had gone quiet, and seemed very uncomfortable. He supposed she was still squeamish about the murder bit.

In the end... there wasn't anything else anyone could do. Apart from what we did, said Cloud. Like I said, things were so much worse. Sometimes, it doesn't matter how badly you want to work things out peacefully. Sometimes, some people are just wrong. And sometimes it takes the world ending to get people to realise how bad things are before anything changes. He chuckled to himself humourlessly. And sometimes, you're just an asshole collecting a paycheck that didn't start to care until it was almost too late for you, too. Look at me, preaching about the Planet. Barret would never let me live it down.

Barret. Was he okay? He never had gotten to speak to him during that visit. He hoped he was okay.

It's not that, said Aeris heavily. Just sounds familiar, is all. I think I'd like to write all that down in more detail, actually. I'm sure some people I know would appreciate it.

That was really all his days had turned into. Wake up, eat, make tracks for the coastline, wait for Aeris to talk to him, answer her endless questions, both personal and professional. The waiting was always the worst part. What if she didn't come back? It was so empty out here. He dreamt of his family often. Usually they never wanted him back, but the worst dream of all was the one time where they did, where he was welcomed back with open arms. Everyone was there. Even Hojo and Lucrecia and Vincent. He dreamt of his days in the lab often, but it had been years since he'd imagined their faces. They were proud of him. They all were. Then he had to wake up and remember that he was alone, and that three of these people were dead, that he'd never get to go back.

He'd wept after Aeris left for the day. It hadn't been for long, but it was long enough. Mother was there, listening, as She always was. He knew he'd have to make the first move. He couldn't. Not yet. Not now.

 

---

 

 

"If he's heading north, do you think he'll try to hide out in Kalm?" said Tifa, after they'd set up camp just south of a stream that had turned out to be full of fish that weren't poisonous for once.

"Perhaps," said Nanaki, stretching out next to her on the blanket she'd laid out. "Then again, no one bothers with Kalm these days." Kalm didn't have the resources just yet to declare itself a city-state, and it wasn't close enough to one to be absorbed into the territory without another few years of infrastructure building, leaving it as a nebulous charity case, closer in status to the recently established colony on the northern continent than any true city.

"Maybe that's why he'd go there," said Tifa. "Who would expect it?"

"He's heading in the wrong direction," said Nanaki. "Unless he's going straight for Wutai, across the ocean."

Wutai made a bit of sense -- after everything had collapsed, it was the biggest nation-state left in power. Wutai could hide him there and Edge couldn't do much about it. But then, Wutai had strong opinions about those with mako enhancements as well.

"Maybe he just got turned around," said Tifa. "Maybe he's going to Cosmo Canyon."

Nanaki cocked his head to the side in contemplation. "Do you suppose he knows where he wants to go?"

"...Somewhere he feels safe, I guess."

So, no. Probably not.

 

---

 

Rats six, seven, and eight all arrived throughout the day. He didn't know why they were still sending them -- it seemed pretty clear to him that whatever it was they were doing, it was working. Aeris did not visit him that day, so he spent it carrying around one rat or another with him until eventually the pressure returned and he put it back down. He didn't know what would happen if he didn't, but he wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

His shoulder had healed days ago. He didn't know why he kept reapplying the bandages. It was just something familiar to do with his hands, maybe.

Before, it had always been Yuffie or Cid that was on first-aid duty. Yuffie'd had years of experience keeping herself alive in the wilderness and a natural bent for it on her own, but Cid had surprised them all by having a proficiency for White as well. When Cloud had asked him about it, he'd simply shrugged. "It's all about puttin' shit in order," he'd said. "I can get behind that."

If he was going to be on his own, he'd need to figure out how to do this right himself; his own hardiness would only take him so far. He'd thought about nicking himself a few times and practising that way, but that was a cycle he didn't want to get himself started on. He'd had enough issues with alcohol at first as it was.

He sat down in front of rat eight (dubbed Godo) to meditate, and tried not to think of the bar.

 

---

 

 

"Oh dear."

"What? What's 'oh dear?'"

"He's found a chocobo, I think."

"...Shit." Tifa stared out across the grassy field, chewing on the inside of her cheek. "How does he do that?"

"Perhaps it's innate skill," said Nanaki, sniffing at a bit of dirt that seemed to have been disturbed at some point. "There are stranger ones to have. Cid's, for instance."

"I mean... we don't know he did. Can you smell it for sure?"

"I can smell the chocobos, yes," said Nanaki, losing interest in the hole in the ground. "But don't you remember this place?"

"A little," said Tifa. "It was years ago."

"I do," said Nanaki. "Yuffie taught me how to do the flip."

"Oh! That was here?" It was hard to see much of anything, with the grass so high.

"Not quite here. But it's up ahead. You chastised me for getting mud caked into my fur," said Nanaki. He was silent for another moment, his tail curled around his haunches. It was strange to think it had been four years ago. It felt like an entire lifetime. To her, at least. Maybe to Nanaki it felt like just last week, given his own lifespan.

But then, he was very young.

"This does mean, of course, that he now has put a significant amount of distance between us, even when we factor out the head start he had in the first place," he added, licking his nose, which Tifa had realised by now was a nervous habit of his. It wasn't fair that he'd figured out everyone else's body language and she was still trying to figure out what different tail wags meant without asking and coming off as rude.

"We may as well make camp," said Tifa. "Figure out how to 'cut him off,' or whatever we're doing."

"We may think better once we’re fed, anyway," said Nanaki. "Your stomach growling is very distracting."

"I'll go find somewhere to rest, I guess," said Tifa. "See if you can get something to eat."

"There's a small cave not too far from here," said Nanaki. "Assuming it hasn't collapsed in on itself."

It took Tifa quite a while to find the cave. Nanaki probably would have found it faster, but he was out getting food, and she'd never managed to figure out snares. The floor seemed relatively dry, at least. She'd definitely slept in worse places before, and so far they'd been lucky. The tent seemed like it would fit well enough, anyway.

She looked and sighed as a low rumble echoed across the sky, which was heavily overcast. She knew it was just rain. She hated it anyway.

She wasn’t sure if it had been real rain that the Planet had sent, anyway. Probably not. Real rain didn’t do that. But that still didn’t explain the… discrepancy, to put it lightly.

The little white materia was still sitting at the bottom of the pool in the old church. She couldn't believe it had taken her that long to just get rid of it. She didn't know why she thought it could be useful for so long. She wasn't even really sure what kind of spell it was meant to cast. "Whatever is a threat to the Planet" was such a vague concept. When she'd used it... it had cured the stigma, at least, and rained for three days. When Cloud had tried it two years before that...

Maybe it depended on who cast it. She'd heard the personality of the caster could affect the spell sometimes. Or maybe it had something to do with the questions they were asking? Of course, she doubted greatly that Cloud had wanted to achieve that, just like she wasn't exactly trying to melt off a bunch of child faces.

Nanaki's howl echoed across the field, jarring her back to reality, and it wasn't much longer before he came trotting back with dinner clenched between his jaws.

He dropped it at her feet and shook himself before settling down onto the blanket she'd laid out inside the tent.

"I already ate," said Nanaki, licking his chops. "You'd better go find some kindling before it starts raining."

 

---

 

 

The first drop of rain splattered on the box of Aya, the tenth rat, and he looked up in time to catch another one right in his eye. He should have been paying attention. Of course it was going to rain. He hadn't been sitting here for that long, had he?

There wasn't really anywhere to take shelter in the middle of the plains. He should have thought of this sooner. Usually someone reminded him about these things. He sprinted through the rain, looking for something to duck under. After several minutes of encountering nothing but more grass and rising streams, he just gave up and shrugged off belongings before plunging his sword into the earth next to him and crouching under it with his bag in his lap.

The rat remained dry inside its plexiglass enclosure, but it didn't seem to like the noise the raindrops made as they rattled off the sides, so he picked that up and cupped it under himself as well.

Aeris had not visited today. Maybe she was too busy sending rats.

It really was just him out here. Was anyone looking for him? Was his family? What would even happen if they were? He thought about just going back to Edge. He held the box to himself and imagined taking Aya out of the box to hold her. Just for a moment, before she'd have a chance to get sick. There was a family across the street from them that kept a pet rabbit. Cloud had thought it a bit strange, at first, keeping a food animal as a pet (they must have been from Midgar -- nobody ate rabbits there). Looking at this rat, though, he could sort of understand. It looked soft. Would it like being held? He'd seen pictures of people holding smaller animals -- cats and rabbits and things -- very close. Would it want to be held? Would it try to get away?

He needed something. Maybe he could go back and find another chocobo.

It had been days since another living thing had touched him -- weeks since another human. Was he being punished? He couldn't be -- Hojo was dead. So why was he alone? He looked up, as though expecting someone else to be there. There should have been someone, shouldn't there?

This wasn't fair. This wasn't how it was supposed to go at all. He saved everyone. He found people that thought he was useful. They'd given him a home, and his own room, and clothes, and a phone, so he'd never have to be alone, ever. He'd gotten his name back. What good was any of it if there wasn't anyone around to call him by it?

It was all gone now. All of it.

The water glanced off his sword and the box with a persistent tapping, murmuring sound. Cloud found himself listening for words, but he could never quite make them out, as usual. The white noise of the rain sinking into the ground and filling the stream drank every other sound and offered nothing in return.

It was strange how something so loud could seem unbearably quiet after a while.

Chapter 25: Guys I Lied, This Isn't A Low-Stakes Post-Series Fluff Piece At All

Notes:

And here's the moment I'm sure you've all been waiting for since like chapter 10. As always, thanks to limbostratus, Sanctum_C, and Larissa for enabling me.

Without spoiling too much, this chapter contains multiple graphic depictions of body horror and gore.

Also, get ready to start seeing this warning more and more often from here on out. I doubt you guys would've clicked a story that tagged for body horror three times in the description for some reason without being sure this is what you wanted to get into, but I'm just making sure.

RIP Stephen Hawking. As dumb as it may sound, this story probably wouldn't have existed without him either.

And a bit of trivia, since I usually do that before chapters as well! There's this neat little show that used to run on Cartoon Network that kind of inspired this. I've seen a lot of fans paying tribute to it and decided to try it myself! I'm pretty sure this is how you do it, right? This is how they do it in the show. This is how it works.

Aeris watched the first rat scamper around in its isolated enclosure, rolling her pen back and forth on the desk in front of her. It and its seven surviving brethren were all still alive and kicking, with the first couple rats having lived an entire week and clearing a battery of tests that had checked for everything from prions to fleas. The transfer process hadn't scrambled any cells or merged them with the glass or cooked them with radiation.

The rat continued snuffling at the corners of its living quarters, perhaps looking for a way out. Each rat had been put into a sealed environment and kept apart from one another in case one of them was carrying something they shouldn't be, and none of them seemed to be enjoying it much. Rats were social creatures, Tseng had said. Zack really shouldn't have been petting them so much. They'd gotten used to it, it seemed. Aeris thought they seemed a little lonely.

None of the rats had sickened, though, so in theory Zack shouldn't either. Of course, they wouldn't know until they tried. Zack was a test case as much as he was an information gatherer. There really wasn't much else to do apart from proceed and hope for the best.

Still, the results looked promising. There were unknown microbes present in the air sample they'd taken, of course, but Earth's own native bacteria easily seemed to out-compete or even feed on them, given they were utterly unadapted for interacting with any other microorganism in its biosphere. Others, like staph and bacillus, were easily treatable on Earth. So long as he didn't eat any dirt, or "stick it in" any of the inhabitants, as he'd so daintily put it he should do well enough.

So, that was that. Someone was going now. And it wasn't her.

Tseng came up behind her, looking solemn, and nodded. Aeris put her pen away and got up to follow him into the fifth ring.

The mood changed a little as she entered the room. The tank had been drained for now -- no point in wasting energy maintaining something that would be almost entirely redundant soon. Still, it was hard not to get caught up in the excitement of it all, just a little bit.

If she'd thought Zack had been fidgety before, he was absolutely restless now. Cissnei was on the intercom with him, walking him through how to say "hello", or at least their best guess on how it sounded. At least once they had someone talking to Cloud directly, the language thing could be resolved a bit more smoothly.

Zack was already finished getting suited up, though they'd had him shed several layers of it, originally meant for protecting him from extremes of heat and cold, as well as the helmet. Instead of a closed air supply, he'd been outfitted with an air filter that covered his nose and mouth, reducing both the weight he'd have to carry, and the amount of matter they'd have to move. Just in case.

She didn't speak much to him, only pausing to check a few numbers here and there. There was a lot of complicated work that went into these things on both their ends, and Zack was a lot bigger than a rat, or even three rats. She needed to focus. And maybe she was a little bitter, too, but if she was going to do this, she was going to do it right.

Adding to everyone's anxiety were the cameras set up around the room. This was going to be the footage they showed in history classes hundreds of years from now. Zack had been given a much simpler one, strapped to the chest of his suit, to achieve the same effect.

She'd been thinking about this moment for a while. She'd come up with something profound to say, but for the life of her she couldn't remember what it was now. Oh well. Cameras were rolling, and this time there weren't any speech cards being shoved in front of her. An overwhelming urge to say "fuck" suddenly came over her. She fought it down.

"Contact point established," she said aloud. Next to her Angeal nodded and gestured to Zack through the glass. Cloud had described the process of them referencing his location and using him to triangulate their bridge as "a little uncomfortable". She quietly mouthed "sorry" as she finalised their coordinates. It seemed like the right thing to do.

"He's been made aware of the staff change," she said to Zack, or rather, to Zack's left shoulder, since she still couldn't quite look at him. "Just be polite. He'll... walk you to where you need to be." Officially, that was right back to Edge, where he was definitely heading, to speak to someone in charge.

Unofficially... she didn't know anymore. She hoped to god Zack would think of something. They were a little far from Edge at this point for the second phase of their plan to work, but they didn't really have much of a choice not to proceed anyway. It seemed nobody really had much of an idea what they were doing anymore. That figured. Cissnei had been half right with the Apollo project comparison, but they were more along the lines of 13 than 11 by now.

Speaking of which, she'd been taking notes almost nonstop since getting back her improvised syllabary. "There are four different writing systems," she was saying now, muttering excitedly to Aeris as she sat down in a chair next to her. "Culturally and structurally it makes sense for it to be some sort of pidgin, but none of the other cultures you mentioned have any relation to it. Or perhaps there's only three writing systems, and we only consider two of them separate due to our own relationship with how Latin evolved out of Greek? I could write about a hundred papers on the subject... I just wish I had more to compare it all to."

As predicted, she was over the moon about the whole thing. Aeris just nodded and smiled. "If I really concentrate, it sounds a little like Welsh. But then, that could just be my brain making it sound like something familiar all over again."

"Welsh makes sense," said Cissnei, "If they had Romans and Greeks, as well as Celts, and they all just decided to settle down together, which would explain the composite nature of it all... they probably didn't, though. If they don't have an England, or an Augustus Caesar. Or... a lot of things." Cissnei gave her a significant look.

Oh right. Magic. That was real, and existed. And now her whole team knew about it.

She'd admitted almost everything at that point -- almost, anyway. Not the plan, at least, not that there was much left of the plan to execute anyway. But everything else. Dragons, and magic, and the Lifestream... Tseng had been furious at first, until she began to explain the concept of a sentient planet and its symbiotic relationship with the humans on its surface.

"You're going to make a lot of people very angry with that transcript of yours," he'd said after her third visit. "You're going to be accused of inserting politics."

"Something came along and decimated the population and I'm supposed to not mention what it is?" she'd said irritably over her container of allsorts, when they'd been in the lab together. Not to mention, they were way past the point of inserting politics into things, at least as far as things were concerned on Cloud's side. "There isn't any --"

"I didn't say I would," interrupted Tseng. "I think it's very telling about human nature, actually. I just thought I would warn you."

"Well... thanks for the warning," she had said, shrugging. "Do you have any theories on how it all works?"

"Besides 'spirit energy?'" said Tseng, and Aeris nodded. "I'm... afraid I don't, and the mathematical evidence you've supplied does seem to make sense. I'm assuming, anyway, that's not my field. Hewley's been taking it in stride."

"Oh?"

"Yes. One would assume he'd be a bit more bothered by it."

"Aren't you?"

Tseng made a dismissive noise and turned his attention back to his notes. "Personally, I'm wondering whether or not I should reclassify what we've found from humans to something else. Clearly there's more at work here in their reproductive processes than what our current definition of animalia will allow for."

Aeris wasn't entirely sure how, but she had a sinking feeling that was in some way racist. Species-ist? Magic-ist? They were going to need a lot of new words to describe what they'd found in English. It was a good thing they'd have Cissnei around.

They could think of what to call everything after the fact. For now, they had a universe to punch open.

 

---

 

Zack had no idea how Aeris was sitting there as calmly as she was. He didn't really expect her to be too happy, and he didn't exactly want her yelling in his face or holding back tears or something, but the non-reaction was, again, spooky. Maybe she just didn't want to look bad on camera.

Now, him, he didn't ever look bad on camera. Cameras loved him. He'd had a camera shoved in his face since day one of this mess, and even before it, back when he was playing sports in college. He slipped the charismatic grin back on, as easy as putting on an actual mask, and gave a tiny salute to one of the cameras. "Ready to go exploring," he said, his voice probably sounding compressed over the speakers installed in the sixth ring in order for anyone outside of it to hear him in the first place. That was fine. Even compressed-lab-speaker Zack had sex appeal. That's what the public wanted, really. Most scientists weren't young and attractive enough for the ignorant, horny masses to take interest in. That wasn't to say other groups might.

He went back to work, no longer grinning at the camera but consciously exuding the same stage presence he knew the world wanted. The world wanted a show, but if he milked it any more than that Aeris would probably come to his house and choke him to death with her ribbon.

Slipping on his air filter, he went over his instructions again one last time. The vast majority of them were useless. Why not just tell him what he needed to do directly? What a waste of time. What an expensive, stupid, mentally taxing, overcomplicated, pointlessly draining waste of time.

He took another look at the other five people on the other side of the glass. He'd have no contact with them at all until they recalled him ten minutes later. Brain signals could be sent along the pattern they'd discovered, but things like radios would still have nowhere to transmit to.

Remy seemed okay, though. They'd even talked about allowing him back in the sixth ring with Zack once he returned and went through decontamination, since they'd both been exposed. Something for him to look forward to. He wondered if CERN would let him keep it.

"Camera's up and running," he said, switching it on.

"Initiating transfer in E-minus two minutes," said Angeal. "The best of luck to you."

Zack stepped into the gateway chamber and heard the door hiss shut behind him. This was really it. He decided, just for that moment, he could let go of every pretense of what he was doing and why, and just enjoy the fact that he was really going to another planet. This was every kid's dream. This was his dream, before he learned NASA was getting defunded to hell now that the space race was over and there was no way he'd ever get to go to space.

Well, they might be getting defunded to hell right now. That was about to change. All of it could change. He was going to space (sort of)! He was going to meet an alien (mostly)! Aaron, his little brother, would probably want a lot of stories about this. He wondered what he could sneak around the gag order to tell him.

Angeal's voice began counting down around him from a speaker inside the room. Was this what it was like for Aeris? When he did the same? Would he do this right? Had he remembered to put the sample bags in his pockets? Too late to worry about that now.

"Five."

He wondered if it would hurt.

"Four."

The rats didn't seem like they were in any pain, but then again, they were rats. Who knew what they were thinking?

"Three."

He did build this thing, technically. He should trust his own skills. He was good. He knew he was good.

"Two."

CERN thought he was good enough, obviously. Or maybe they were doing this because they didn't trust his math.

"One."

...He shouldn't even really be here. Not in this whole facility.

"Crea t i n g

g

a

t

e

w

a

y."

Time slowed to a stop.

Time wasn't real in the literal sense. So it probably wasn't slowing at all. If anything was changing, it was him.

So this was what ceasing to exist was like.

There was nothing here, he knew -- not even himself. He wasn't even entirely sure he was thinking. Everything was jumbled and strange.

Deep things moved in the dark.

Zack wasn't falling. He was being pulled. By what, he didn't know. There was no sight here; even the darkness wasn't an absence of light -- it was absence itself.

He still found himself trying to look around, even if he wasn't sure he had eyes at that exact moment (but he must, because he had a brain, because he was thinking, wasn't he?), but try he did anyway. He could feel something all around him that wasn't absence, or maybe was, and yet was there and wasn't, that was infinite and nothing, billions upon billions strong and only one, and he turned and Saw

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Field? Was standing on a field. Zack blinked his eyes, and looked around the field. The one he was standing in. Standing here.

He shook his head to clear it. That was... certainly something. Never mind that. There was business to attend to.

"We're here," he said aloud into the microphone mounted to his suit. "We made it. It's..."

It really did look a lot like Earth. Maybe not as claimed by urban development, but then they were in a rural area. He was standing on a small hilltop overlooking a small lake. A herd of some sort of rodent he didn't recognise had grouped up by the shore and appeared to be sunning themselves. A great deal of birds had taken to the sky, probably disturbed by his arrival. The wind blew over the grass and through the few small trees that were growing nearby.

He hated it. He hated looking at it. He didn't understand why -- by all accounts there was nothing wrong with what he was seeing, but somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that this was wrong, that he was seeing something impossible, and that there was nothing to be seeing, and he should shut his eyes right away. Aeris had described something like this briefly on her first couple bridging sessions, at least, but he hadn't imagined it had been this intense.

"...It's pretty amazing," he finished lamely. If they were going to send anyone, it should have been Angeal. He'd probably have something eloquent to say.

There was something underneath one of the trees. Zack realised with a double-take that it was a human. They were asleep, by the looks of things. Laid out next to them was a completely impractical-looking sword. Was this Cloud? It had to be. He wouldn't know for sure until he saw the eyes, but there was no one else around that could've been used to get him here, anyway.

Zack stared at him -- the very first person they'd met here. The guy that they'd been introduced to an entire culture through. This was Cloud Strife.

He was... kinda small. He hadn't been expecting that. And he looked kind of sick. Pasty. Too thin. Maybe it was because the clothes he was wearing seemed a little too big on him, or maybe the sword just made him look smaller. Or maybe because he was asleep, and lying down, and not able to glare at him and spit insults yet.

Here goes nothing.

"Hello?" he said.

Cloud slept on, oblivious. Zack rolled his eyes. Some first contact this was.

"Hello?" he said, a little louder. "I made it."

Cloud stirred beneath the tree, looking around in confusion for a moment before his eyes fixed on Zack. Zack shivered and looked away.

Those weren't human eyes. They weren't. He'd been told, he'd read the transcripts, he'd had so long to get used to the concept, but actually seeing them -- they weren't human. The pupils weren't actually the worst part, he realised. It was the glow. Unnaturally bright, especially under the shade, radiating a cold, foreboding presence that seemed to have a life of its own, and he could have sworn the light was moving...

Zack hated looking at that too, but he was 100% sure that it was him that felt that way, and not just his brain.

He blinked and forced himself to look Cloud in the eyes again, and frowned.

Had they been that brilliantly green before?

 

---

 

Wake up.

Cloud's eyes snapped open, unsure of where the voice had come from or whose it had been. He could have just been hallucinating again. There was nothing else out here, except...

Cloud stared up to see something standing in front of him. A person? It didn't look like a person. It didn't look like anything. He didn't want to look at it. But it was a person, he realised. It looked like one. There was a person here. The something didn't look like a person at all. There was someone here. There was someone here to see him. A person. Someone came back for him.

He was very tall, and looked as though he spent a lot of time outside. There was a certain haughtiness about him that Cloud didn't really care for, nor the way the man shuddered and turned away from him in disgust.

Aeris said he could trust him, though. Couldn't he? He could trust Zack. Cloud trusted Aeris. He had to trust Zack...

...and he would. He didn't care anymore if he didn't like him. He didn't care that he'd never speak to anyone else again. He didn't care about anything else in this single moment besides the fact that he wasn't alone anymore. He wanted very badly to reach for Zack, to touch him, and he only barely stayed his hand. It had been so long.

The man was saying words (they were always important, words, but he could never make himself understand them fast enough), but Cloud was having trouble picking them up. His head was all fuzzy. All he could think about was that that this was the first person he'd been around in almost a month, since he’d woken up in a cell.

He needed Zack to stay. He needed him. Just having him here felt like... like being whole. He needed him to stay. The thought of him not being here, of going back to feeling sad and empty and incomplete was unbearable. He had to know what the point of him was. He wouldn't have a point without anyone else. Nobody had a point without anyone else.

Had to stay here, though. He needed to think. But the feeling was getting stronger, and his mouth didn't seem to work anymore. Zack was still saying something to him, and maybe it wasn't his fault he couldn't understand it this time? He continued to stare blankly at him, uncertain of what he was supposed to do.

Until suddenly, he felt it.

Come here.

Cloud slowly stood, the thought blighting out all others. He'd been told to come here. He had to. He'd been in so much pain recently -- pain he didn't even know he was in, and he'd tried so, so hard to ignore it... and here was Zack's presence, washing over him like a balm, alive and speaking to him, and closing the holes.

He wanted to be whole. He couldn't stand another second of his life the way it was, an incomplete thing trying to fill itself with parts that weren't even him. He needed to be whole. Mother wanted him to be whole, and now he was ready for Mother.

He kept approaching Mother, who was all around him now, singing Her songs, warm and complete and peaceful. He felt lighter. His body knew what to do, or rather, Mother knew what to do for him. No more hurting. No more emptiness. No more quiet. No more cold. No more Cloud.

He couldn't see. He couldn't move. He couldn't even breathe anymore. That was alright. He smiled inwardly, knowing that, at long last, he was whole. Where he should be. Part of Mother.

There was a very tiny part of him, somewhere far away, a part that wasn't needed anymore, that had one last thought.

Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is wrong. Something is --

 

---

 

Cloud had been staring at him for a while.

Zack had been talking for a while, too, actually.

...He couldn't remember what about. That was weird. Come to think of it, there wasn't a whole lot of reason for him to be talking anyway, knowing neither one of them could really understand one another yet. He'd been explaining about... knowing where to go? It was all a little blurry. Which was odd, considering it had only been moments ago.

He felt strange. He hadn't before, but now... maybe he was motion sick? Everything felt heavy.

Cloud had gotten up and was approaching him, looking utterly entranced by his presence. He would have taken a step back, only he realised he didn't know exactly where he was in relation to Cloud. The world seemed to bend around him.

Suddenly he didn't want the thing approaching him to take a single step more. It -- Cloud -- wasn't there. Or maybe he was there. There was something behind him. There was something behind everything. A horde of spiders, or something, just teeming under the surface, waiting to burst.

Cloud was in front of him now. He couldn't see anything right anymore. He tried to look away, and found only more of himself, and more of Cloud. They were both everywhere. There was nowhere else to look, even when he shut his eyes, except he couldn't shut his eyes -- he caught a glimpse of his arm, maybe, or a leg, or Cloud's arm, or --

The world was thinner. There were things in his head that didn't belong there, fleeting, skittering bits of thoughts like a thousand little needles in the back of his eyes -- another glimpse of himself -- god -- bone slowly poking through the skin -- his whole body numb -- a wet crunching, crackling, dripping noise -- a noise he couldn't even begin to describe, louder and louder and louder and louder and louder -- his own jaw, twisting and parting and then dropping and folding into -- god it was so loud -- inside, eyes, and things crawling in from nothing and everything -- make it stop make it stop -- help me --

By the time he wanted to scream, there was nothing left to do it with anymore.

 

---

 

Lazard’s voice cut through the silence. “Five minutes remaining.”

Nobody had said much. Partially because the cameras were still rolling. Partially because there was nothing to say. All of them were still waiting. The only words exchanged were diagnostics, regular sound-offs confirming everything was working as intended, and Lazard keeping track of their time.

They’d have footage from Zack’s chest cam waiting for them when he got back. Aeris tried to keep her focus on the screen in front of her, but the urge to just stare at the now-empty gateway chamber was overwhelming.

Someone said something to her that she couldn’t quite catch. She looked up and turned around. “What?”

Cissnei shrugged. “Didn’t say anything.”

“Sorry.” She went back to looking at her screen. The data kept streaming in as usual. They seemed to have gotten all of him over successfully, without leaving an arm behind in some quantum hole or anything.

“One minute remaining,” said Lazard. “Get the sample boxes ready. If anything survives decontamination, I want a look at it.”

“On it,” said Aeris. She got up from her chair and went over to the compartment by the wall to the sixth ring. She was halfway through unpacking the containers before realising they were out of rubber gloves. She didn’t really want to miss the return, but they did need gloves. She began shifting the contents of the shelves aside, wondering if there was a box somewhere in the back.

“Ten seconds,” said Lazard. She didn’t find a box, but she did find a few more loose pairs of gloves. They’d have to do. She would need to have words with the others about putting things back. They were an internationally-funded medical team, not a bunch of line chefs.

A loud beep was heard from the console on her computer. Zack was back.

She paused when she got a look at the lit indicator on the screen -- yellow, and red.

Additional contaminants. A lot of them. And red meant something wrong with his vital signs.

“Get him out of there,” she snapped immediately. A million images filled her mind -- maybe Cloud had stabbed him. Maybe he’d gotten infected by some alien disease, and fallen over dead in a second. Or there was a leak, or maybe the inside of the chamber had exploded, filling him with shrapnel, or it had splattered him against the wall the way it had her parents, or they’d brought him back sideways and there was just a pair of disconnected legs waiting in the chamber for her, or maybe (God, please let it be true) the machine was in a panic about nothing and he’d taken his breathing filter off, or maybe the filter had malfunctioned and he’d suffocated --

It was worse. When the door opened, it was a million times worse than anything she could have imagined.

A… thing spilled out of the chamber. A pulsing, twitching pile of flesh, as though he’d been melted and rolled into a pile of components roughly suggesting a human, but nearly triple the size of one. Things crawled beneath the surface of the skin, and occasionally something would punch through, exposing a bit of bone, bits of flesh only barely hanging onto it, disconnected from any tendons, or an organ, or --

It kept spilling, and spilling and spilling. Aeris found herself stepping away from the window, even as it stopped expanding and lay there, shuddering and convulsing. A flap of skin parted, exposing an eye that seemed to rapidly melt and merge back into the skin. A limb, devoid of any skin --with entirely too many fingers, part of a jaw extruding from the palm -- flailed itself into being before collapsing back into the pile, spraying some sort of clear-ish fluid all over the floor. Beside her, she heard Angeal vomit.

There were parts there that didn’t look remotely human, either. And the noise it was making...

She couldn’t stop looking at it. She couldn’t bear looking at it. Why couldn’t she stop looking at it?

“Z -- Zack?” she choked out. The thing in the cell didn’t respond. Around it on the ground were shredded bits of clothing and a few pieces of metal. As she watched, more and more scraps of cloth were excreted as it shifted and undulated, structures forming and unforming like globs of oil in water. She caught a glimpse of another eye then -- dark blue, almost purple. Undeniably his. It split in half a moment later as some sort of claw pushed its way out, before it too was claimed by the rest of its own mass.

“Oh god…” She forced herself to look away. Angeal was staring, transfixed, through the observation window into the sixth ring the way she had, looking pale and drawn. She turned to Cissnei, who seemed to be hyperventilating. Before Aeris could say anything else, she stood up and ran from the room. Lazard had crossed himself. Tseng seemed numb.

What was left of Zack suddenly lurched again, exposing part of its underside, covered in eyes -- not all of them the right colour, way more than two, why were there more than two, why were there so many -- which began splitting open into mouths, or something like them and let loose another, louder noise; a low, reverberating howl that sounded, in some twisted, inhuman way, like screaming.

Tseng was the next one to move, reaching up and closing the shutters on the room. He then reached down and switched off the microphone, and sank back into a chair.

“Is -- is he dead?” asked Angeal after another moment of silence, his voice hoarse.

“If he’s not,” said Aeris slowly, “would that… would it be any better?”

Nobody said anything else for another moment. The same silence as before blanketed the group, and still nobody knew what to say.

“Shut the cameras off,” snapped Aeris suddenly. She got out of her chair and ran to the nearest one. “Shut the fucking --” She fumbled with it for a few moments before opening the back and ripping the battery straight out. Tseng, almost robotically, got up a moment later and began to help.

Nobody said anything for several more minutes, even once the last camera was disabled. Lazard just sat there staring at the closed shutters, his face stricken with grief. Cissnei could be heard in the fourth ring airlock, in near hysteria. Eventually, she let herself back inside and sat against the tank, staring at the wall under a desk.

Aeris forced herself to get back up and went over to the wall switch.

“God, don’t --” groaned Lazard.

“I have to see,” she said, her breathing ragged. “I have to see him. I have to --”

“Aeris, you don’t need to look,” said Lazard. “You don’t have to look at any of it --”

“I have to see!” said Aeris, her breath hitching as tears began to well up in her eyes again. “I have to --”

The shutters went back up, and there it was, in all its glory. There. She’d looked. She’d keep looking. She had to.

“I didn’t know,” she said quietly.

Angeal came up behind her and put his arm around her shoulders. “Nobody did. Nobody could have known.” He, too, was crying. “Aeris, please just close the shutters.”

“We have to look,” she said again, her voice trembling. “What -- we have to figure out what to do.”

“Do?”

She nodded, turning away and looking at Angeal again. “We can’t just… we can’t just leave him like this…”

Tseng spoke up again. “It may be kinder to…”

They knew what he was suggesting. Aeris said nothing in reply. She wasn’t even sure how she’d do it. They didn’t have any guns. She wasn’t even sure that thing had lungs to be deprived of oxygen with. Maybe it would starve to death --

Zack. Zack would starve to death. Unless they killed him first, because he --

She knew she couldn’t do it. She didn’t know if her coworkers could bring themselves to do it either. But there couldn’t be a way to fix this, could there?

Nothing in modern medicine --

...Not their medicine, maybe.

She turned back to Angeal. “Go find our signature again. I’m going to talk to Cloud. Now.”

Angeal stared at her for a minute before comprehending what she was asking, then stationed himself back at his desk, stepping over the mess on the floor. It was probably absolutely wrecking the “clean room” aspect of the facility, and they should have cleaned it up ages ago. But then, there was also a giant pile of meat in the other room probably infected by some unknown alien contagion, so keeping the facility “clean” was a moot point by now. Aeris dashed off to get into her jumpsuit, not bothering with the chemical shower first. They could get yelled at for damage to company property later. This, she thought, was exactly the sort of thing that magic should be able to fix. Shouldn’t it?

She ran back into the fifth ring and was halfway through shoving the lid off the tank before Angeal spoke up again.

“It’s gone.”

Aeris froze. “...What is.”

“The waypoint. Our pattern. It’s… it’s not there anymore.”

“What do you mean, it’s not there anymore?” she said sharply. “How is it --”

“It’s not there, Aeris,” Angeal fired back. “It’s gone. Cloud’s -- he is gone.”

She could see the glass-covered disc from where she was standing. There were no longer any lights active on its surface.

“Look again,” she breathed. Her mouth had gone dry.

Angeal ran another scan. The disc remained unlit.

Gone. They were both gone.

“Do another one,” she said. “We must not be doing something right, we --”

“Aeris,” said Tseng gently.

“No. No, I can fix this, I can --”

“Just stop, okay?” said Cissnei. “Just… just stop it. He is dead. Or should be.”

Aeris went back over to the now-useless tank and sat next to Cissnei.

“What did we do wrong?” she asked.

Cissnei shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“...Did he have a family?” asked Aeris.

“I think so,” said Cissnei. “I don’t know if we’re allowed to notify them --”

“Well, they’re going to fucking notice, aren’t they?” she spat.

“I don’t know what to do!” Cissnei’s eyes darted between her and the glass, her voice cracking as it rose to a near-shriek. “Don’t yell at me for not knowing.”

“...Sorry.”

She chanced another look back up at the observation window. She couldn’t see much from where she was sitting, except for the spray of blood across the glass. He was still there.

She wondered if he was awake enough to feel pain. It wasn’t necessarily screaming he was doing. It only barely sounded human in the first place.

Zack was… maybe dead. Cloud was probably dead. She’d never know. Had they gotten into a fight? Did Cloud do this to him? Was there --

“Zack was wearing a body camera,” said Aeris suddenly. “Maybe… maybe it…”

“Does anyone want to go in there and get it?” said Cissnei.

She went silent again.

“...Euthanasia is an option,” said Lazard. “If there aren’t any others.”

“What other options would there be?” said Aeris, her voice flat.

Again, no one said anything, but Aeris could imagine for herself well enough. Every lab in the world would be fighting for a chance to study him. Whether or not he was aware of it happening, that seemed too cruel to consider. But what else could they do? There was nothing left of the pattern Ifalna had uncovered years ago for them to establish contact again. They couldn’t send him back. She wasn’t even sure what that would have accomplished.

Aeris got back up and switched off her own computer. Tseng was already standing, gesturing for her to follow him. She did so in a trance, not reacting much as she was handed a box of powder and led back to the small puddle of vomit on the floor, which she helped clean up.

Nobody wanted to leave the room after that. It seemed wrong, to go back to their quarters while whatever was left of Zack continued to twitch and convulse a few metres away. They all sat there, waiting for one of them to leave first.

In the middle of the silence, Aeris heard a muffled sob. She didn’t bother to check whose it might be. Occasionally, the computers chimed, reminding them that there was someone in the sixth ring, but the microphones were off. For safety reasons, please enable microphone communication between the fifth and sixth ring.

Zack was gone. Cloud was probably gone too. The air went cold as life support began the process of filtering and sterilising the air around them. A reminder went up for the tenth time that even though there was someone in the sixth ring, microphone communication between the fifth and sixth ring had been disabled. For safety reasons, please enable microphone communication between the fifth and sixth ring.

Tseng got up to close the shutters again before Lazard caught his arm and shook his head. “I need to watch,” he’d said. “I’m his doctor.” Tseng nodded and sat back down. Behind him, the computer reminded him that microphone communication had been disabled despite the fact that there was personnel still active in the fifth ring. For safety reasons, please enable microphone communication between the fifth and sixth ring.

Eventually, it wound up being Aeris. She couldn’t stand another second of it all. And while she returned to her quarters and buried her face in her pillow, she couldn’t manage to shed a single tear.

Notes:

IMMA MAKE ME SOME BOY PUTTY

I forgot to mention this last time, but I've got fanart now!

http://kaijudragon.tumblr.com/post/171369828466/this-is-nautilusopus-s-rat-oc-remy-a-very-good

Limbostratus drew this good good boy.

(last minute notice: minor hiatus upcoming because my power went out a few hours ago and took out half of 26 and all of 27 with it so now i gotta redo that)

Chapter 26: Tifa Uses A Cell Phone

Notes:

Aaaaand hiatus over. It took less time than I thought because someone put fandom Disc Horse(TM) on my dashboard and it fucking infuriated me enough to write out three chapters and seven short stories in like four days. There is no energy source in the world more powerful than spite.

Thanks as usual to Sanctum_C and dailykaley (previously limbostratus) for providing feedback on this thing and Larissa for beta-ing and editing it. Could not have done this without you guys.

This chapter contains depictions of body horror and gore.

Dark here.

Empty, and full of all that was. A chorus of voices. Everything was the voices. They made the music together. But still it was dark.

Cold dark bad needlescantmovecantmovecantmove

All around, and inside, swimming and weaving with knives and needles and the smell of antiseptic and mako and the white-hot agony guided expertly by those circles of light glinting off his glasses -- a spotlight, in a vast empty hall, with a million eyes pressing down from inside a cell, a sea of faces watching and cheering and smiling and standing still, somber, solemn, as a drum beat in the background, a gun loaded, an order given, a branch swinging from a tree, an arm swinging from a socket, song and space and being whole at last.

A hand offered freely and not taken. He badly wanted to -- he was. He was, he wasn't -- he needed to be, needed to stay, here isn't here isn't anyone what have you done Mother everywhere.

A face pressing through a door. A word remembered through layers of shadow -- pattern. Another word, clung to -- I -- and lost to the song just as quickly. A third word -- am, enveloping and becoming and swallowing itself. To know all that was is to know Mother.

She still sang.

He didn't know where he was. He could see, and then couldn't, and the images were too flat, stretched thin across whole together incomplete let me in just below the surface of the surface of the surface, and then he wasn't him wasn't anyone, and there was only Mother again.

 

---

 

Aeris didn't sleep much. She snagged a few hours for functionality's sake, but it felt weirdly disrespectful just to sleep and eat when a few rooms down there was… whatever was left of Zack.

Lazard hadn't slept at all. She found him still sitting there, staring with bloodshot eyes at the thing pulsating behind the glass.

"Now what?" she asked quietly.

Lazard looked up at her blearily, then slowly turned back to the observation window, scarcely moving or acknowledging her presence.

"You're the doctor here," she said. "I might be in charge, but your opinion will mean more than mine when the time comes to make a decision."

Lazard remained silent, his gaze fixed on the sixth ring. Aeris pulled up a chair next to him.

"There's very little I can do," said Lazard. "Even if... even if we knew what this was, we can't risk going in to do anything. Not even pick up the body cam." He gestured to a gore-encrusted object sitting on the floor next to it, along with several scraps of cloth, the top half of the air filter, and some metal bits she didn't recognise. "It spat that up about an hour ago. It hasn't moved, but if that thing turns out to be infectious, or hostile --"

"That thing is Zack Fair," interrupted Aeris.

"Is it, Aeris?" said Lazard. His expression was grim. "That's news to me."

"It's still him," she repeated. "We can't just --"

"What we can't do is a lot of things," he said. "We can't go in there to get a sample to know what's gone wrong in the first place until we know it's safe. We can't go in there and feed it, if it even eats. We can't even go in there and kill it, if it is Zack and he's in pain and we know beyond a shadow of a doubt he wants to die."

Aeris flinched, but did not look away. Lazard went back to staring at the thing. "I'm a doctor and I don't know what's wrong with my patient or how to begin treating them in the first place. They did not cover 'melting' in graduate school. I am largely worthless here. Your guess is as good as mine."

"...I just... don't understand," said Aeris. "We checked the rats. I even -- I mean, Cloud even handled them. Nothing happened. I don't understand."

"We missed something, obviously," said Lazard. "Whatever happened, it seems it's killed Cloud as well."

Aeris nodded. It felt a bit strange, not having shed one tear about that yet. It was probably all too much to take in all at once.

"So, the question remains... now what?" Lazard leaned back in his chair and removed his glasses, picking at a splotch of something on the lens.

"...The project is over," said Aeris. She said the words, but their meaning didn’t really sink in for her. It was hard to believe any of this was real. "No way they'd let it continue after this."

"Even if they didn't care about the human cost, there's nothing we can do without a contact point," said Lazard. "Unless... you said there were others initially, weren't there?"

"There were others, yes," said Aeris. "They were all either too unstable, or the range was too narrow. We wouldn't be able to do anything meaningful with them." She paused. "...Our only other shot is that big one, but... I don't think that'll work well, either. We've already established doing things achronologically leads to issues."

"Do we have any other options?" asked Lazard.

"I don't know. There -- there has to be, there..."

It wouldn't work. Not for what they wanted to do. She knew that already. It was too badly truncated to be stable, and too early to warn anyone to... do what? She wasn't sure.

"Work on it anyway," said Lazard. "It'll give you something to do with yourself besides sitting here all night."

"But..."

"Maybe it'll inspire a real solution," he added. "Who knows. At this point, we could use a miracle."

"What are you going to do?" said Aeris.

"Sleep," said Lazard, shrugging. "And then figure out what to do next."

Aeris sat down in front of the disc as she had a million years ago, and cycled it through its last scan until she found the first contact point she'd considered, before realising it, too, truncated. The one that wasn't Cloud.

How would all of this have turned out if she had used this one instead? Would they be dead? Would a member of their team might be going the same way? Would the whole project ending abruptly before it even started have prevented any of this, or would there just be a new disaster in its place?

The calculations came a bit more easily this time -- answers were familiar, having encountered them before. She ran the numbers again, and again, until she practically had them memorised. But there wasn't anymore magic than what she was already apparently doing, and no matter how many times you added something, the answer was still the same.

She didn't know how much longer it was before Tseng and Angeal came in together. Angeal looked just as tired and worn as everyone else. Tseng carried the first rat in a box.

"It's been exposed," said Tseng. "To what, if anything, I don't know. We certainly didn't find anything the first time. But if there is something that's contaminated anyone, it would have contaminated the rat as well."

"What -- what are you expecting to happen?"

"Either the rat dies, or it doesn't," said Tseng. "It lives, and we know we can go in there and run tests. It dies, and at least we'll have some understanding of what happened."

Aeris nodded slowly and watched them carry the rat over to the drop box on the wall, before opening its container and closing it inside. The rat did not seem particularly eager to leave the safety of the drop box, even when it was manually opened.

"...Do we have anything we can shove it with?" asked Cissnei uncomfortably.

"That -- that seems a little cruel," said Aeris, glancing at Tseng.

"We're well past the point of drawing the ire of the RSPCA," said Tseng, who was now searching the desks for something suitably long and pointy. "We'll be lucky if we all get off without a workplace negligence case cropping up, at the very least."

In the end, Tseng wound up thumping the door to the drop box loudly with his fist, causing the rat to panic and drop down onto the floor next to... whatever it was.

They all went motionless as they watched the rat crawl around the enclosure, trying to find a way to flee from the pile of meat in the centre of the room. It had stopped twitching as much, and it was now entirely silent, but it still moved occasionally. If anything, it almost looked like it was rooting itself to the floor.

The rat scampered across one of the… limbs? spread out across the floor in an attempt to get away. The thing made no attempt to stop it.

"Well... it's just in there now," said Aeris. "We'll have to remember to drop some bread in there with it in a couple hours."

"Perhaps not," said Tseng. "It's still alive."

"Maybe it's not hungry," said Cissnei.

"Do you see a mouth on that thing?" returned Tseng.

"I did," said Lazard morosely. "It had six or seven last night."

There was another uncomfortable silence as Aeris watched the rat scratch at the walls before crossing to the other side of the room to sniff around the inactive gateway chamber. The thing, which now had a large, misshapen wing jutting out of it, shuddered and convulsed briefly before settling back into silence, but did not move to stop it in any way.

"Someone has to go in there," said Tseng. "There is nothing else we can do. Our waypoint is gone. We are missing a member of the staff. There is literally nowhere to proceed but in this direction."

"I'll do it," said Angeal. "This is partially my fault. I was in charge of ensuring signal stability, it --"

"The signal was stable," said Aeris. "I'm sure that's not what happened. Besides, I'm still the head of this project. I'll --"

"You're vital staff," said Cissnei. "They were right all along, switching you two out. Suppose it was you in there? If we're wrong about this..."

"I'll go," said Lazard sternly. "This is what I'm here for." And before anyone could say another word, he'd already gone straight for the sixth ring airlock and shut himself inside.

In another few minutes, he stepped out of the sixth ring's living quarters and into the room with Zack. Lazard had a full-body suit, but Aeris could still see him holding his breath anytime he got near the mass of organs a few paces away from him.

One minute passed, then two. It didn't react to his presence in any way. Very slowly, he eased around it to retrieve the bodycam off the floor, not taking his eyes off it. There was only a single eye on it visible from where Aeris was standing, but it didn't seem to move to follow him or focus on anything at all.

"Box," she could see Lazard mouthing. She hastily switched the microphone to the room back on and then fumbled for a sample box, passing it back through the wall to Lazard. He sealed the camera inside, along with the viscera it was covered in, and was almost to the door when he paused and turned around.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"...Nothing," said Lazard. "Thought I heard something."

He made it back to the airlock without incident after passing the sample box back through decontamination. "We've got blood, at least," he said rather dryly. "Or tissue. Better than nothing."

"The footage?" asked Angeal.

"Won't be able to safety play it back until we clean it off a bit," said Tseng. "But it's better than nothing."

The rat continued to scamper around the room, looking for a way out. Aeris wondered how long the rest of the test rats would have left to live. And if they didn’t die, whether or not that meant anything good for Zack. For any of them.

 

---

 

"We're getting close," said Nanaki suddenly.

Tifa looked up from the remains of the campfire she'd been examining. "How close?"

Nanaki was quiet for another moment, his nose twitching furiously. "An hour's walk. Maybe a little more."

"Is -- is he still there?" asked Tifa, barely daring to believe it.

"I don't know. But if he isn't, he can't be far."

Tifa's heart was hammering in her chest. She didn't want to get her hopes up -- at best he'd be half-mad from isolation and probably a little malnourished. But it was something. It was more than she'd had since this entire mess started. They were close. Maybe, in a little while, things would be alright again.

Nearly an hour had passed before Nanaki suddenly flattened his ears, a low growl building up in his throat.

"Predators?" Tifa asked, before what Nanaki said next had her blood turning to ice in her veins.

"Her."

That wasn't right. That couldn't be right.

"How can you tell?" asked Tifa. "Are you sure it's not just Cloud? I thought..."

"He's there, too," said Nanaki. "But so is Jenova. I'm sure of it." He turned to Tifa, his fur still on end. "They were right. She's still alive. We missed some."

"But --" Tifa's head was spinning as she picked up the pace, stepping over the roots of the grove of trees they'd wandered into, "-- Cloud said -- he said there was nothing left, he'd -- he'd know, wouldn't he?"

"Perhaps," said Nanaki, sprinting ahead of her. Tifa ran to catch up to him and found him sitting by a tree overlooking a lake, standing stock still, the growl having risen in intensity.

"Nanaki?" she said tentatively, as she approached what he was staring at. Tifa's stomach dropped into queasy hell.

It was Cloud's sword. It was untouched, as though he'd simply taken the assembly off and abandoned them, which simply wasn't possible. It had taken them three years to get him to stop carrying them around with him everywhere they went, and it had been a major ordeal punctuated frequently by arguments and panic attacks and a lot of ruined furniture. Cloud didn't feel safe without it nearby.

As she looked around, the pit of dread in her stomach grew more and more. There was a bag nearby (when had he gotten that?) that had been set aside and never reclaimed just as the sword had been. Nearby was Cloud's harness, which he wouldn't have taken off even to sleep. There was something underneath it.

She knelt and found a few scraps of white cloth. For some reason, they were slightly damp. She looked over at Nanaki and found him sniffing at something else to her left.

It was a pile of metal bits -- screws, a few metal plates... they looked familiar. She couldn't recall why, but the sight of them filled her with a sense of growing dread.

Something glinted in the dirt in front of her. It wasn't the right size or shape to be a screw, so what was...

She picked it up, staring at it, as thought that would somehow make the object in her hand anything other than it was.

It was an earring. Just the one, still grubby from never having been removed and washed properly, ever.

She held it out to Nanaki to see, and the two of them exchanged a look.

Cloud was missing, or very likely dead. He might have forgotten to take his supplies, or even abandoned his sword if he'd been desperate enough, but he'd never, ever leave behind his earrings.

You don't know he's gone, thought Tifa. A lot of things could have happened. You don't know.

She couldn't quite bring herself to believe it. He'd gotten through so much... Nibelheim. That incident with the White Materia. The stigma. Sephiroth, three times. She couldn't imagine anything that could have...

Well, she wasn't going to imagine. She was going to find out. She was sick of imagining.

Whatever it was, if it had gotten the drop on Cloud, then this was bigger than she'd thought.

She pocketed the earring and began gathering up Cloud's things. "Do you think you could carry this bag? We need to get back to Kalm so I can call Cid for a ride."

Nanaki stared at her. "Tifa?"

"We need to get back to Edge. Now."

"Tifa, don't do anything rash," said Nanaki nervously. "The WRO can't do much for us right now, without Reeve --"

"Reeve. Fuck. Do you know where he is?"

"With Cid, I think. He's lying low while the investigation is ongoing. He said something about a backup plan before he departed. "

Tifa almost asked, then shook her head. "Well, I'm gonna need a favour from him too. If anyone can get ahold of this stuff, it's him."

"Tifa?"

"We're wasting time," said Tifa, hauling herself to her feet with the sword on her back, staggering under its weight before managing to right herself. "Let's move."

 

---

 

Lazard hesitated before loading the disc they'd retrieved from Zack's bodycam into the computer. Aeris wasn't sure if it was out of guilt or apprehension or some combination thereof. Cissnei had turned away from the screen, only glancing at it out of the corner of her eyes.

Zack had arrived safely -- they'd been able to glean that much. Spoken, even. He didn't seem injured, or disoriented.

The planet they were looking at seemed... normal. Or at least, there wasn't anything present that looked like it would do what it had to Zack. There were some plants and animals she didn't recognise off in the distance. Aeris felt another pang of regret at knowing that if it hadn't been out of reach before, it certainly was now.

The camera moved, and sitting against a tree... was that Cloud? He seemed a lot smaller than she remembered. Then again, she'd been using his body. She didn't consider herself all that short until she found herself next to other people.

Zack had attempted to make contact. Said hello. Gotten Cloud to look up at him, and...

Aeris frowned. Cloud's gaze went from confused to glassy and lifeless. Zack hadn't said anything else, and seemed to just be standing there, breathing heavily. A muscle appeared to twitch in Cloud's face, and he abruptly got to his feet. He stood there staring at Zack for about two minutes. Zack did not move or call attention to Cloud's inaction. The sound of him breathing heavily could still be heard in the background, but it was slowing. Something else could be heard moving in the background as well.

It stopped entirely as Cloud began to approach him. The look on his face was beyond unsettling. He seemed... happy. Or someone’s idea of happy if they were… she wasn’t sure. She’d seen the same sort of thing on the faces of religious fanatics, convinced they were speaking with God. Aeris didn't know what sort of emotion that was, and as Cloud got close enough to Zack for his head to leave the frame, she found she wasn't all that fussed that she wouldn't find out.

Eventually, Cloud's body blocked out the camera's view entirely, until it lurched upwards, as though he'd fallen on his back. But that couldn't be it, because Cloud was nowhere to be found, and the view was way too high up.

Then the noises started. Aeris felt sick watching, even as the camera showed nothing but the sky above. The footage began to stutter and distort, which shouldn't have been possible. Even if they'd rubbed a magnet right up against the lens, the camera had been built to be basically indestructible. They'd accounted for conditions to be much worse on the other side.

Towards the end, something else moved in front of the camera, beclawed and covered in black feathers and dripping meat and entirely too reminiscent of the thing in the sixth ring. A ring of flesh seemed to sink in around it, cutting off the feed entirely. The microphone appeared to have been torn off a while ago.

Aeris ran back the footage again. And again. There wasn't much they could see, and what little they could made no sense. Cloud had... done something? But then, Zack seemed to be acting strange, too. He'd been fine a moment before, and then he'd just started standing there. And Cloud had approached him, getting closer and closer until he walked out of the view of the camera entirely, and... had Zack done something? What could he have possibly done? Where did he go?

"Maybe slow it down?" said Cissnei, who seemed to have gotten some of her nerve back. "I thought it looked a bit strange, just before it moved."

Aeris nodded and ran the footage back again. There were an awful lot of black frames, she noticed, now that she was really looking. Another thing that shouldn't have been possible -- the camera didn't seem to have been tampered with in any way, apart from being covered in... gunk.

"Who's his friend?" asked Angeal suddenly. "You didn't mention there would be another one."

"What friend?" asked Aeris. She paused the footage and began rewinding it again.

"I saw something, too," said Angeal. "It looked like a person. It could have just been a double image, but..."

Aeris began to go through the stills individually, a process that took several minutes due to the high framerate. Black frame, black frame, distortion, another clear shot of Cloud just standing there, black frame -- no, that one wasn't black. She could still see Cloud's outline, sort of. And...

"I... might have been wrong," said Angeal.

The footage was dark, as though one of the black frames had bled onto the other ones, like a shoddy signal on a digital television. Cloud was there, though, and...

Something was behind him. Or maybe very close to Zack. Maybe both? It was a little hard to see, but it almost looked like a hand. Not one that had five fingers, or was proportioned correctly. It looked sort of like one, though.

She began flipping through the rest of the frames more quickly. There were others, she was noticing. Just the one at first, then three or four, then hundreds, distorting the image. By the time they were obtrusive enough to show up on camera normally, there were too many to be seen as anything but distortion. Which, she supposed, they were.

There were a couple frames that were just as baffling. The tree was there, and the grass, and everything, but... Cloud wasn't. It was as though someone had simply photoshopped him out of the image. Had Lazard tampered with the footage for some unknown reason? Could he even do that with the computers here?

They went back to viewing the footage normally. Lazard opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it and closed it again.

Aeris looked at him. "What?"

Lazard shook his head. "It's unlikely. And probably cruel of me to consider, really."

"Magic is real," said Tseng, "and Zack is possibly dead. There is nothing you could say that wouldn't be likely by now."

"Well..." he paused, considering his next words. "...He was a fairly tall guy, Zack. Wasn't he?"

Aeris nodded, uncertain of where he was going. Was he trying to explain the sky angle?

"But not... that tall," he continued, gesturing to the wall of the sixth ring, and presumably at what was behind it. "There's... there's too much meat in there."

There was a pause as Lazard's words sank in.

"How?" asked Cissnei. "How would that happen? How would that --"

"I said it was unlikely," said Lazard. "Maybe... maybe it... I don't know."

"The rats were fine," said Tseng. "None of them melted into one another."

Aeris got up and opened the shutters to the sixth ring. She closed them almost immediately, but not before noting the first rat still scampering around the edges of the room over the piles of meat present, still trying to find a way out.

"Whatever it is... it's not doing it now," said Aeris. "It didn't go for Lazard, either. Something... maybe it was just something over there, that..."

"We need evidence," said Tseng. "Actionable evidence. All we're doing is guessing. Not to mention... what does this change, precisely, if..." He didn't seem to want to say the rest.

"It..." Aeris sat back down. "There has to be something that..."

So, all they had after all that were more guesses. And a pile of meat that might have been two people instead of one, that wouldn't respond to stimuli or communicate with them in any way they could understand.

The next restock period was in a week or two. This one had been longer, but sooner or later they'd run out of supplies. And then they'd have to leave, and then someone would discover what had happened here.

Would it be easier just to tell everyone now? Zack seemed to be doomed either way. Nothing seemed to have changed that. There was no Cloud, there was no Zack, there was no project...

She'd run out of options. They all had.

 

---

 

"You want what?"

"You heard me," said Tifa, squeezing her cell phone tightly to warm her fingers as she stood on the balcony of the Shera. "I'm sure you've probably got a few Shinra connections left. Just --"

"Tifa -- look, even if they'd be willing to talk to me, as though I didn't have a direct hand in the deaths of all their friends and coworkers, they're not going to come forward. Not in this day and age," said Reeve. "And even if they did feel like coming out of the woodworks to do something extremely illegal, I doubt any of them even have --"

"You can just say no," she huffed. "I can look in other places. I'll bet there's some sitting around fake Nibelheim." It probably wasn't even guarded. Now that the actors that had been stationed there were no longer on Shinra's payroll, the town had been summarily abandoned. There wouldn't be anything stopping her from having a look around.

"You better not be doing what I think you're doing."

"What do you think I'm doing, Reeve?" said Tifa innocently, as though they both didn't know. There wasn't really a lot of room for interpretation.

"I think you're letting your grief get the better of you," said Reeve as gently as he could manage. "It wouldn't be the first time. I understand you're upset, but we don't even know if he is gone. If he doesn't want to be found, he'd have worked out a way to --"

"He lost his earrings," said Tifa. "One of them anyway. Tell me why he'd do that."

"...I don't know," he said heavily. "But I'm begging you, just -- think about this. Really take the time to think about what you're doing. Consider the consequences. You can't come back from this, even if it works. Assuming you survive. What if he's fine, and he gets back and you've..."

Tifa shifted her phone to her other hand to warm that one as well. She'd been trying to ignore him in order to keep her resolve, but objectively there was a lot of truth to what he was saying. Had she thought about it enough? Was there a better way to handle this? Maybe, but she doubted she'd have time to come up with it.

"...It'll take a while to get everything together, anyway," she said slowly. "So I'll have time to back out. But promise me that if it does work -- or... if it doesn't immediately fail, then you'll back me up?"

A heavy sigh crackled through the speaker of her phone.

"Always," said Reeve. "Just keep an eye out for yourself, too. Alright?"

"Okay," she said uneasily. "Call me if you get results."

Cid didn't have anything to say to her as she returned to the bridge to warm herself. He'd been uncharacteristically quiet the entire time. When he did finally speak up, his voice lacked the typical disinterested drawl it usually carried.

"Kid finally went and got himself killed, huh?" he said, his eyes dull.

Tifa didn't respond.

"I knew he wouldn't go quiet," said Cid. "Just didn't think it'd be this soon."

"...He wasn't heading for the western continent, looked like," he added. "Maybe he got all mixed up with his directions. Forgot where he was. I told him he'd have a place to stay if he needed it. Why didn't he...?"

Tifa sat down in the copilot's chair. Cid barely glanced at her.

"Guess he thought I was joking. Fuckin' goddamn idiot," he muttered. "We were only about halfway ready, getting him busted out. Me an' Shera cleaned out the guest room for no reason."

"We don't know he's gone," said Tifa quietly.

Cid gave her a look. She went back to warming her hands on the console.

Tifa had quite a bit of time to consider Reeve's words on the trip back to Edge. She would be giving up everything if this didn't work. Or, hell, maybe even if it did. "Consider the consequences", Reeve had said. Well... for all intents and purposes, there wouldn't really be a tomorrow afterwards. What sort of things were usually associated with "tomorrow"?

She didn't really want any kids -- or, definitely not babies, and definitely not babies she had to push out herself. She hadn't wanted to deal with the WRO's sperm bank to begin with, and it wasn't as though Cloud was capable of contributing on that front since Shinra had decided to enforce the copyright they'd had on his body or something. Or maybe it was the gene splicing? It could have been a lot of things, really. She wondered if it caused him any pain. She'd usually avoided asking to preserve his dignity since it was just one of many, many things he was self-conscious about, but now that she really needed answers she found herself wishing she'd just bit the bullet and questioned him like she should have.

What other things did people usually think about doing one day? A career? Well, she did have her bar... she hadn't really considered anything else. When she'd been younger she'd always wanted to get into martial arts competitively, but that probably wasn't going to be an option anymore. The arenas that Shinra had sponsored had either been abandoned or shut down, and with them went the steady stream of regular pay she could have expected from making appearances. It wasn't as though the bar was a bad job...

Retirement, maybe? Would she lose that, too? It seemed strange to think about -- she wasn't even thirty yet. "Retirement" was a word for old people with pensions. It slowly dawned on Tifa that she hadn't actually put much thought into anything that far ahead before. Maybe because she'd just assumed she'd die in a firefight before it got to that point. The realisation startled her. Maybe she consciously knew that wasn't likely (well... hadn't been likely before, anyway, who knew at this point), but she'd still been acting as though it had ever since she'd been nineteen. Maybe it was just easier to handle things that way -- just do what you could today, because you probably wouldn't make it to tomorrow.

These were all fairly useless things to consider, anyway. Trivial crap that she'd long since abandoned. She was used to losing everything. Most of their family was. In the end, they were all each of them had. And if they could repeatedly sacrifice everything they were, then so could she.

So that was why she had her mind made up by the time she finally stepped back through the door of Seventh Heaven. Barret was still asleep on the couch in the back as she and Nanaki crept upstairs to Cloud's room, which appeared to be unoccupied. She'd go about assembling the rest of the materials tomorrow. She'd need to tell Barret about it, too. Nanaki seemed rather distressed about the whole thing, but that was to be expected. Barret would have to know too -- Barret had thumbs, and could step in if (when) things went badly enough. Barret probably wouldn't be too fond of the plan either.

A trip to the drug store was in order, before she really got started. She wasn't expecting Reeve to magically come up with a bunch of mako overnight, but she was hoping it wouldn't be necessary for a while. There should be enough in there "naturally" to keep her from immediately dying.

Still, as she drifted off to sleep in Cloud's bed, with Nanaki curled up beside her, her thoughts lingered on the one lifeline she had left sitting in her closet in a cooler, and what it would be like to have someone else reach into her head.

Chapter 27: Barret Is Surrounded By Impulsive Fucking Children

Notes:

I don't know how to count and we're coming up on 200k and we're only barely halfway in. Is anyone even still reading this thing? Because y i k e s.

Thank you to daily-kaley and Sanctum_C for proofreading this and Larissa for beta'ing. Especially considering how much shit I shoved into their faces prior to this going up.

Barret was not as on-board with the plan as she'd hoped.

"Have you lost your damn mind?!"

Tifa flinched. "Someone needs to do this --"

"No one has to do it!" yelled Barret. "Least of all you!"

"Barret, please," she pleaded. "This is the only chance we have at --"

"He's dead, Tifa!" he shouted. "And I ain't havin' you go the same way!"

"You don't know he's dead!" she screamed back. "You don't know -- nobody knows -- he's probably afraid, and he thinks we're gonna come find him, and after everything we've done for each other we damn well better!"

"Tifa, this isn't a rescue mission!" yelled Barret. "This is suicide! At best! This is throwing away your entire life for --"

"He'd do the same for me," said Tifa firmly. Barret dragged his hand across his face.

"That's not a good thing!" he said, just as desperate as she was by now. "That's what we've been trying to get him to stop for the last year or so, because it's made you and him a mess!"

"I'm not a mess!"

"Tifa, think about what you're doing! You really wanna go the rest of your life hearing voices?" Barret was pacing now. "What about the rest of us? What are we supposed to do when you both lose it one day?"

"I --"

Barret turned to her, exhaustion having set dark circles under his eyes. Nanaki was standing behind Tifa with his tail tucked around him, looking very much like as though he'd like the earth to swallow him up. Barret glanced at him uncomfortably, before turning back to Tifa.

"You're allowed to have a life after this, too," he said. "There's gotta be a better way than this."

"Not a faster way," said Tifa. "If Cloud can handle it, so can I."

"Cloud can't handle it! That's the fucking point I -- Tifa, look at me."

She looked at him. He was tired. They all were. Cloud had looked drained and diminished and forlorn when she'd gone to visit him, but it wasn't just him. Barret had been ferrying his daughter back and forth, trying to keep everyone going, between her, Marlene, and the feds. Cid and Reeve were working themselves to the bone nonstop for a backup plan that seemed to be all for nothing, and if Reeve had been telling the truth, on finding her about forty litres of mako. Yuffie had risked jail time at least, and an international incident at worst. Nanaki had run off with her across the countryside to track down a pile of scrap metal and rags and a single earring. They were worn out and miserable and it was all anyone could do to keep going because all anyone had was each other.

And here she was, just sitting and watching it all happening, as usual, knowing how insignificant her contributions were in the face of everything else. She should be doing more.

And now, she could.

"...I'm sorry, Barret," she said slowly. "I'm really, really sorry. Not just for this. For everything."

"For... Tifa?"

Tifa had waited until he'd crossed to the other side of the room before dashing for the stairs towards her room. She heard Barret running after her a moment later, and slammed the door to her room shut before locking it. She threw open her closet, fumbling for the lid of the cooler while Barret pounded on the door behind her. No time to be delicate about this. It was now or never.

Barret kicked open her bedroom door in time to watch her open one of the vials of blood and dump the contents down her throat.

They stood there for a moment, sizing one another up. Barret's expression gradually shifted from shocked, to furious, to a weariness that seemed beyond words.

"There," said Tifa. "I'm infected. It's done."

Barret quietly shook his head, looking at her sadly.

"So... we can either do the rest of this, and hope whatever mako's already in his blood is enough to keep me alive, or... or I die from the lesions this is gonna cause." Tifa tossed the empty vial back into the cooler, where it landed on top of the still full IV pouches. "I picked up a couple needles for this from the pharmacy. I just... need you to watch me in case I start seizing or... or something."

"Do you even have the same blood type?" asked Barret. "You'll die from that before Jenova or the mako get a chance to kill you."

"Not if we get enough in fast enough," said Tifa. "Her whole thing is copying things, right? Assimilation. She wants Her hosts alive."

"Do you know that?"

Tifa said nothing.

Barret heaved a slow, heavy sigh. "Where's your damn needles?"

"In the bathroom. They're still in the bag."

Nanaki trotted back into her room as Barret departed. He sat down in the doorway and stared at her.

"...What?" she said, sighing.

"I wish you hadn't," said Nanaki.

"It's for a good --"

"There's no such thing as good suffering," said Nanaki shortly. Then he turned and walked out the door as well. Tifa waited for him to finish going downstairs before following him.

The needles came with instructions, and Tifa had a vague memory of a nurse instructing her on how to safely administer fluids intravenously... had it really only been a few weeks ago? It felt like forever. Her hands shook too much to find a vein properly, so Barret wound up having to do it, his metal hand as cold as the needle was against her skin. Her stomach already felt a little rocky, but that could have just been nerves.

She watched the IV line slowly fill with red, and her arm suddenly burned around the site of injection. She drew her breath in with a pained hiss, then leaned back against the sofa.

It was funny to think that in another few hours, she wouldn't be human anymore. She wondered what it would feel like. Probably different. Cloud always moved differently from everyone else. He must feel differently too. That was the best way to think about this. Like Cloud. Not like Sephiroth. Not like Sephiroth.

A few minutes in, she began to feel a creeping dread about what she'd just done. Was that her, or Jenova? Too late to back out now. She felt like ice, but her whole arm burned painfully.

"Can you grab some blankets from upstairs?" she asked through clenched teeth. "Don't feel so good."

"Well, how about that," said Barret dryly, before resting his hand against her forehead. "You're burning up. I'm'a grab some cold medicine. Don't know how much good it'll do..."

"Won't that mess something up?" asked Tifa.

"Doubt it," said Barret. "Wouldn't be much of a space monster if a little cold medicine threw it for a loop."

If anything, it didn't feel like it was doing much of anything. The fever continued to mount, and her vision swam.

It was only an hour or so later before she began hearing voices.

She didn't notice they were voices at first -- just subdued little impulses working their way into her thoughts so subtly she didn't even notice they weren't hers at first, so of course there wasn't any real reason to ignore them. There weren't really words to them -- more like feelings or suggestions, the little voice in the back of her head that wasn't really a voice that seemed to narrate her thoughts, only now there were more than she remembered, speaking more and more frequently. The fact that her entire body ached probably distracted her from questioning some of the stranger ones, like, "you should go outside," and "you're empty and incomplete and you're going to die alone," and "kill that human and make use of his biomass."

They started getting louder, then. She still couldn't understand the words, but their meaning became clearer and clearer, and yet she still couldn't quite understand what she was being told, as though her mind simply refused to process it. And now words came to her through her own thoughts. One word, in particular, that pushed her and shaped her and carved out a space in her mind that she would always know was there.

"Reunion," she muttered breathlessly. She could feel it. Was this what it was like? This lingering anxiety that something was wrong -- with her, with her own body, with the world, but...

There was nowhere to go. It was just there, whispering away in the back of her mind. She closed her eyes and began taking deep breaths, waiting for the feeling to die down.

Her entire body felt like it was on fire, and the spot where the needle was inserted into her skin was noticeably inflamed. A wave of nausea hit her. "Get the trash bin," was all she managed to groan to Barret. He only barely returned in time for her to empty her stomach into it. She didn't feel any better once she'd stopped heaving.

Four hours passed, and the restlessness (if it could even be called that at this stage) didn't go anywhere. She had to get up, but the minute she tried another wave of agony shot through her, and she had to lay back down. She couldn't stay here -- not in this room -- not in her skin. She had to get away from something, but it was in her and around her and she needed out and it wouldn't stop -- the voices hadn't gotten any quieter. They whispered things to her, somehow overwhelmingly loud despite the barest hint of their presence gracing her thoughts. It was getting harder and harder to direct her attention in any particular way and no matter which way she tried it felt wrong, distressing her further. Her fingers worked through Nanaki's mane in an effort to calm herself, but she found him withdrawing out of her reach after she began to tug out hairs.

"Say something," she blurted out, looking at him and Barret desperately. "Just -- I need someone to talk to right now. Please say something."They’d been conversing idly every now and then before now, but she now understood why Cloud insisted she talk her throat sore through these periods. Every single pause wasn’t silence, it was a slow, steady assault.

"What should I say?" asked Barret, looking at her uncomfortably. Nanaki huffed in surprise. Was there something wrong with her eyes yet? She was afraid to see for herself.

"Anything," she croaked. "I just -- I need -- something -- I need to hear -- anything you can think of --"

"This is the worst idea you've ever had," said Barret immediately. "And that's including that time you found a man in a pile of trash and decided you had to make him my problem too." Tifa laughed weakly.

"How much pain are you in? Scale of one to ten."

"Six, maybe?" said Tifa. "Just -- it feels bad. Wish I could move. What do I look like?" All she could really see was her arm, which looked as painful as it felt. The skin seemed a little jaundiced, too.

"Yellow," said Barret. She laughed again, which again nearly made her throw up, but Barret wasn't smiling.

"This was a bad idea," he said. "I'm gettin' you to the hospital --"

"You can't," said Tifa matter-of-factly. "I'm already infected anyway. What do you think they'd do to me... if you showed up with me now?"

Barret shook his head in disgust. "You're way too damn proud of yourself right now."

"You're very sick," said Nanaki, who had finally sat back down in front of her, his ears flattened against his head.

"Just... get some painkillers -- I'm fine."

"I'm taking out that needle first," said Barret. "The bag's nearly done, and you don't need all of it."

"Barret --"

"Tifa, that's at least all the blood in the human body that you've got in that cooler," he said, already reaching for a bandage. "I don't gotta be a scientist to know that replacing every last drop you got is gonna kill you."

Tifa sheepishly offered her arm to him and allowed him to patch up the injection site. It was a lot of blood, she realised. What did Reno think she would have done with it all?

Probably not this, she mused, which was the last coherent thought she remembered having for a while.

The only way she knew time was passing at all were the LED lights on the clock on the end-table, which suddenly seemed piercingly bright. The world tilted and wavered around her. Each minute seemed to last hours, until she'd look away and suddenly find it two hours later the next time she looked back. Her vision began to spot.

Nakani whined loudly next to her and rested his head next to her arm on the couch cushion. I'm dying, thought Tifa, but she didn't feel worried about it for some reason. She certainly felt like she was dying. Every breath was laboured. Her sight began to muddy again. She turned to Barret to ask him to speak to her again, and nearly recoiled in horror. He looked wrong. She was sure of it. She didn't know how -- he looked like Barret, and he was still staring at her with concern (or maybe just anger?), but she couldn't shake the feeling that it was only something hiding behind Barret, wearing his skin.

In fact, the entire world looked like that now. There was something behind it. She could hear it now, and despite the fact that she was lying on the couch she felt as though she were falling, and dug her hands into the fabric. She hated it all -- Barret, this room, her own skin, and the stupid voices that she could and couldn't understand that were all so loud --

Shut up, she thought to herself, and for the first time realised what it was like for something to be so loud one couldn't hear themselves think. She began to whisper it to herself. "Shut up. Shut up. Shut up."

The noise didn't get any quieter. She found herself staring at the ceiling, eyes vacant, unable to focus on anything else other than keeping her own thoughts straight -- that she was here, that there was nothing to listen to, that she was alone --

She hadn't been alone before. Had she?

Barret was no longer next to her. Nanaki was gone, too. Maybe they had left the room.

A cry escaped her as she tried to sit up to follow them and every nerve in her body objected violently. God, it hurt. Tears began to leak from her eyes as the pain intensified more and more. She had gone from feeling freezing cold to burning hot, the cloth of the couch like razors against her skin, and even the noise of her hair brushing past her ear seemed freakishly loud.

Someone was looming above her now. She couldn't see straight anymore -- everything hurt too much. The figure continued to stand there, staring at her. Tifa realised she knew it.

"Papa?" she rasped. Papa did not move and continued to gaze at her coldly. "Papa, is that you?"

There was a man's voice to her right, saying words she could no longer understand. Papa continued standing there, staring at her, while something horrible stared out through him. His mouth began to open, and something began to crawl out from the back of his throat. The voices were unbearably loud, and now she began to understand what was being said, still wordless but clear as day:

Let me in.

Tifa forced herself to roll off the couch, even as the world began to tilt around her again. She had to get out of here. Her stomach lurched as she fell, and then lurched a second time as she didn't land right away. It took her an extra second to fall, which didn't seem right, because she hadn't been that high up. She pushed herself to her feet and looked around.

The bar was empty. Barret and Nanaki did not seem to be here anymore. Every light was off -- even the LED clock was dead. She didn't know what time it was.

Barret and Nanaki might have been gone, but she got the distinct feeling she wasn't alone here.

She quietly made her way down the hall using the wall as support, and found herself in the dining room. The wind roared around her, deep and low, but the paper they had taped over her broken front windows only faintly fluttered, caught in a gentle breeze. Her breath was fog before her, and the sound of it echoed around the room unnaturally.

She crept down the hall again, looking for the front door. Though she couldn't hear its footsteps, something was keeping pace with her. She was sure of it. She left the back room, her skin still crawling, her muscles still tense with an anxiety that she couldn't seem to soothe no matter what. Even as she rounded the corner out of the dining room and crept down the hallway, her own footsteps seemed to be muffling the sound of something else, moving in time with her.

Tifa stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked around. She didn't remember her house being this big. Shouldn't she be at the front door by now?

She ran back out to the dining room and realised she couldn't remember where the doors were, either. Outside the glass was nothing but darkness.

Turning on her heel, she bolted up the stairs, every step she took tortuous and laboured. Her legs felt weak, and each breath came in a short, painful gasp. Something touched her. She pulled away from it with a short wail, racing for the top of the steps.

The upstairs hall was lined with hundreds upon hundreds of doors. She couldn't remember which one was hers, and she could hear things rattling behind them, and in her head, louder, all the time getting louder, Let me in. Let me in. Let me in. Let me out. Let me in.

Tifa fell to her knees and began to scream. It was all she could do to drown out the unbearable noise, and she began to beat her fists against the wall, feeling the plaster give out under her blows. The feeling of the things around her, an inch from her skin, infesting her lungs -- she needed out -- she needed to get them out -- her throat was ragged and raw, and still she screamed, and screamed, and screamed --

"Tifa?"

Tifa snapped her head up with a sharp gasp. Sitting in front of her looking worried was -- was Cloud.

"...Are you okay?" he asked gently, offering a hand.

Tifa fought down a sob, staring at him in disbelief. "...You're okay?"

"I'm okay," he said. "I missed you a lot. I just wanted to see if you were alright."

She took his hand as he carefully helped her to her feet. Every part of her still ached, and he led her back to his own room and sat down with her on his cot.

"I -- I had to find you," said Tifa. "I didn't know where you were -- I thought -- I thought maybe Aeris would know."

"It's okay," he said, leaning in to hug her, and she returned it, even though she was still miserably hot. "It's okay. We're safe here."

"Do -- do you know where Barret went?" she asked. "I can't -- I can't find him anywhere."

Cloud shook his head. "I just wanted to come find you," he said. "I -- I missed you a lot."

"Me too," said Tifa, and for several moments she was content to just lay there with him, feeling her pain slowly ebb away. They hadn't done this in so long. He was usually too afraid to ask, and she was usually too afraid to let him say yes.

She reluctantly pulled away from him after a while, her arms still around his shoulders. He was smiling at her, warmly, without judgement, from either her or himself -- something else she hadn't seen him do in a long time.

"...I didn't just do this to find you," she admitted. "There's something big going on here, I think. We -- we need to get going. Figure out what all of this is."

"Why don't we stay here a little bit longer?" he said. "We're safe here. Everything is okay." Calm. Soothing. Confident. Commanding.

Tifa blinked. That didn't seem like him at all.

"Cloud... come on, we can't... I should've told you before, Reno's -- he's dead. Something killed him."

"Don't worry about it," he said warmly. "We're safe here."

Tifa slowly scooted away from him, her hand brushing against something on his back as she did. "...Cloud?"

"It's safe here, Tifa. Stay with me."

She quickly stood up and saw a series of black, fleshy tendrils snaking out of his flesh, gently pulsing and twitching, anchored to a hole in the corner of the room, too small for whatever they were attached to to enter from. They pulled him to his feet as he took a step towards her, blocking access to the door.

"You're not Cloud," she said coldly. Things moved outside the windows as the boards over them began rattling. She took another step back.

"You're safe here with us. Come with us. Mother is waiting for Reunion."

"Get the hell away from me," she spat. "You're not him. You're not Cloud." The thing that wasn't Cloud continued to move closer, and his voice -- and it wasn't his voice, not anymore -- came from the howling blackness outside as much as they came from the gaping hole in his face, which no longer opened and closed as it should with each word.

"Only Mother now," said the thing that wasn't Cloud. "We're part of Mother. Together, with us. We are so nearly whole. We must be let in."

"No," she whispered, though her jaw had locked up and she struggled to move, to breathe, to speak beyond a whisper. She forced her hand to snake backwards onto the bed. Towards Cloud's pillow, towards the thing he didn't think she knew was there.

Join our Reunion, said the thing that wasn't Cloud. Its hand, bent and frail and entirely too sharp, snaked up to her throat. She could feel the world going grey again, as the pain faded entirely. She felt herself reaching for some part of her that wasn't her, something she knew she wanted, that she was meant to find...

Instead her hand curled around the handle of the hunting knife, and she swung out, catching the thing across the throat.

The thing that wasn't Cloud let out an unearthly howl as black ichor sprayed from the gash in its throat, and the windows rattled louder than ever as something began to scrape at them. It wanted in. It was all she could do to raise the knife and ready herself as the thing continued to spasm in agony as it jerked and heaved its way up to the ceiling, its empty black eyes boring into hers, the world ready to crumble at any moment --

"TIFA!"

TIfa's eyes snapped open as she sat up on the couch, before Barret's hand caught her shoulder and began to push her back down.

The noise hadn't died down any. It was still there, rasping abound her consciousness, waiting for her to listen again. It was easier to ignore, though, now that there were things around her that demanded her immediate attention and groundedness to process.

Her mouth felt as though it were lined with plastic. Water, she mouthed, lying back down on the couch. Barret immediately got up, leaving Nanaki to nudge her hand with his nose.

"You seem to have experienced some sort of... convulsion," said Nanaki. His ears were still drooping, but he seemed to be calming down as she worked her fingers through his fur. "And then when it was over, you began screaming. And then you appeared to lose consciousness, and we were unable to wake you until you began screaming again. It's a small wonder you lost your voice."

"...Sorry I scared you," she whispered. It was all she could manage right now. Everything still hurt.

Barret returned with the water. He wound up having to help Tifa sit up enough to get a few swallows down at a time.

"We ain't doing another transfusion," said Barret, his voice unsteady. "Not a drop."

Tifa nodded.

"Bad dream?" she finally asked.

He exchanged a look with Nanaki. "Wasn't entirely sure you was asleep. Your eyes were open for some of it."

"Feel bad," she muttered. Despite having just woken up, she was already exhausted.

"Well, you do look terrible," said Nanaki curtly. "How bad?"

"...Six," she said after a moment. Earlier had definitely been a ten, though. Nothing like a ten to put the rest of the numbers in perspective.

"I called Cid while you were out," said Barret. "Let him know you went ahead and did it. He still doesn't have any mako for you."

"It'll have to be okay for now," said Tifa, slowly sitting up. She didn't immediately feel like throwing up. "I feel a lot better," she said.

"You were out for a day and a half," said Nanaki. "It is possible your body has had enough time to acclimate to certain... changes." He sniffed her a couple times, then huffed the smell out of his nose. "Or at least recover from the immediate threat of organ failure."

Tifa slowly let her gaze wander around the room. Her eyes hurt now as well, as though someone were shining a bright light in them. She shut them, instead listening to the buzz the lightbulb in the lamp produced.

This was different. She was different -- she felt different now. And the voices hadn't gone away.

She turned back to Barret. "...I want to see myself," she said.

"There's not a lot to see," said Barret, carefully helping her to her feet. "Not like you got inundated by the stuff for five years."

"I know," she replied, digging her nails into his shoulder to keep herself standing as her knees came dangerously close to giving out. "I just... I want to know."

The climb up the stairs to her room was agonisingly slow. Her legs shook and her surroundings seemed bright and overwhelming despite looking the same as ever, and several times she had to stop and rest against Barret, who repeatedly asked her if she just wanted to be carried.

"I'm fine," she insisted, which prompted another humourless laugh from Barret. "It's fine."

In the end, she wound up getting more or less dragged to the bathroom, hanging off Barret's arm more often than not when her legs would no longer support her. She kept letting go of him anyway, half expecting him to turn around and reach for her throat.

She was just as hesitant to actually enter the bathroom, and when she did she did not look at the mirror right away. She was still painfully sore all over -- her skin could have been melting off and she'd never know.

She still managed to startle herself when she finally turned to see her own face in the mirror. It was just as she remembered it --albeit much more sickly, something that would (hopefully) go away with time. She leaned in to examine her pupils and found them still round. She breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn't sure if she could have handled it, having eyes like that for the rest of her life.

...If she was completely honest with herself, she already hated them enough as it was in Cloud's face.

Still... they were different. There was a ring -- a very small one, right around the inside of her pupils, that was brilliantly green. It didn't stand out as much as mako eyes would have. She had seen people with hazel eyes that looked more or less like she did right now. It was different though. A reminder of what she had done.

"You'll need mako soon enough," said Barret, his voice still grim. There was a reason Shinra didn't do standalone Jenova infusions after the first couple trials. Funny, that she'd need one carcinogen to combat another. And then there was the matter of surviving that...

No use worrying about that now, though. She'd just have to trust Reeve to come through for her before she started sprouting extra eyes or something equally unpleasant.

"...I'm gonna take a shower," said Tifa, not looking away from the mirror. She was drenched in sweat, and apparently she'd thrown up again at some point, because she could still smell it on her.

Barret nodded, apparently not thinking anything of it, and stepped outside. "Yell if you need me," he said through the door.

Tifa barely waited for him to leave the room before peeling off her damp clothes and cranking up the cold water as high as it would go. Her hands combed over her skin, looking for sores (of both the normal and oozing, stigma-related variety), bumps, even feathers, the gods forbid. She couldn't find anything, but that didn't mean nothing was there. Jenova was still there, after all, Her gentle whispering blending in with the rushing of the icy water pouring from the showerhead.

Then, this was how Cloud felt? How Sephiroth had felt, even? What they'd heard? Or maybe it was something similar to it -- she hadn't gotten much in the way of genetic material. Still, she supposed it would only get worse with time, as Jenova claimed more and more of her genome as Her own. Another reason she desperately needed mako before the mutations started kicking in, because even now the voices she could hear were obnoxiously loud, and no matter what she did there was no shutting them up, because --

It was going to get worse now, she realised. Jenova was a part of her, with all that entailed. She was going to hear Her until the day she died, or lost her mind, whichever came first.

And that was when the knowledge of what she'd done truly hit her for the first time, and she sat on the floor of the shower, tears overtaking her. She bit her lip to stifle the noise, in case Barret could hear. She couldn't let him hear. She couldn't let anyone hear. Ever. Still, she kept crying, even as the chill of the water had long since brought down her fever and she began to shiver.

But if she hadn't done it, someone else would have had to.

Perhaps if she hadn't been so exhausted, she would have gone back downstairs to get something to eat. She imagined her body had probably burned quite a lot of calories keeping her alive, but as things stood, she was tired and miserable and wanted to sleep. Besides, there wasn't much she could do from here until she had the energy to try and experiment with contacting Aeris. And perhaps if she was feeling up to it, she would have slept in her own room, but Nanaki had had his hands full (metaphorically speaking) with keeping Marlene out of the house while Tifa thrashed and convulsed one floor down, so it was easier to just crash in Cloud's while Marlene slept in hers.

Perhaps if she'd done either of these things, she or Barret would have turned around and seen the dents on the wall by the door to Tifa's room, where a pair of fists had beaten a pattern into the wood.

 

---

 

Aeris had fallen asleep by the computer.

Strewn around her were printouts of photographs that told her nothing, and readings from a machine that said everything was normal, and the empty remains of ration packs she'd eaten over the keyboard against regulations. On the floor around her were crumpled up sheets of scrap paper covered in ideas she knew wouldn't work, and on the other side of the room was a pen she had thrown in frustration. Behind her was the whiteboard, covered with frustrated scribbles, blocking the view to a room she couldn't bring herself to look into anymore.

Next to her, still faintly humming, was a large glass disc, upon which a light slowly flickered into existence and stayed there.

Chapter 28: We've Gone Full Eva

Notes:

God help us all. I said this was gonna get weird and violent, didn't I?

Thank you to Larissa, Sanctum_C, and daily-kaley for looking over this like a million years ago while I typed up more buffer crap. At least it's finally out now and I can go back to letting the rhythm minigame from Splatoon 2 eat all the fucking free time in the world.

This chapter contains brief depictions of body horror and gore, as well as references to suicidal ideation.

He had been drifting for hours. Days. Maybe years. Time didn't seem to mean anything in this strange peace. The stillness of it all washed it away faster than it could collect into a single moment, and so he had nothing to cling to between seconds, if there were any seconds, if there was any him.

And yet, suddenly there was something. A single notion that he desperately clung to before the music could tear it away -- I am. I am. I am. I am. I am. It was all he could do, to remind himself of himself, that he was him was I was here was I am, even as the wind howled around him and snatched and clawed at it, and he had to fumble with nothing and find himself again.

He couldn't tell what I was yet. Too jumbled amongst a thousand million other I ams, thoughts and feelings that wove into him seamlessly, blending where he ended and everything else began -- I wasn't anyone. But it had to be, didn't it? He was him.

Who was he?

He could see a little more now -- bubbles of thought, with the music wrapped around them too tightly to untangle, and as he realised they were part of him they just a little longer smile this is supposed to be a happy maybe someday you'll meet the real doesn't really mean anything, does it? Not for me.

Not for me... he thought. His own thought. He clung to it, even as the howling grew louder, but it was his, and they couldn't take it away from him anymore.

There were faces all around him now. He didn't know any of them. Some were kind, and their hands were gentle, and others were cold and harsh and caused him to recoil. He shut them all away. It was too much, too fast. He was him was himself.

A strange tremor went through him, part of the music, part of himself, who was part of the music, who was part of --

Mother, a voice said to him suddenly. Or perhaps he'd said it to himself.

He was Mother. Mother was everything -- the space around him that seemed to go on forever and nowhere at all. But there was another thing that was Mother, that wasn't here -- a place he didn't know, blankets bleached with sunlight, papers spread out across the bed, sucking on a mango pit. A boy next to him on the floor -- his brother, Aaron -- why was he so loud? He hated it when he cried. It was making it hard to concentrate. He wanted to tell him to be quiet, but suddenly ****** rushed into the room and hurried him into the closet.

"You stay here, sweet, and don't come out until I say it's safe, okay?" said no one that wasn't anywhere at all.

He peeked out of the closet to find the room empty. He'd been hiding here a while. Maybe Dad was having trouble finding him? Had he forgotten he was here? No -- he could hear him moving slowly and deliberately through his own room next door, telling a thousand in a thousand in a million points of thought to check the kitchen again.

God, this was boring. Everything was boring these days, honestly. School was boring. Gym, the one class he used to really enjoy, was boring. They were talking to the teacher about jumping him a few grades, but he didn't see how that'd help any. The thought of being skipped ahead was boring in and of itself. And here was was, supposed to be having fun, and he wasn't because nobody could find him, and he was sitting here in the dark, bored bored bored bored bored out of his mind.

Things in the dark stared at him. He didn't really feel like looking back.

He'd simply hidden too well -- apparently Dad hadn't expected him to cram himself inside the suitcase inside the closet inside the wall inside the green inside nothing inside a thing that wasn't here, shouldn't be here, was everywhere, was himself, was not himself, wasn't anyone I am I am I am I am I am --

Another hole -- another pair of eyes fixed on him, this time reddish brown, filled with worry as the sky glowed orange behind her, a vision of what was to come, the embers preceding a fire.

"We're running out of time," said Tifa.

"I know." He was afraid. Why was he afraid? Either he died doing this, or he died when Meteor hit, and at least this way he'd die doing something useful for once. So why was he afraid?

The white materia almost seemed to resist him as he traced his connection to the Planet deeper than he'd ever had to before. He pressed himself against the wall against the cold glass until something vast, something old and huge and angry, reached out and dragged him through it, and as the entity pooled around him (or perhaps, as he was taken into it) he could feel it examining him -- everything he was, everything he had been, every last bit of his mind and body, laid bare before the Lifestream and the Planet.

It roiled around him, like waves, and for an instant he was gone again. He couldn't go. Not again. Perhaps he wasn't a Cetra, but still, they had to try. He began to speak to the Planet.

Meteor is coming, he said, uncertain if it could understand him. It's... everything will be gone, if it hits. Maybe we -- humans -- maybe we are a threat to the Planet. That's what this thing does, right? But after we're gone, the only thing that'll happen is Meteor finishing you off. Do you -- do you understand?

It didn't seem to. It pressed in around him, tighter and tighter, and he got the distinct impression it was angry. Angrier than usual, even. His head began to hurt.

Sephiroth is going to destroy you, he pleaded. And all of us. Jenova is --

He gasped aloud as a bolt of white-hot pain shot through him, dropping the materia. The Planet was loud now, even louder than Jenova. Tainted, it said -- or, he felt like it was saying. False. Tainted. Purge.

The pain increased, and seemed to concentrate in his hand. He gripped his wrist tightly as it continued to build, his eyes still squeezed shut, until a cry from Tifa had him opening his eyes and staring down at his hand in shock.

Or, what was left of his hand. He couldn't feel it anymore, because it had crumbled away into nothing.

He watched, too stunned to react, as the burning sensation travelled up his arm, which continued to seemingly wilt away into nothingness. He backed away from the materia, desperately looking around for something that could make it stop, trying to heal it away, but suddenly he couldn't reach the Planet anymore, and the world began to blur around him, and his arm was gone -- it had disappeared up to his shoulder, and Mother was screaming in his ears, and the pain was the worst he'd ever felt in his life, and he couldn't stop himself from screaming anymore -- couldn't breathe as the nothing curled around his chest, cutting off his cries for help entirely. He swayed and fell to the ground, trying to reach for someone -- his new family that loved him, that couldn't do anything but watch helplessly as his other hand wasted away and vanished, saw his vision suddenly halve itself, and then go black, and then --

He was floating nowhere. He could see himself, but couldn't see anything, because somehow his mind was convinced there was nothing there to see. All around him was a profound darkness -- not just the absence of light but the absence of anything. And yet, there were things moving here with him. They curled around him, sinking their teeth into his bare flesh and dragging him down, and he flailed desperately to get away, because there was nothing to grab onto. He wasn't even sure any of this was real, but he couldn't think straight, and everything began to fade away as his body began to unravel, and somehow he knew that this time no one would be able to put him back together.

Something else wrapped around him -- nothing he could see, or feel, but it was gentle and inquisitive and seemed to keep him all in one place, enough for his thoughts to collect into himself again. He felt himself being led somewhere -- somehow.

Somewhere in his mind, he suddenly heard a voice.

Time to leave. Anywhere is better than here.

He found himself agreeing. Wherever here was.

The ground knocked the wind right out of him as he landed hard on it, and he had a split second to realise that he seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, several hours later, judging by the fact that it was now night, without a stitch of clothing anywhere on his body before Aaron was helping him to his feet, handing him the white materia.

"I want you to really chuck it this time," said Aaron. "God knows you've never had to fucking try before."

"Fuck you, pendejo," he said, cutting him off. Aaron shook his head and began to run downfield in preparation. "Your own fault if you don't wanna step up your game." And with that, he flung the ball into the air.

Maybe he was a little too easy to goad, because he hadn't held back that time. He watched as the ball sailed overhead, watching Aaron sprint to catch up to it. He'd given him enough time, he thought. It wasn't that hard of a throw, right? He should've been able to catch it. He was definitely close enough. It was all on him. That's what he told himself. It was all on him now.

That's what he kept telling himself when the ball bounced off the ground a few feet to his left. It was Aaron's fault. It was all on him. It...

There was white all around him now. He could see, but the world bent strangely around him, too many angles from too many places they shouldn't be seen from. His own body bent and twisted against his will as something crept around the corners of his vision, and how did he feel so empty when he was finally whole?

He knew he wasn't anymore. He knew he could never be whole, unless --

You can't -- he told himself. You can't. You have to keep being. You can't go back. I'm someone. I'm me. I'm here. I'm --

Sharp. Cold. A blade, sliding down his chest, across his neck, plunging in, cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting --

He tore himself away from it. That wasn't right. That wasn't true. That wasn't him. It was too horrible to be him. He knew who he was, and what was and wasn't him, and he was --

He was Zack. He was Zack Fair.

The realisation was like a splash of icy water to the face, shocking him back into himself. He was Zack Fair, a person who was real -- was himself -- there were things here that weren't, though. But he knew who he was, knew what was and wasn't him, and things -- one thing in particular, infesting him like a mould, tried to make him forget, tried to force themselves over him, and he pulled away as hard as he could, suddenly aware of light in his eyes and cold on his skin and thoughts that weren't his. God, they were still here. They were --

It all came rushing back. He was Zack Fair, he was -- he'd gotten to be part of -- it was important, the project, Dr. Gainsborough's old project. It was getting brought back, and he'd wanted to be part of it more than anything, but so had You'll know it when you see it.

They'd sent him through the -- through the gate thing, and on the other side he'd found... he'd found...

He knew who he was. He knew what he was doing, what had happened, he knew who -- what -- he continued to tug himself away from the voices, from Mother -- whose mother, Mom was still back in Hawaii, and -- he was him. He was himself, was one, was I was --

 

---

 

Aeris was shaken awake by Angeal who was shouting something at her in German that she was too tired to register until she caught a few words in English as well.

"It's moving -- that thing is moving!"

She nearly fell out of her chair as she scrambled to her feet in time to see the thing in the sixth ring give an almighty lurch through the no-longer-closed shutters. She ran over to the communications panel and reenabled the microphone, then immediately wished she hadn't. It was making that noise again, and it definitely sounded like screaming this time, distorted as it was.

Aeris went from staring at it in fascination to backing away slowly from the window as the thing seemed to slowly be drawing itself up to the ceiling. The masses of flesh that had grown out from it seemed to be retreating back into its body as its skin began... boiling, almost? There were definitely things moving under it, and it continued to withdraw further and further into itself with a sickening crackling noise that was loud enough to be heard over the unearthly howling it was making (from where she had no idea), until it almost looked --

A hand was the first recognisable thing to force itself out of the mass -- a real hand, with five fingers and no eyes or teeth or claws or god knew what else coming out of it -- stretching the skin as though pressing itself out through a plastic sheet. The screams began sounding more and more human as a face followed, parts of the skin ripping open to reveal eyes and teeth behind the holes, the rest of the meat shrinking and condensing more and more, and it staggered and swayed under its own weight on newly-formed legs, and then it tipped forward onto the now-pristine ceramic floor on its hands and knees, panting with exertion, and Zack Fair collapsed onto his stomach, breathing hard.

Aeris stared at the body that had just compressed itself out of the pile of meat that had been previously melted all over the floor, looking completely human, for what felt like an eternity. Slowly, she turned to Angeal.

"Get Lazard."

Angeal was gone in an instant.

Shakily, she sat down in front of the panel in front of the microphone, and took a deep breath, and spoke.

"...Zack? Is that you?"

 

---

 

The floor was freezing.

That was the first thought that occurred to him as he fell out of... god, he didn't even want to think about it, onto his hands and knees, before simply crumpling to the floor, feeling as though he'd run a hundred miles. He drew his legs into his body, too spent to get up and figure out where he was or why he was naked or why he was as tired as he was. He had a nasty feeling he knew why. He didn't want to think about that right now.

He was him was himself. That's all he wanted to focus on for the time being.

A few tears leaked out of the corners of his eyes, and he quickly forced them down. He'd never imagined losing something as simple as that before. He never wanted to lose it again.

He flexed his hands a few times. His hands. His, himself, his own. Part of him, not the other way around. Blinked his eyes a few times. Felt himself shivering, though he was still too tired to want to sit up.

"Zack? Is that you?"

The voice echoed through the ceiling, making him jerk in surprise, and he looked around from his spot on the floor, still disoriented. He was still in the sample retrieval room, next to his quarters. With no clothes on. Something something biohazard regulation. Not allowed. He couldn't bring himself to care right now, not even as he watched a rat scamper about the room off in the corner. Why was there a rat in here?

"Z -- Zack? Can you hear me? Please say something."

Zack groaned and rolled onto his back and was immediately hit with a wave of nausea. He felt himself gag, and he barely managed to sit up before he began to retch, his entire body contracting as his stomach struggled to bring up whatever was in it. Another pained coughing later, and he spat up some sort of bezoar consisting of several scraps of cloth, a few small chunks of metal that might have been tooth fillings, and what he was pretty sure was an earring. His throat raw, he allowed himself to fall back onto his back, feebly raising one hand and forming it into a thumbs-up.

"Oh -- oh god -- can you --" A pause. "...Is... is that really you?"

"I think so," he rasped without thinking. "God, I hope so."

"Zack?" Another voice over the microphone. Lazard. "Zack, can you -- are you able to sit up? How are you feeling?"

"Tired," he said truthfully. "Throat hurts. Kinda cold..." He flipped over onto his stomach as little stars exploded in the peripheral of his vision. "Head feels weird."

"Weird, how?" asked Lazard, still sounding strangely distant, likely from shock.

"Just... weird," said Zack, shaking his head. It was as though his thoughts had fallen asleep, and now they were experiencing pins and needles as circulation was slowly returned to them. If that was possible. He wasn't a biologist, but he was pretty sure that wasn't possible at all, and what he'd just thought was nonsense.

He was sort of surprised he'd thought anything coherent at all. The strange prickling in his consciousness seemed to manifest itself into strange little impulses. Impulses to do what, he wasn't sure. It was as though he couldn't quite comprehend what they were, and so it was all he could do to try and ignore them, and that was easier said than done.

Somehow, though, he knew what it was. It was that thing that had been flooding his thoughts, ripping him apart from the inside out --

He swallowed, his breathing quickening as he tried and failed to shut it out.

"It -- it won't stop," said Zack.

"What won't stop? Zack, what --"

"Won't stop." He clutched his head, curling back up into a ball and shutting his eyes tightly. For every thought that formed in his head, there were a thousand more that weren't his. And it wouldn't stop. It wouldn't stop. It wouldn't --

"Zack," came his name over the speakers. He looked up and was forcibly reminded that he was panicking in front of an audience.

He was pretty sure his dick was still out, too, now that he thought about it.

"I'm okay," he said unevenly, pushing himself up into a sitting position. "Just a little freaked out, I guess --"

A sharp gasp echoed over the microphone as he clambered to his feet and got a good look at the rest of the team on the opposite side of the glass. A small part of him vainly hoped they were just surprised by the size of his junk, but he knew, with a certain amount of fear, that that had not been a "wow you're so masculine and handsome" gasp. Something was wrong with him. Everyone else looked unnerved, apart from Aeris, who seemed transfixed, and not even remotely in a good way. His blood ran cold.

"...What... what are you guys looking at?" he asked after a moment of hesitation, already dreading the answer.

"...Your eyes," said Aeris, who seemed to be the only one that could speak.

"My --" He reached up to touch his face immediately. He knew something horrible that he didn't even want to think about had happened to it before he'd woken up here. He quickly took inventory of what was there. One nose, one mouth (he hastily felt around the inside of it with his tongue and found the normal amount of normally shaped teeth, as far as he could tell), and only two eyes.

"There's a mirror in your quarters," said Tseng, who was now staring transfixedly at him as well.

Zack stood there for a moment, watching... was that Remy? he still didn't know why Remy was in here, but he had a few guesses that all made him equally uneasy -- wander around the room. Maybe he didn't want to see. He didn't feel... ill, really. But he definitely felt different. Everything was too loud, and too bright, and he felt strangely floaty, and he was slowly being bombarded with other sensations he didn't recognise but did not care for. And the voices. Those too.

Eventually he sucked up the courage to move. Going through decontamination was probably a formality at this point. He picked up Remy, who struggled frantically in his grasp.

"Can I bring this guy with me?" asked Zack. Lazard looked at Tseng, who said something out of the range of the microphone, then turned back to Zack.

"I suppose so. Whatever you were affected by, you've both been exposed," said Lazard, still clearly unnerved by something that Zack was still putting off finding out about and he'd need to soon and the longer he stood here the worse he was gonna build it up in his head so he might as well get it over with.

He wasn't quite ready when he did finally wind up in the mirror after throwing some clothes on and setting Remy up on the table by his bed with a pack of rations to try and stall a little longer. He braced himself and turned to examine his own face in detail, and found himself gasping in shock as well.

His eyes were glowing. The deep blue was now emitting a steady light that made them appear almost purple, and... they were like -- he'd seen them before. On Cloud. His eyes were like Cloud's now, complete with the slitted pupils, which now contracted in astonishment as he stared at himself, a chill going down his spine as someone that looked almost like him but not quite gazed deep into his eyes.

"I..." he faltered. He still couldn't stop looking. He could have sworn there were little flecks of light moving around in his irises behind the dull glow. And beyond that, there was a thin section of vivid green ringing his pupils. His weird, gross lizard pupils, that he now had after that thing had...

Zack sat down on his bed and buried his head in his hands. He didn't respond when Lazard continued questioning him. After another few minutes, the microphone went quiet, leaving Zack alone to his thoughts. And the things that weren't quite his thoughts.

"...What happened?" asked Zack several hours later.

An uncomfortable look passed between the other five people on the other side of the glass. Zack heaved a heavy sigh.

"...Didn't wanna know anyway," said Zack. He could guess. "How about... what happened when I was... out?"

There was another pregnant pause over the microphone. Just how quickly had everything gone to hell?

"...We had to call in the accident," said Lazard eventually.

"...And?"

"We had to tell them what happened," said Aeris. She'd finally moved on from staring at him and was now addressing a spot to his left. "Nearly everything. They... they said they'd notified your family, but I don't think they've gone public with anything yet."

Zack swallowed thickly. "We can -- we can just talk to them again, right? Let them know I'm okay?" Another pause. Zack glowered at them. "Look, I just -- for all I know, I could be dead any second now. I know I'll be lucky if I'm ever cleared to leave this room for the rest of my life, however long that is, and I --"

"We lost contact with Cloud," said Aeris, causing another chill to run down his spine. He wasn't really sure what had happened after he'd encountered him. He knew what he'd seen, but... it hadn't been real. Had it?

"I -- I think he might have... done something to me. I don't know," said Zack. "What do you mean by --"

"His signal's gone," said Aeris. "I think he might be..."

"The whole project's stalled," said Lazard, recovering his voice as well. Lazard didn't seem to be hiding the fact that he was still staring. "They're going to be coming down here to have a look at it... and you."

"...When?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. If CERN had been notified, and his family, other people probably had been as well.

"I don't know. Probably soon."

"...Soon? That's it, after --"

"There's something else," said Aeris. "We -- they said that..." She glanced between him and the others uncertainly.

"They... they asked us if we'd... found anything else."

...What?

"'Anything else'." He repeated the words slowly, wondering if perhaps the murmuring in his head was messing with his hearing any.

"That's what they said," replied Aeris, holding his gaze. Zack looked away. "They asked about the documentation we had up until your actual point of entry into the other universe. I'm guessing they wanted to see what went wrong."

"I see," he said. He stood, removing the remains of the rations he'd fed to Remy and dropping them into the incinerator.

"I -- I know you probably want to check me out," he said to Lazard, "but I'm just -- I'm really tired. Just gimme a little time, okay?"

"I'd really rather --"

"Lazard, please," said Zack. Lazard just sighed and went back to talking with Tseng away from the mic, while Zack laid back down on his bed, burying his face into the pillow.

If he hadn't been so terrified for his life at the moment, he'd be utterly furious. What kind of vague-ass orders...

Well, none of that meant anything anymore. Something had... happened, when he'd made contact with Cloud. Something he didn't even want to think about. His entire life right now hinged on whether or not the rat currently sharing a living space with him keeled over dead. They had no idea what was wrong with him, magic was real, he was pretty sure he'd melted, and now he was stuck with a permanent Halloween contact lens situation. Fuck the orders. Fuck everything. The whole project was in the toilet without a contact point, anyway. He guessed he should have been a bit more sad about that, given it meant someone was dead now, but --

Zack watched as Aeris ran past the window and began pointing at something he couldn't see from where he was lying. Angeal joined her, and was followed a moment later by others. They seemed excited about it. He craned his neck, trying to see what they were huddled around.

The glass covered disc. It was picking something up? Cloud must have still been alive. Maybe he'd hallucinated a lot of that after all.

Cissnei was the one that actually got back on the microphone to confirm it for him.

"He's... awake, I guess?" said Cissnei. "I don't know why he vanished, but he appears to be back. They're doing a lot of very important-looking writing now."

"They're gonna ask what happened, right?" said Zack. "And why I'm suddenly hearing voices?"

"...You're what?"

Oops.

He watched Cissnei flag Lazard down, who joined her on the mic.

"I'm coming in there to examine you now," he said. "I shouldn't have left it this long in the first place."

"Lazard, I'm not --"

"You're hearing voices?"

"...Yeah. I mean, sort of. It's not like... it doesn't sound like anyone saying words, it's just --"

"Fair, think for one second and tell me who else we've been dealing with known to have an infectious disease known to cause auditory hallucinations that's recently been in contact with you." Lazard left the mic for decontamination, leaving his words to sink in.

"...But -- but it isn't airborne!" he argued, as Lazard entered the sixth ring in full hazmat gear. "He said it wasn't --"

"We lost contact with you for ten minutes, and the camera only accounts for two of them," said Lazard. "You were most definitely bleeding for at least three of those minutes, not to mention when you got back. Anything could have happened." He began cleaning a spot on Zack's arm in preparation for a blood sample. "We harvested some... material. The results aren't back yet, but it would at the very least explain your eyes. I think it's a certainty at this point."

Zack sat there as Lazard slowly, steadily began drawing blood. He'd been in too much shock for his brain to really catch up with what had happened, but suddenly the spectre of death lurking behind the prospect that he'd been exposed to something they might not be able to treat seemed very real.

The slight sting of Lazard withdrawing the needle snapped him out of his train of thought. "Put pressure on that for me," said Lazard, who handed him a cotton ball and began to unwrap a bandage.

Zack nodded, then looked down at his arm. Then looked back up at Lazard. "...Put pressure on what?" he asked.

Lazard looked back at Zack's arm and stared at where there should have been a needle hole, but was only smooth, unmarred skin. He brushed the spilled blood out of the way and prodded around the area experimentally. Zack flinched, expecting pain, but it wasn't even sore.

"...I'll... I'll look into that," said Lazard numbly. He stared at Zack's arm for a few more moments before letting go.

The rest of the checkup took about half an hour, and was bizarrely normal considering what he was being asked about. His pupils were checked for dilation (and Zack saw Lazard suppress a shudder as they presumably reacted to the light and didn't really want to ask what they were doing), he was quizzed about how he felt. Fine, he said. Not in any pain. He didn't even feel all that tired anymore. In fact (though he knew better than to mention this to Lazard), he felt great, physically speaking, as though he had just finished stretching and was ready to run a mile. Then again, considering he'd been cooped up indoors only able to jog in circles to keep himself from feeling too restless, it wasn't that surprising.

There were still things that were off. He still felt strangely light. His eyes were still a little sore, as though he'd been staring into a bright light for hours on end, and no matter how softly he asked Lazard to talk it still seemed too loud. He kept getting odd looks from him, but when he asked what was wrong Lazard had simply shaken his head and shrugged, then changed the subject.

Aeris and Angeal hadn't moved from their spots at the desk in a few hours, presumably still calculating the next waypoint. He should be out there helping them. But of course he couldn't, and Lazard had insisted he rest anyway.

...So, he was sick. He didn't feel sick. Then again, probably a lot of sick people didn't think they were sick at first. But... if he was still sick, why had he gotten better? Maybe Cloud would know, when they talked to him.

They'd gone and told his family he was dead, apparently. God, that was gonna be awkward to explain later on. If they let him out of here... but even if they did, he might not make it back. He wondered if they believed it, or if they were grieving. Maybe in a week or so they'd be burying an empty casket.

They'd sort it all out soon, though. Right? That's what he had to keep telling himself. He'd get to go back. They'd sort it out soon, if he could just hold on a little longer.

 

---

 

He was.

It wasn't anything in particular that got him to realise it, but rather a sudden absence, peeling itself away from him and leaving him tangled in a web of minds as part of him as his own name. It wasn't him, and therefore, he was himself.

And the minute Cloud realised it, the first thing he felt was abject terror.

Mother was here. Mother was all around him, his thoughts teeming with Her presence, so that he could barely remember himself in the deluge of things that were him and not him and wasn't him anywhere at all -- he couldn't move. He couldn't see. There was a complete and utter absence of anything -- darkness, light, anything at all -- apart from himself, and Mother, and She was closer than She had ever been, and it was all he could do to desperately repeat to himself, I am, I am, I am.

He remembered what happened in horrifyingly vivid detail. The man that had appeared in front of him, looking for all the world like a human, until he Didn't. A trap. Had it been a trap? His vision had blurred, and when it had cleared the thing, whatever it was, was all around him, in his mind, and twisted around his body, its flesh splitting and weaving through the air to embrace him as its voice entered his mind, and...

He'd been so tired. He'd been fighting for years. Nearly ten years, afraid, and incomplete, and now alone in the world, and he'd willingly walked into its embrace, its mass curling around him before he watched it slowly sink into his own skin, watching it unravel his body as took him into itself, until the world went black.

He'd given up. This was Reunion. He was part of Mother now. She'd claimed him. She won.

So this was how it would end.

He wondered what he would lose first. Names had been the first to go before. And then faces, and then entire words, ideas and feelings wrapped in sound, written into him, before She would scrub it all away, letter by letter until he was nothing.

He could feel Her reaching now. She had him. It was only a matter of time.

He couldn't scream or cry. He doubted there was anything left of his body by now, since She'd taken it into Herself. Soon, there wouldn't be anything left of his mind either.

Help me, he thought desperately. He didn't know what else to do. Tifa -- Barret -- Aeris, anyone -- please, god -- please, please help me, please --

Nobody answered but Mother, who continued to comb through his mind as he frantically clung to his self. There was nowhere to wake up to -- no one to speak to him. Nothing left to be saved except this scrap of himself he'd managed to preserve.

Help me -- anyone, please -- please -- I -- I don't know what to do -- !

He hadn't feared death in such a long time. Perhaps it was something one just got used to, the idea that his life might be ended in an instant. He'd least had a lot of time to get used to the idea when he'd contracted the stigma and had contemplated just getting it over with since he was screwed anyway. This felt different. He'd be worse than dead -- he'd be nothing, slowly losing piece by piece of himself until there wouldn't even be enough left of him to realise anything was gone, and whatever was still there would be -- it wouldn't be him. Worthless, stupid him that let this happen, that didn't want to go, that was selfish enough to want to continue being, that could end it quickly by just letting Her have him, but --

Please... please help me... please...

He was a coward. He couldn't save himself, and now there was no one else left to help him. No one was coming for him. That was how he'd wanted it in the first place, wasn't it?

Cid? Yuffie? Nanaki? Jessie?

He didn't mean it. He didn't mean it. He wasn't anyone without them. He'd never known how to be anyone without them, he didn't mean it --

Reeve? Please -- please, anyone -- Tifa?

Helpless. Worthless. Nothing.

Professor? Director Crescent? I'm -- I'm sorry, I tried, I'm sorry -- please help me --

Alone.

Director? Director Crescent? Professor?

Ma?

What would his family even save at this point? A fragment of thought that was barely its own presence inside a twisted mass of bodies claimed throughout aeons of spreading, and feeding, and consuming. The kindest thing they could do for him was to incinerate it before he just gave up and...

Mother?

He was afraid. He was more afraid than he'd ever been in his entire life. He didn't want to be alone here, at the end. Mother beckoned him. He wanted to go to Her so badly, but he was afraid.

They'll come back for me, he thought to himself. I have a family. They'll come back for me. They promised they would. They'll come back for me. My family will come back for me.

There was nothing left to do for him. Nothing left of him. Nowhere for him to go. Still, that's what he told himself, over and over again, latching onto that single thought as Mother continued to tear at him more and more. He knew it wasn't true. But it was, quite literally, all he had left.

My family will come back for me. They promised.

They'd always been all he'd ever had.

They promised.

Chapter 29: These Two Girls Manage To Feel Anxious Because Everything Has Gone Wrong

Notes:

Another backlogged chapter. Thank you to Larissa, Sanctum_C, and daily-kaley for helping clean this thing up, and Belderiver for your continued support. And all of you guys! Still amazes me people actually seem to like this thing.

She'd prayed for a miracle, she'd gotten her miracle.

Aeris didn't know why he'd disappeared before when being in a coma hadn't knocked out the signal entirely, but he was back, he was alive, and she wasn't going to question it.

Well, she was. She had about a thousand questions she wanted to ask, but for now she needed to hurry up and get the next contact point set up as soon as humanly possible. It should be simple enough just to speak to him first -- no in-person journeys just yet, not until they figured out what had happened with the... last one.

The setup was agonisingly slow -- before they'd had Zack to help out, but now it was just her and Angeal, and neither one of them were in particularly good shape, the stress of the last few days having taken its toll on them both.

In the sixth ring, Zack had been going through the bits of cloth and metal he'd regurgitated, as well as the rest of the debris scattered around the room. Some of it had been part of his equipment. Some of it was tooth fillings. A quick question to Lazard had confirmed that a lot of them should have been Zack's... but that there didn't seem to be anywhere left in his teeth for them to have fallen out of. The earring... Aeris had seen it before, she just couldn't place where, but she had a nasty suspicion whose it was.

Cissnei was the one that would prepare her for the countdown this time -- Lazard and Tseng were in the third ring, presumably fussing over whatever samples they'd taken from Zack. She didn't seem to need much instructing. Presumably she'd been watching Lazard the entire time, waiting for something to do.

"I'm sorry I dragged you into this," said Aeris suddenly. Cissnei stared at her in confusion. "I recommended you for this, and you've just been sitting here this whole time, and now it's all --"

"Well,” Cissnei began, looking a bit uncomfortable, "At least you couldn't have --"

"This was my project," she interrupted. "My parents' project. And I had to go and... this is something I should have kept personal, instead of jumping at the first group that offered me funding..."

"...It would not have been personal, though, would it?" said Cissnei. "You would have found that Cloud man either way, and you would be in the same mess."

"I suppose so," said Aeris, though she couldn't help but wonder if that still would have been better than the mess they presently had on their hands anyway.

No time to dwell on it now, at any rate. Cissnei had decided to compensate for the lack of any sort of medical professional being around during a bridging by leaving the lid up just in case (yet another thing that EU-OSHA would probably object to if they were at the point where they'd care), but Aeris was used to the process enough to not mind the light much.

It was still different, though. Or perhaps she was remembering it wrong? It had been a while, but she thought she'd remember a sudden inability to understand anything anyone was saying, or the impending sense of doom.

She didn't recall the hallucinations being this vivid in quite a while, though. The ceiling above her ripped open, revealing hundreds of figures peering down directly at her. She took a deep breath to calm herself. It's not real, she told herself. Though she couldn't even be certain of that anymore.

Aeris fell for longer than she remembered, and this time she was certain of something watching her. But no matter how hard the eyes burned into her, she refused to look.

Pain. That was the first thing that greeted her, as her surroundings suddenly reassembled themselves before her eyes. Everything ached all over, and each breath she drew grated across a very raw throat. She tried to look around for some source of water, only to realise that she couldn't move. She didn't seem to be outside anymore, either -- she was back in that restaurant... Cloud Nine or something like that. It was hard to believe how long ago it had been.

Why couldn't she move?

Cloud hadn't greeted her, either. Had they done something wrong?

...Hello? she probed.

The body she was currently squatting in suddenly flinched violently and began looking around. "Shut up," she felt herself mutter. "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up --"

The body seemed familiar, somehow -- maybe not something she'd encountered before, but the way her weight was distributed was more similar to what she was used to. As was the anatomy, she was realising. And the voice did, too.

...Tifa? she asked.

Tifa stopped muttering to herself and stood very still.

...You're -- you're her, said Tifa. You're that woman.

I -- perhaps? I'm Aeris. I think we've... met, a couple times. Er --

I remember, said Tifa, who had gone back to looking around breathlessly. It worked. It really worked, it -- I can't --

I don't mean to be rude, but -- where's Cloud?

...What?

Well -- I mean, it's nice to meet you again, though I wish it was under better circumstances, but... Cloud's the only other... how is it that you're...?

Was the only other one, said Tifa. You have no idea what I went through to speak to you, and you're telling me now you don't even know where he is?

Well, it's not like it's all roses and sunshine over here, either! she said, as she felt Tifa begin to enter another panic. We think -- we think Cloud might have attacked one of my -- my friends, and now we can't find him anywhere -- like he's just stopped existing, so when we started picking up something again we thought it was him, but --

Wait -- you said he attacked you?

Not me. Zack. The coworker we sent to rendezvous with him. We're not sure, the camera sort of got... smothered. Zack doesn't seem to know what happened, or if he does, he isn't telling, and --

What the hell did you do?

Nothing! insisted Aeris. Cloud sounded fine when we last spoke, and we tested the procedure, but... I don't know. Whatever happened, he was the last person Zack would've been around before...

Something suddenly occurred to her.

How am I speaking to you?

Take a wild guess, said Tifa dryly. Not that it's done any good for either one of us.

It's better than sitting around and not knowing, said Aeris.

...Yeah, said Tifa. Yeah, maybe it is. Let's... let's start over. You said a lot of things that didn't make a lot of sense.

I'm just as lost as you are, said Aeris, as she felt herself slowly make her way back upstairs, her muscles protesting with every step. And I still can't move. It's very disconcerting.

Well... how about this, said Tifa, letting herself into Cloud's room and easing herself onto the cot there. We'll trade. You can ask a question, then me, then you, then... y'know.

Alright, said Aeris. She was tempted for a moment to just begin talking to Tifa. She couldn't, though. She'd lost her shot at getting to do this for the joy of it. Maybe even longer ago than she'd realised.

It wasn't fair.

From what I learned from Cloud, began Aeris, ...it seems like the reason I could contact him-- contact anything in your world, I suppose -- was because of... some sort of virus he was infected with, and the... we'll call it a signal, it's not really, it's a bit like brain waves but not quite, but we'll call it a signal -- anyway, the other reason we found him is because he was the only one to find. But now you're here, and he's gone, and now I'm wondering..

Tifa sighed heavily. No. I figured the same thing. So did the WRO, it's why they... she felt Tifa begin to clench and unclench her hands anxiously. Well, anyway, I got some of the blood samples they took from Cloud, and... well. I'm infected now.

And... are -- are you alright? I thought there was some --

I'll be fine, said Tifa. This needed to be done. I thought, if anyone would have answers, it'd be you, and Cloud was the only one who could talk to you, and he's... well. It's done, anyway.

Maybe. What kind of answers do you want?

Alright... alright. You said -- you said Cloud was... gone. How do you know?

...We have a lot of tools available to us, said Aeris. A lot of them are focused around the pattern, the one that Cloud gives off -- one that we have data on, that's a constant recovered from the first time this was tried, five years ago. And... before, it only detected one usable "access point". That was Cloud. And after he made contact with Zack, he just vanished, and so did his signal. When one reappeared again... well... I suppose I didn't consider anyone would... do this.

Might not be my best idea, said Tifa. I don't know how much of a choice I had though. Reno -- an acquaintance of mine -- he's dead. Got shredded. It's connected to all of this, it has to be, and... I don't know. Cloud was doing so well, he wouldn't... something's going on.

...Are you sure you're alright? asked Aeris. I thought there were side effects. She was past the point of feeling guilty as well, but that didn't do anything to suppress the mental image of Tifa huddled in a cell, muttering to herself, picking at her wrist.

Now that you mention it, it's gotten a lot better since you showed up, said Tifa thoughtfully. Only voice I'm listening to right now is yours.

Tifa went quiet for a moment, her fists clenched painfully tight. Aeris wasn't sure if she should say something, but the longer it went, the more it seemed like she was intruding on something she shouldn't be.

...Would you like me to ask my question? she said after what felt like several minutes.

If you want, said Tifa, still staring absently at the wall. The quiet is nice too. Whichever.

Well... this might sound a bit rude, but... I can't move. Before I could. Do you suppose you could...

Could what?

...I don't know, admitted Aeris. I'm having trouble... she tried to straighten her hand, but it seemed oddly far away, and not quite hers the way Cloud's body had felt, ...reaching it, she concluded uncertainly.

I couldn't tell you much about that, said Tifa. Maybe it's because I only went and did this yesterday. Or because I don't have as much mako as Cloud. Or as much brain damage, she added uncomfortably. Your guess is as good as mine. Aeris resisted the urge to question her further for politeness’s sake as Tifa continued on. My turn. You... you said things were sort of a mess where you are. How much of a mess? You said you were attacked?

We think we were attacked, said Aeris. We don't really know. There wasn't much of a plan at first -- we were just playing things by ear, and I -- we figured we'd meet up with him in person. I guess him breaking out early threw things for a bit of a loop, but we were doing alright up until...

Tifa was nice enough to let Aeris collect her thoughts, which was about the only thing she could do. She'd given up trying to move for now, as unsettling as the sensation was.

I wish I knew what happened, she said. He came back, and it was like -- it was like he'd melted all over the place. We weren't even sure if he was still alive, but... a few days later, he was fine, mostly.

Mostly?

Well, his eyes -- they're like Cloud's now. You don't think there's any medical --

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit --

What? What is it?

You said melted. How melted? Where there any extra bits in there? Claws? Wings? Stuff you don't recognise from anything?

...You know what this is. A statement, not a question, likely doing little to hide her own steadily growing dread.

It's -- it's Reunion. Tifa got up and headed towards the door at the other end of the hallway. It has to be. I haven't -- I only saw it once, years ago, but it's -- but I don't understand, what...

Aeris watched as she threw open the closet door, and was immediately confronted with the smell of blood. The scent behind that one seemed familiar, too, somewhere behind a memory of a stimulus she'd experienced indirectly.

It -- that can't be it, said Tifa. Reunion doesn't just... happen, there's -- Cloud's still human enough, he couldn't do something like that, and you said --

My turn, cut in Aeris. What do you mean, Reunion? That's... that's the thing Cloud mentioned, with that virus?

Yeah. The virus, that attracts anything that's also infected. Was Zack infected?

I don't see how he could've been, admitted Aeris. But you say he's infected now.

He'd have to be, if Reunion... that doesn't make any sense either, said Tifa. Something like that... they'd have to be standing in front of Jenova Herself. And She's gone. Even if your friend were infected, it wouldn't... that's not how it works. Even those Remnants, they weren't enough of Her to set that off.

So... neither one of us has any answers, said Aeris.

I do, said Tifa, closing the door to the closet. She wasn't sure why, but Aeris found the scent of the blood -- it had to be blood in there -- strangely enticing. Irrationally so. ...He really is gone, then.

...What?

Cloud. She sat down on the bed, which Aeris noticed had a girl asleep in it already. Marlene. She remembered Marlene. Where was her father?

...Well, we don't know where he is, said Aeris. We could still find --

I know where he is, said Tifa. He's part of Jenova now. I saw the other copies in the northern crater -- he wouldn't have even left a body...

Tifa remained stock still on the bed, staring blankly at the closet door. Aeris could feel her heart racing beneath her skin, and the dread -- the denial -- the grief...

...I'm sorry, said Aeris. There was nothing else to say.

They were both silent for another moment. Would it be rude to keep asking questions? She would have to eventually. Would she be willing to put up with this in the first place, after everything that had happened? Would Aeris?

Tifa spoke again before Aeris had worked out what she wanted to say.

So, now what? Tifa asked, sounding strained. Two people are dead.

Now what? She wasn't really sure. She couldn't meet up with Cloud -- she couldn't continue the project -- Zack would probably be taken apart by whatever government got ahold of him first, if he didn't die from whatever strange diseases he'd contracted from whatever thing had...

We find out how this happened, said Aeris, with more resolution than she felt. If -- if it attacked Zack, then it would have attacked Cloud too, right? So then, why did Zack come back? Why not Cloud?

I don't know, said Tifa. Aeris wasn't sure if it was Tifa or herself that was willing themselves not to immediately latch onto the first scrap of hope they'd been thrown in a very long while. I've only ever seen Reunion once... a lot of it has to do with strength of will. Cloud always had trouble with that, after Hojo...

That's really all it is? asked Aeris. He just "willed" it?

I don't make the rules, said Tifa a bit irately. Would you be able to make sense of this if I did? That's just what Cloud said. And Hojo. I don't know if we can trust either of them, but it's all we've got to go on.

Well... Aeris considered this, and again attempted to raise her arm. Blink her eyes. Anything. Tifa didn't even seem to notice her efforts. That might have something to do with the fact that I can't move.

Maybe. Tifa shrugged. I would've said it's because I'm no good at this Jenova business, but Sephiroth -- his will stuck around in the Lifestream for years after he died. Cloud was almost as good at the Jenova thing as Sephiroth was, even if he denies it.

There's a pattern here, said Aeris. There always is, to everything. That's the way the world works -- or, it's the way my world works. Maybe it's the way your world works, too. We just haven't found it yet.

If we're talking about Jenova, then the way the world works is sort of irrelevant, said Tifa. One time I saw Sephiroth -- well, I guess it doesn't matter much, but --

Anything could matter, said Aeris. We don't know yet. So we might as well put everything on the table that we can.

I know this sounds crazy, but it looked like we were --

Aeris never heard what Tifa said next. A low reverberation, impossibly loud, echoed through the room they were in, enough to make her teeth rattle. The air seemed colder.

...Did you hear that? said Aeris, hoping it had just been another hallucination.

Tifa nodded. Aeris felt her glance at Marlene, who was somehow still asleep. Had she not?

Stay here, said Tifa, and slowly rose from the bed and moved towards the doorway.

Can't, remember?

Oh. Well... be quiet for a little.

It was incredibly disquieting, not even being able to look where you wanted, Aeris noted as Tifa began to scan down the hallway for anything out of the ordinary. No wonder Cloud had panicked the first couple times. She couldn't see anything unusual, but there was still something off about the entire place. Like everything had been tilted just a millimetre to the left, or she was having a very realistic dream of walking down the hallway.

Movement. Downstairs, perhaps -- the distance felt odd too, like it was further down than it could have possibly been. Aeris felt the familiar prickle of magic as the air seemed to heat up around Tifa's fingertips and seemed to thicken about them.

I didn't realise it was so late, said Aeris, as she looked outside to see nothing but darkness.

It couldn't have been, though. If Tifa was infected and if her prior experiences with Cloud were any indication, she should be seeing something besides... well, nothing.

The windows seemed a lot closer than they had been before. That was strange. Tifa hadn't moved from the stairs. The distance was the same. How could they be closer?

Instead of replying directly to Aeris, Tifa simply gritted her teeth and thrust her arm at the windows. She barely managed to avert her eyes in time before whatever it was that she had thrown exploded with the force of a hundred magnesium flares, searing their retinas even through their closed eyelids.

The entire room lurched in response.

Tifa grabbed onto one of the bar stools to steady herself as the floor beneath her seemed to heave suddenly. Tifa was looking around too wildly to notice, perhaps, but Aeris could have sworn she saw a pair of vivid green eyes watching from out of the corner of her vision.

I think you should go, said Tifa. Aeris's vision suddenly blurred as Tifa suddenly began calling up significantly more magic than she'd ever felt Cloud use.

Are you sure you'll be okay? asked Aeris in alarm.

God, you sound like him, she said with a pained smile. How about you check in after this is over and we'll find out?

I can't just leave like this, she objected. At the very least because this is really quite related, but -- there must be something I can do to help --

You can help by figuring out when and how your friend encountered a living instance of Jenova, said Tifa. And by not distracting me while I'm fighting. I don't think I really care for this feeling two emotions at once thing. Bye.

And then Aeris suddenly found herself lying in a pool of NC fluid, realising that Tifa had actually somehow managed to kick her out.

"...She seems nice," she said to herself, as Cissnei leaned over the tank looking baffled.

 

---

 

Tifa braced herself for the first impact as the noise in the back of her mind suddenly returned with a vengeance. She'd left her gloves upstairs -- rookie mistake, she'd probably pay for it with a few bruised fingers that she'd have to heal later on -- did Cloud fracture bones sometimes? Surely he hadn't had the same microfracture training she'd had with Zangan, unless he'd put himself through it for fun -- or Hojo had put him through it for less-than-fun, he never talked about it much, but with a Soldier's biology --

Nothing had actually hit her yet, had it? She opened her eyes to see the front window of the Seventh Heaven Bar and Grill utterly smashed again, and off in the distance several alarmed neighbours were looking out into the street, where the ash from Flare was already blowing away.

Something moved behind her, and she spun around, dropping into a defensive posture. Marlene let out a small shriek in response and scrambled halfway up the stairs again.

"Oh!" Tifa immediately lowered her fists and slowly approached Marlene, who was staring wide-eyed at her, utterly bewildered. "Is -- is everything okay?"

"...I heard something blow up," said Marlene softly. "I thought you were in trouble."

"I'm sorry I scared you," said Tifa, not wanting to come any further than the stairs in case Marlene perceived it as a threat. "I thought -- I thought there was someone breaking in." It was... maybe true, technically?

"Was it the mob again?' she asked.

Tifa shook her head. "Just the wood falling apart. Let's go back to bed, okay?"

Marlene looked at her suspiciously. Tifa sighed.

"I can get your Papa on the phone if you want," she said. Barret had gone back to the western continent, and wouldn't be back to pick up Marlene for another two days. "Would that help?"

Marlene slowly nodded and allowed Tifa back up the stairs to claim her cell phone. She barely paid attention to the conversation, staring out her bedroom window.

Had it all been a hallucination after all? If Aeris was in her head, she would have been affected by it as well. And Cloud had certainly had his share of spooks lurking out of the corner of his eye.

It had felt so real, though...

That wasn't true. It hadn't felt real at all. But then, things that should have felt real, like the walls around her, and the bottles stacked behind the counter, and the number of stairs there were, didn't seem real either.

Had she only seen whatever it was because of Aeris? Perhaps, but she hadn't been infected at all in the ruins -- that entire experience had been strangely surreal as well, and Reno's corpse certainly seemed solid enough. Or rather, liquid. Well, some of it was solid, and some of it was liquid... she began to feel queasy and forced herself to stop thinking about it.

Her thoughts turned to Cloud, then. About how he was -- 

She forced herself to stop thinking about that, too. Too much right now. She couldn't. 

There's a pattern, Aeris had said. Tifa just had to find it.

 

---

 

You're gonna be fine, Zack told himself. It's probably nothing. Everything's fine.

He didn't know who he was trying to fool anymore. He was very obviously not fine. The worst thing was not knowing how not-fine he was. Everything set him off now. Any cough, any chill he felt, could be the beginning of some incurable plague. And then there was "Jenova", which... well, he didn't need the test results back (though he'd been told they would be available any minute now) to know that was gonna be a problem too. He'd heard about the symptoms via the interviews with Cloud. Hallucinations... wanderlust... madness... mutations... "brain haemorrhaging" sounded like fun, couldn't wait for that one.

Right now he wasn't exactly doing much to help him take his mind off of things, either. He couldn't stop looking at his eyes. Every time he began convincing himself that they were just Halloween contacts, the pupils would shift ever so slightly in response to light and shadow, and of course there was the fact that it was him, staring into the mirror, moving his eyes that were now looking directly at him, the little lights in them dancing hypnotically around the pupils. Never mind the movement, bioluminescence in humans shouldn't have been possible either.

He felt restless. Beyond that, even -- it was a kind of discomfort that went deeper than what a bunch of sit-ups could get rid of. Lazard had thrown a lot of terms around -- akathisia, dysphoria, whatever -- but he'd been able to focus on very little of it. It was all he could do not to start ripping things off the walls and screaming. He'd allowed himself to bury his face in his pillow and make a quiet noise in the back of his throat, and even that seemed to do very little, if anything. It made him annoying to diagnose, probably. Was the anxiety a symptom or a cause? Was this an immune response or a direct symptom? He didn't know or care. Overlaid over everything were a thousand tiny voices digging into his consciousness. Listening to them seemed to ease the discomfort bit by bit, but after a while some sort of revulsion would kick in, as though his body was physically reacting to and rejecting them, and he would clamp his hands over his ears and rock himself. And the rocking was agonising after a moment, because this was all wrong, he had to sit still, he had to move, he had to scream, he had to listen, he had to...

Something was missing from him. He was broken. Incomplete. He didn't know how he knew it, but he knew it.

Lazard's face appeared on the other side of the glass, presumably with the sedatives he'd asked for. Couldn't be anxious out of your mind if you were asleep, he'd reasoned. He couldn't believe he was considering it, but he might even take being a pile of organs again over this.

The promised sedatives were indeed delivered, but Lazard was now staring at him with a level of interest that made him uncomfortable. Or maybe he was just staring at him normally, and everything was uncomfortable right now anyway. Hard to say.

"How are you feeling?" he asked over the microphone. Zack suppressed a flinch at how loud the voice seemed now and shrugged.

"Kinda restless," he replied, which was a vast understatement. "Keeping busy well enough, though," he added, gesturing to his pile of metal and cloth scraps he'd been organising. Feeling around inside of his mouth with his tongue for the spots where he was pretty sure his fillings should have been had been an okay distraction for about half an hour.

"...We've got results back," said Lazard slowly.

"What kind of results?" asked Zack. Lazard glanced back towards Tseng, who'd entered the room behind him.

"We're... not entirely sure," said Lazard. "Your... cells seem healthy. Haven't noticed any signs of infection, any inflammation, any outward signs of illnesses. I... wouldn't say you're immediately ill, as far as we can tell."

There was an awful lot of careful phrasing going on here. "But?"

"I want you to know what what we're seeing is completely unprecedented," said Lazard, glancing nervously at Tseng for confirmation. "We’ve made as many educated guesses as we can as to what's going on, and this isn't to say this can't be treated --"

"Your cells aren't quite cells anymore," said Tseng, clearly not well-versed in the art of the bedside manner. "They look like them. Act like them, when in isolation. When brought into contact with other tissue, they become aggressively parasitic. They latch onto them and appear to alter them in a way that causes those cells to behave in the same manner. Or, in some cases, they're simply consumed.

"There are currently no known organisms on Earth with this behaviour," he added, "save for perhaps a few viruses or prions. Certainly nothing with this level of aggression."

Zack swallowed. "So -- so you're saying... I'm not..."

"It's possible, in the strictly biological sense," said Lazard gently. "We ran a DNA comparison, and... it didn't match with the samples we had on file for you."

He felt faint. It was almost too much to take in. Maybe it was all a bad dream. "Did you... maybe it was a mistake."

"We reran it three times," said Tseng. "And it came back different each time. But none of the genomes we sequenced were quite yours. We did have one partial match, but we're not sure what it means within the context of the other tests."

"Genetic chimerism isn't out of the question," added Lazard. "Especially considering you have siblings already. But... generally tetragametic chimerism is something that results from the tissues of two or more organisms in one body, and not... two or more genetic codes in the same cell."

"How -- how many?" he choked. If he thought he felt sick in his own skin already...

"Still just two, from what we can tell," said Tseng, who now appeared to be trying to backpedal from his earlier bluntness. "But never the same two. One of them is consistently present in every cell, but not yours. The others... I don't know. Our instruments weren't built to accommodate something like this. It's... maybe possible that nothing's wrong with you, and the results are incorrect." Zack rolled his eyes. A biophysicist, sure, but Tseng was a lousy actor.

"...Anything else?" he asked, dreading the answer.

Lazard nodded. "There's a high concentration of an unknown chemical compound in your bloodstream. It seems bonded to most of your tissues, which I've mentioned otherwise are functioning normally, but it seems to have a carcinogenic effect when brought into contact with other biological matter."

So he was a walking mass of germs and also caused cancer. And maybe had cancer. Or --

"Am I gonna die?" The juvenile question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. He saw Lazard and Tseng exchange a look.

"...In the immediate future? No," said Tseng. Zack's knees went weak with relief, and he stumbled back over to the bed with his tray of meds to sit down. "We'll keep checking for complications as things progress."

"Good enough," said Zack, and picked up one of the sedatives provided to him.

"Wait a minute," said Lazard. "Aeris is --"

Some sort of scuffle seemed to be occurring just out of his field of vision, and a moment later a drenched Aeris was leaning over the microphone, dripping NC fluid onto the counter.

"Zack, I have a couple questions for you."

First names again. That had his attention.

"...Yeah, go ahead."

"Are you certain you didn't encounter anything else before coming into contact with Cloud?"

He forced himself to consider the disorienting blur that had been their first "meeting." Just some trees and grass, the weird rodents, spotting Cloud...

"It was just him," said Zack. "There was no one else around with a bunch of animals, and none of them even came close to me."

"Was your breathing filter damaged upon arrival?"

"No."

"Do you have any kind of chronic illness not mentioned in your file that you haven't told us about?"

"What -- no. Aeris, what's..."

"You were already infected," she explained breathlessly. "That's what Tifa said. You'd have had to have been. And there would have been a third party. You're sure you didn't see anyone else with you?"

He saw Lazard's mouth move away from the glass. Something about "biomass?" He couldn't quite hear.

"No, it was just..."

He did want to answer the question, but the voices made it incredibly hard to focus. They seemed familiar somehow, but he couldn't quite...

"Wait... wait, maybe."

Aeris stared at him expectantly. So did Lazard and Tseng and everyone else.

"I saw something, on the way over. During the part where you hallucinate, so I just figured --"

"What did it look like?" she asked.

Zack frowned. "I... I don't know."

"You don't...?"

"Like, I know I saw it. But... I don't know what it looked like. It was hard to look at."

"Was it... was it big, or small?"

"Big," said Zack immediately. He knew that much. "Huge. Bigger than anything I've ever... it looked bigger than -- than everything."

"What -- what was it shaped like?"

"I don't know."

"Do you remember what colour it was?"

"I don't know." He could feel the anxiety stirring in his chest. He didn't want to think about it.

"Was it... was it a planet, or --"

"I don't know."

If he remembered what it looked like, he was sure he'd never be able to remember anything ever again.

"Is there anything you can tell --"

"Loud."

"What?"

"It was loud. It's loud."

"Zack, I'm trying to help you."

"It's -- it's loud." He began to rock himself again. It was screaming in his ears. He curled in on himself, his arms cradling his head. He heard a series of sharp noises. A scream. The scream was too loud, too. Shut it out. Need to shut it out. Something clattered to the floor.

If Aeris was still talking to him, he didn't care. He snatched his meds off the tray and swallowed the lot of them in one gulp, then buried his face in the pillow again, waiting for the drugs to take effect.

He needed to sleep. That was the first focused impulse he'd had in hours. He had to sleep. He needed to sleep. He couldn't spend another second awake in this world where everything around him was so -- so fucking loud -- he needed to sleep...

Notes:

HEY GUYS I GOT ANOTHER FANART

https://fury-brand.tumblr.com/post/173112057987/cloud-very-angrily-eating-a-peanut-butter

I LOVE IT A LOT

Chapter 30: For Safety Reasons Please Wear Shoes On The Beach

Notes:

Good news: new chapter! And we're at the halfway point officially, assuming my length estimate is actually right this time.

Bad news: the next couple updates are going to be a little slow due to finals and other real life complications.

As always, thank you to Sanctum_C, daily-kaley, Larissa, and Belderiver for allowing themselves to be talked at as much as they do.

This chapter contains brief mentions of suicidal thoughts.

My family will come back for me. They promised they would. They promised they'd come back for me. They promised.

He didn't know how long it had been. It could have been minutes or centuries. With how long Jenova lived, the latter wasn't out of the question. Every "second" of his time here was a constant battle, and he could feel himself beginning to lose.

There were periods where he wasn't himself -- wasn't anyone, was just another neuron in a vast network, a link in another chain, and each time it was harder and harder to remember that he was here, he was himself, that he was --

His name kept coming and going, along with his I. He wanted to keep it, but he couldn't focus on it right now. He had other, more important names to remember.

Tifa. That was one of the important ones. If he was with Tifa, then he was safe. He couldn't remember what she looked like anymore, but he remembered the smell of fresh bread, and of someone against him on a blanket in front of a window, looking out at the sky.

He couldn't remember what the sky looked like. There was light, he remembered. Not like this place.

It was dark here, but not through any absence of light -- it was simply nothing, as though he'd gone blind and deaf and scent-deaf. All he had now were rapidly degrading memories.

Someone would come back for him. Someone -- they were important, he was nothing without them -- he was nothing -- wasn't --

Nobody was coming back for him. That was another memory that surfaced from time to time, and he wished more than anything he could forget that one. There was nothing left of him to save.

Maybe the Professor could. The Professor could do anything. The Professor had made him -- had taken him from nothing and made him something worth being.

But then... something bad had happened, and then the Professor didn't want him anymore, and the Director stopped coming to visit.

Nobody wanted him. Without the Professor, or the stories about the Pale Man...

He was something, wasn't he? He was a Soldier First Class, like he's always dreamed. He was good enough to be something on his own. He was him because of himself. He was -- puppet. Still of use. It was good, to be used, to be wanted, to know himself for the first time in his life, to be for something, when he'd never been for anything before. So then why did it not feel good?

He missed his family. He was never going to see them again.

Another wave of fear tore through him like a physical wound. He had to see them. He couldn't be alone ever again. He strained against Jenova, even though there was nowhere left but Her, not to make him be alone again, and She beckoned him towards Her, where he would be together with Her... not alone anymore... safe...

My family will come back for me, he told himself through the fear. I have to wait for them to come back for me, or I'll be alone again -- I'm alone --

It was more than he could take. He thrashed as hard as he could, whatever was left of him too weak to possibly do anything, and he stopped as something vast and blind stumbled towards him, and then it touched --

 

---

 

Zack stumbled as something sharp embedded itself into the arch of his foot. He yelped and immediately sat down on the hot sand as his friends paused, watching him pick at the grit that was already embedded in his skin.

"I'm good," he said, waving them off. "Stepped on some glass or something. I've had my shots, I'll catch up in a bit." And they all turned away and ran into the waves a few yards ahead.

It wasn't glass, fortunately, just a bit of broken seashell. A big piece, too. He thought about keeping it, but the last thing his room needed was more clutter. He stood and wound his arm back before throwing the shell back into the water. No need for anyone else to step on it.

The beach was pretty full already today, what with the onset of tourist season and all. With it came a bunch of people screaming in his face as though he couldn't speak English and a bunch more shoving cameras in his face and snapping pictures of "Hawaii natives". Which Zack was never sure whether to correct people about, but as far as he knew they figured brown was brown was brown. It wouldn't matter if they'd gotten the wrong kind.

For now, though, the people here hadn't bothered him or his friends about anything, save for one mother asking for directions to a gas station. It was sunny, but a cool breeze wafted through the air every now and then. Seagulls wheeled about overhead, harassing anyone that had any ideas about eating their lunch on the beach. He could have taken a nap right then and there.

As he stretched out to do just that there was another stab of pain from his foot. Right -- he should probably clean that off. Tetanus was one thing, regular old staph infections were another. The cut was shallow, at least. Nothing that wouldn't be gone in a week or two.

He picked up a bit of driftwood and tested his weight on it -- it would make a good enough walking stick for now. He used it to hop his way over to the levee and followed it back to the public restroom. He wished he'd parked closer so he could have fixed it up in his car. But he hadn't, and now he was stuck voluntarily entering some dank, sunless cement hellhole that looked straight out of a horror movie.

The light on the ceiling seemed to be dying, leaving the corridor poorly lit. Great. That probably meant someone had missed at some point, and there was probably piss all over the floor. He propped his foot up in the sink (wasn’t like he was making it any dirtier), and ran cold water over it for a few minutes.

A noise from further in startled him, and he lost his balance and crashed to the floor. He scrambled to his feet, swearing. It had sounded like screaming.

He wrapped his foot in toilet paper and carefully made his way down the dimly lit hallway. The sound echoed off the bare white walls, louder this time. Unmistakably a scream. It sounded like a guy, maybe. He held the driftwood like a baseball bat -- this definitely looked like the kind of place you'd get mugged in (another reason he hated public restrooms). He almost called out to ask if he was okay, but part of his brain, the part that wanted him to finish up his stupid doctorate without having to finish his dissertation in a hospital, told him that if there was a mugging going on, they could easily have a gun. He kept quiet and continued to creep down the long hallway.

There was a door at the end -- a thick metal one that looked almost spotless compared to his surroundings. He could hear several voices behind it, with some of them seeming too old to be muggers. He caught snippets of conversation -- dilator this, suction that, and a gentle voice, saying something soothing that he couldn't quite make out. He slowly cracked the door open and peeked inside, his breathing shaky and uneven.

There were twelve people in the room. One of them was an older, bespectacled man. Another woman, with her hair up in a bun, was working opposite him with some sort of machine. Two more stood back, taking notes. Three more were heavily muscled and wearing what he was pretty sure was body armour, and simply lurked in the background in front of another door. The other four were wearing surgical scrubs and white coats, and they were all intently focused on the last one, who --

Zack nearly cried out. He felt bile rising in the back of his throat. There was some kid -- he thought it might be a kid, anyway. He was so malnourished and emaciated he couldn't really tell how old he might've been. One arm was mangled nearly beyond recognition, missing skin and muscle and a few fingers, and the other arm was in some sort of clamp, with what looked like some sort of diagram drawn into his skin as well as all over his body, words denoting instructions and lines sectioning out parts. Zack had seen something like that before: in a barbecue restaurant nearby his house, detailing how to carve up a pig.

He looked away. He didn't know what was going on in that room and he didn't want to, ever. And when the kid in the chair let out a third, louder scream that deteriorated into sobs, Zack lost any and all ideas about what guns they might or might not have had and threw open the door.

"HEY, ASSHOLE!" he yelled at the nearest man, and swung the improvised bat into his head without waiting for a response.

That got their attention, and the three wearing body armour, who were almost definitely some sort of guards, lunged for him. Zack had been ready for this, and jabbed one in the gut with his driftwood as another one grabbed him from behind. Zack pulled his head back and felt his skull connect with something that promptly crunched, then plowed ahead into the third, completely unfazed by the weight. Maybe that whole football thing had paid off after all.

He drove his fist into the guard's face again and again until he felt someone behind him grab him. Zack leaned into his assailant, falling on top of them, and he heard a winded grunt as his elbow connected with his windpipe.

He snatched up his driftwood again and spun around into the woman with the bun and the surgical mask. He felt a crunch that time too. He forced himself not to think about it, the same way he was forcing himself not to look at whatever they were doing to that arm.

He raised his arm to bludgeon another one of the note-takers before he felt something sharp and cold press into his throat. He froze.

"That was quite impressive," said a voice just as sharp and cold as the scalpel that was being held against his neck, "albeit rather rude. It's a waste disposing of a fine specimen such as yourself, but then you did just cost me a nurse. Possibly two nurses, although I am holding out hope that Higgins is merely concussed. I like to consider myself an optimist."

"Who the hell are you?" shot Zack. The other nurse, the one he hadn't had time to assault, had taken off up the stairs.

"Would you prefer to be relegated to storage, or do you think you could make it as a control?" continued the man behind him, ignoring his question. "Or perhaps, given your martial prowess, you would be most useful as part of a live fire exercise. It will be time for one soon enough --"

A sickening crack came from behind him, and the scalpel fell away from his neck. Zack turned around to see the kid holding a pair of nasty-looking pliers in what was left of his free hand and staring at the unconscious body on the floor. He was shaking badly -- too much to just be fear or anger. He was almost definitely drugged, and the bewildered stare he gave Zack seemed to confirm this.

"C'mon, let's... let's get out of here. You don't wanna stay here, right?" said Zack, glancing back towards the stairs. He didn't know if there were more people in this place, and he didn't want to find out.

The kid gave a small nod and pulled at the glorified c-clamp holding his arm in place. Zack hastily unscrewed it and snatched a handful of gauze off the surgical tray, wrapping it around his flayed other arm and the stump of his hand and securing it in place with more tape. It probably wouldn't actually help with... whatever it was they had done, but it was better than nothing.

"What's your name, cuz?"

He was quiet. Zack glanced at the stairs again. Now or never.

"Can you walk?"

He shook his head, still looking confused.

"No problem, then. Just hold on." Zack carefully picked him up as gently as he could manage, feeling almost definitely like he was causing some sort of irreparable damage by holding him this way, and that there was a way he was supposed to be doing it, before tearing out of the operating room and back down the hallway.

They emerged from the bathroom onto the empty beach. Zack set down the kid and watched his shaking slowly die down in light of the warm sand he was laying on. He stared at the sky as though he'd never seen anything like it before, still apparently not quite lucid.

"What the hell was all that about, man?" asked Zack. Who knew, maybe he'd interrupted some important, super-gross life saving procedure and this kid's goose was cooked the minute he'd knocked out the first guy with a really big stick. Though he admittedly didn't know what kind of medical procedures involved taking someone apart layer by layer.

"No one's ever come for me before," was the reply he got instead. Zack blinked and stared at the kid, who was now staring at him. There was something not quite right about his eyes.

"Well, uh... y'know. Anyone would've done it. That was fucked up, right? Couldn't just let it happen."

"...I've had this dream for years and years. No one ever comes for me," he said, sounding almost reverent.

Of course this was a dream. Which explained why he was back on the beach, which was empty even though it was peak tourist season. Where had his friends gone? They'd know what to do. Gabe probably knew first aid or something. He wished he'd done a better job with the arm, even if it was a dream.

"You heard me, and you came for me," the kid repeated. "You came to save me."

"If this is a dream, what part of my subconscious are you supposed to be?" asked Zack uncomfortably. The young man -- about Zack's age, his body pockmarked with every sort of scar imaginable -- stared back at him, confused.

"...I'm not the dream. You are."

A bit of information suddenly slipped into place then. He knew who this man was. Had seen the pictures.

"...Cloud? You're Cloud, right?"

Cloud hesitated, as though unsure, then nodded enthusiastically. "Who are you? You look like you could be in Soldier, but you don't have deadeyes. Was I friends with you in Nibelheim? Did you come for me in real life, and I just forgot? Are you Vincent?" There was something desperate in his voice. "No one's ever come looking for me before. It -- it means something. It has to."

"No. It's... it's me. Zack Fair. From the research team."

The beach was absolutely quiet. The waves from the ocean moved in and out, but there wasn't any sound coming from them.

"You're --"

Something in his face hardened, and the reverence in it quickly drained away.

"...What did you do to me?" he asked, his voice shadowed with equal parts contempt and fear.

"I oughta ask you the same thing," said Zack, glaring at him.

"What did you do?" came the question again, more distressed this time. "What did you do to me?!"

"I didn't do a goddamn thing!"

"You --" He seemed to be in hysterics by this point, matched only by Zack's own. "I'm -- I'm still here -- I -- what you did, you -- you! Whatever you did to me, you better fucking --"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" yelled Zack. "You're the one who fucking melted --"

"No, I didn't!" screamed Cloud back. "You -- you did something to me, and -- gods, am I still gonna be here when you wake up?" he said suddenly, his voice taking on a hush.

"I don't know, and honestly, I'm about ready to find out," snapped Zack, now backing away slowly from the man on the beach. His eyes widened with fear.

"No!" he pleaded. "No, you -- you can't --"

"You're probably not even real," said Zack, and even as he said it the figure seemed less there than it was before. He began imagining that it was simply an oddly decorated mailbox, or a conveniently shaped sand sculpture someone had made. "This -- this is all a dream, and you're not -- you can't even be here. That's not possible."

The ocean swept about their feet, and the conveniently shaped sand sculpture began to crumble.

"Please," it begged. "Please don't do this."

"This isn't real," he told himself. "This isn't real. You're not real --"

"No -- please," it said again, every word drenched with anguish. "Please don't --" 

And for an instant, it couldn't have been a pile of sand, because it sounded -- it looked so human, its face wet with tears, but he continued watching it slowly crumble into sand anyway. Zack swallowed.

"I can't go back," it said. Zack watched as even the effort of moving its mouth sent tiny grains of sand streaming into the water. "Please. I'll -- I'll do anything."

"...I can't stay asleep forever," said Zack. He forced himself to look at it

"Please don't go," he said, his voice breaking. "I'll do anything. Don't make me go back."

"I..." Zack looked away again to avoid feeling like a murderer. It didn't really work. "I don't even understand how you're here. You're... you're really real?"

"I think so," said Cloud, pulling his arms close to himself even as his fingers began to crumble as well. "I don't know. I don't know how much of me Mother has."

"How?" He hesitantly reached out to touch the thing in front of him, causing it to flinch, and found the texture identical to skin. Though perhaps that didn't mean anything in a place like this. "You aren't... I don't understand how any of this works, or... or what happened when we..."

"It's Reunion," explained Cloud. "When Mother... I mean, when Jenova is ready to move on, or to feed, She gathers the bodies and minds of everyone She's infected. Even if you've only got a few cells in you, they'll still compel you to the same spot as everything else. And if... if you're more infected, then you... you become part of Her. Like I did."

"So then why --"

"I don't know," said Cloud. "Because you might not know what happened but I do. And you were..." he frowned, trying to make sense of it even as a bit more of him sloughed off into the water. "...You were Mother. I mean, Jenova."

Zack looked down at his own hands. Maybe he was imagining it, but he could have sworn there were things moving in his skin. "What... what do you mean?"

"You called me," he said simply. "You were what I was being drawn to. And you were the one that basically dismantled me. Maybe that's something humans can do where you're from."

"It's -- it's not. Aeris said there was a third party."

"She wasn't there. I was. It was just you," said Cloud. "I don't know why you were basically one hundred percent Jenova, but you were. And maybe still are."

"But I'm..."

"Human?" said Cloud. Zack nodded. "It's a nice thought, isn't it?" he said, more to himself than to Zack. "Until things like this rear their ugly heads."

The ocean was still eerily silent. Zack stood there, transfixed as Cloud stared out at the murky water, slowly eroding more and more of him.

"I'm afraid," said Cloud suddenly.

"...Me too," said Zack. He couldn't look at his skin moving again. Or the things moving under it.

The ocean was making noise again, but there was something sinister about the gentle rushing whispering about their ears.

"Maybe you could help me," Cloud said, speaking up again.

"Yeah?"

Cloud nodded. "I don't -- I don't want to lose anything else. And there's nowhere left for me to go..."

Zack looked at Cloud then, unsettled by the expectant look the man was giving him.

"...Maybe, if you killed me here, it would --"

"No," said Zack immediately.

"I'm already disappearing," pressed Cloud. "And it'll be slow. It'll take weeks to lose everything I am. I want to die as myself."

"I can't -- I can't do that," said Zack, swallowing. "I don't wanna kill anyone."

"I'm asking you to!" said Cloud, a hint of desperation in his voice now. "It won't hurt, even. You'd be doing a good thing."

"I --" It would be fairly easy, Zack imagined. To just knock his -- its head off. Even as he watched, another few streams of sand trickled away from the rest of it.

"No one will miss me," said Cloud. "You won't have to know I'm there. It might even fix what's wrong with you. Please -- I can't go back in the dark. Not again. Kill me. I want to die like this. I want to die myself --"

"Shut up," snapped Zack, feeling sick to his stomach. "Just -- shut your fucking mouth. I'm not killing you. I'm not -- I can't do that." The words sank into the air around them like poison. He'd never wanted this. Never wanted any of this, his entire life, and now...

"You have to --"

"I don't have to do shit, Cloud." Zack had resumed backing away. There was so little left of the mound of sand. He didn't know how it was still speaking with half a face. "I'm no killer."

"I can't -- I can't do this anymore, please -- Professor, please -- I'm sorry, I tried, I'm sorry --"

It was talking nonsense now. He had to wake up.

"It's too loud -- please make it stop --"

"I'm gonna wake up now," said Zack. "I can't -- I can't kill you. I'm sorry."

"No!"

Cloud's last agonised shout echoed in his mind as he opened his eyes and found the familiar white ceiling above him. They felt strangely sticky. He reached up and touched his face, and his hand came away damp.

"Are you alright?" came the voice over the intercom. Aeris.

If he'd felt less utterly drained, he would have laughed. He closed his eyes again and searched for the presence he'd felt earlier-- a little knot of fear that wasn't his own. Not much in the way of thought, but little spasms of emotion broadcasting his existence.

Zack looked back up at the window. "I found Cloud," he said.

 

---

 

Aeris nearly dropped the dish of rat feed she'd been holding at the weary, unenthused announcement.

"You what?"

"I found --"

"You -- you know where he is?"

She saw Zack pause. She quickly sent the dish through the drop for Zack to offer to the rat (apparently named "Remy") still boxed in with him. Now that there wasn't an immediate medical emergency, they'd all decided to actually get some sleep for once. She really shouldn't be up this late herself.

Was it late? What time was it? How long had it been, really?

"I mean... maybe not," said Zack after a lengthy pause, as though considering something else. "Maybe... I mean -- it's gonna sound stupid --"

"I did magic, Zack," said Aeris, rolling her eyes. "I am being paid to inform the public that I learned about magic, which may or may not be something that almost got you killed. We are well past the point of sounding stupid."

"...He's... I dreamt about him," said Zack. "He's in my head now."

"Reunion," said Aeris, barely daring to believe it. "He's still there."

"What -- you knew?"

"I tried to tell you," she said, frowning. "You insisted on taking a nap first."

"It... something happened with my head," said Zack. "I had to."

"Can you still hear it?" she asked, and received a terse nod in reply. "Can you hear Cloud?"

Zack shook his head. "I can tell he's there, but... I don't know. What's it like during bridging?"

"That's a little hard to explain," said Aeris. "It's like the little voice in the back of your head that you narrate to yourself with suddenly starts narrating on its own."

"Well, I've got one of those," said Zack with a grimace, "but I don't think it's him. I can just... feel something there."

"Do you know that's really him?" asked Aeris expectantly, against her better judgement. "Are you certain it's not Jenova?"

"Think so," said Zack. "We got to talk when I was actually asleep."

"What did he say?"

Zack did not reply. Aeris forced herself to take a deep breath and unclench her teeth.

"I'm trying to help. Look --"

"It was personal," said Zack, looking extremely uncomfortable. "I think he's... dying or something, anyway. That that's all that's left of him."

"Did he say how to reverse it?" she asked immediately. Magic was real. Zack was alright. There had to be a way.

Zack shook his head. "He asked me how to. Said something about being part of Jenova now," he said evasively. "And he said I should..."

"...Should what?" asked Aeris, when Zack went silent again.

"Not important," he muttered. "Promise it's not. Point is... I don't really think he's -- that there's a fix for this." She saw him swallow. "He's just kinda waiting to disappear. Nothing to be done about it anymore."

"No."

Zack looked away from Aeris, setting the tray down for Remy. She slammed her fist against the glass, knowing it was probably too thick for him to hear it the way she wanted him to. She didn't care.

"Talk to him."

"What?"

"You have to talk to him. You have to help him."

"How the hell am I supposed to help him?" said Zack sharply. "I don't know the first thing about this shit. How do you un-melt someone out of you? I don't -- I'm not even sure that's what happened. How am I supposed to fix this?"

"By talking to him!" she snapped back at him. "We've effectively abducted him, and he's probably afraid, to say the least --"

"Oh -- oh, he's afraid?" said Zack, suddenly getting to his feet. "Aeris, I fucking melted! And then this asshole comes along and tells me I'm not even fucking human anymore -- I'm some kind of walking tumour -- I -- I'm hearing voices, and they won't stop, and I want to fucking scream and it's -- he asked me to kill him, someone asked me to fucking kill them, and they -- they set me up for this, they -- I can' t-- I can't do this. I can't do any of this." His breathing was coming in ragged spurts now. "I wasn't even supposed to fucking be here!"

His eyes widened at his own words, and then he shook his head, trailing off into muttered Spanish swearing.

"Look... we couldn't have foreseen the personnel change --"

"I mean, I wasn't even supposed to be on this project. I shoulda killed him when he asked me to. We're killing someone with this one way or another, anyway."

Aeris felt her hands go cold.

"You... what?"

Zack sat back down on the mattress, leaning against the wall looking exhausted. "Gonna die, anyway... whatever. You know I was a late addition to the project, right? I mean, I... I was there from the beginning, but just to supplement it with designs. The sixth ring, whatever. I wasn't supposed to be here, physically, in this building."

Aeris nodded, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. "...Yes. I'm aware."

"I asked to be here," said Zack emotionlessly. "It... meant a lot to me personally, this project. I had to be here for it. But... well, you know. Limited resources. Only, there were a lot of countries interested in it suddenly, right? And the United States was one of 'em. You know how we are, gotta be front and centre for everything."

Aeris nodded again.

"They said they'd get me in if... if I reported everything I discovered here directly back to them. I dunno if you're doing anything like that for your government."

"But... that doesn't make sense," said Aeris. "We're sharing the findings anyway. It's a joint project."

"Yeah, that's what I thought," said Zack. "At first, anyway. But they gave me instructions, too, to keep an eye out for something else."

He sat up, rubbing dried tears out of his eyes. "And... I promise you, I didn't know they were gonna send me instead of you. Actually, I think if they knew what was gonna happen they might not have made the switch, but... I asked about the whole information thing. Before I got here, and -- and they said --"

He shrugged. "They said, 'You'll know it when you see it.' That's what they told me."

He let out a short, bitter laugh. "What kinda bullshit instructions are those? Didn't even tell me what I was looking for. I don't even think they know. I certainly don't. At first I thought it was definitely the life in another world that existed. No dice. And then, when we found out it was intelligent, that -- y'know, we made fucking first contact, I thought for sure, because that's... wow. That's it. That's it for sure. It'd have to be, right?"

"...They barely cared, though," said Aeris, remembering the odd letter they'd gotten back. "They just told us to keep going. As though it were a footnote."

"Yeah. Same deal here," said Zack. "And then... you told me about that equation, and I -- I passed the info on. About magic --" he flinched a bit under the murderous glare she suddenly gave him "-- y'know -- fucking magic, right? It has to be that." He shook his head. "Wasn't that either.

"They're looking for something," he said. "Something big. Something bigger than first fucking contact. Bigger than giving a shit about Cloud or magic or you or me or anything."

"Why doesn't the United States just fund its own --"

Zack laughed humourlessly again. "Aeris, do you know why this project got funded?"

"Because I spent years salvaging the remains of a project that two people died for, and everyone saw that it wasn't for nothing," she said icily.

"Alright... yes, that's technically 'why' it got funded," said Zack a bit less acerbically, "but that's not why." He finally looked back at her again, with those eerie, inhuman eyes. "Science is driven by the need for weapons, one way or the other. You've studied history, right? Ever since the bronze age, when we decided we needed better stabbing materials than sticks. Technology boomed because of the rapid development of weapons during both World Wars. Radar, nuclear energy, rubber, medicine. We granted amnesty to a lot of really fucking terrible people so we could take their gross torture research on syphilis and hypothermia. We only ever got computers the way we've got 'em because of the miniaturisation of electronics. And that only ever happened because of the Space Race against Russia. Necessity's the mother of invention. And violence is its really bitchy grandma, I guess.

"Point is, people don't care about science unless it can kill something else. Like it or not, whether your field's math or astronomy or medicine, it's all being used to make weapons, one way or the other. Cute robots, life-saving cures... all gets funnelled back to that in the end. They don't fund things that aren't usable. Didn't you think it was the least bit suspicious that every major country in the world suddenly jumped at the chance to be a part of this?" Zack shook his head. "Nah. They saw something we missed. Maybe something your parents were onto, that they knew about. I don't know. I just said I'd report back. Didn't care. Now look where it's gotten me."

Aeris's fists had balled themselves up tightly enough to where her nails had cut little slivers into her palms.

"And you're alright with that, are you?" she said coolly. "Why discover anything, then, if it could be used to kill someone else one day? Why get out of bed?"

"Because that's what we are, Aeris," said Zack tiredly. "That's all we can be. Best thing you can do is just... go with it. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to pretend otherwise. You're just whatever the world turns you into."

"I think," said Aeris, "that for a doctor, you're a humongous idiot. And I think you've decided that's what your work means because you're afraid that it could mean that. And I think that's pathetic. You're pathetic."

"Guess so."

"So, that's it?" she said.

"Yeah."

"Then why are you even here --"

"Because I asked to be."

"Why?" spat Aeris. "And don't tell me for a second that it's because you were on board with the idea of giving weapons tech to --"

"I need to be!" he yelled back. "I -- I need to. It's... it's important. To me," he said, more softly this time. "I need to be. It's still the only thing I've ever done that's meant anything."

And suddenly it all made sense. The fake grinning, the press, the disinterest in his own work....

"...This is an ego trip for you," she said suddenly. Zack looked at her and seemed to register something in her face, and let out another sad, rusty laugh.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, that's one way to put it." His eyes were still a little damp from earlier, but she could have sworn she saw them mist over again.

"I have to say, I'm a little disappointed," said Aeris. "I thought... I thought perhaps maybe we were doing this for the same reasons."

"Maybe we are," said Zack. "Why are you doing it?"

"Because I felt like I should," said Aeris after a moment. "And... and I wanted to. Or -- no, that's not right." She frowned, watching Remy begin stuffing pellet after pellet into his cheeks. "I wanted it to be what I wanted. I had this idea, of what it was going to be like. But -- not until five years ago. Until then, it was -- it was something that I was supposed to do. And then Mum and Dad died, and it meant something all of a sudden. It was something that I had to do. For them, and for me. Because they started it, and they -- they would have wanted me to, and I would have wanted them to want me to." Her palms stung from where she'd cut them with her nails. No use bandaging them -- too small for gauze, too numerous for individual latex strips. "And it's -- it's done the opposite. Everything they did is so far away now. Everything this meant is so far away now. And for a minute, it was wonderful, and now...

"Now it's all come full circle," said Aeris. "Because this is my project."

Zack was still regarding her thoughtfully, the two pinpricks of light glinting out of his face that much more noticeably in the dimmed light of his room.

"I guess we aren't doing it for the same reasons," he said finally. "But... I wish I could be doing it for some of yours."

"So do I," said Aeris. "The good ones, anyway. You should try it sometime."

"...I'll talk to him," said Zack. "Dunno how much good it'll do. Has it been long enough for me to just take more meds?"

"Don't think so," said Aeris. "You'll have to fall asleep yourself."

"Course I do," grumbled Zack. "Well... see you later. You can tell Lazard I woke up so he doesn't freak out."

"Sweet dreams," said Aeris, before muting the mic on her side.

She leaned back in her chair, feeling much heavier somehow despite the weight that seemed to disappear from her chest. She spent an extra few moments willing herself to get back out of the chair and over to a computer, to make note of how Cloud was now a voice in Dr. Fair's head. Would anyone even be reading these notes anymore? People a hundred years from now? Government agents, after they buried this entire mess under a layer of red tape and gag orders, perhaps.

Probably no one.

Cloud is alive, in a sense, she wrote. Something is terribly wrong with Zack. Another person I have just now met properly, Tifa, is working very hard, although I do not know on what, and I am worried she may not know either. I want to believe they will pull through. At times like these, there doesn't seem much difference between delusion and optimism. But maybe that's the point.

I don't know what I'm doing. This is a new, and exciting, and largely unpleasant experience. We are all tired and afraid. Everything looks like a way out and a death sentence simultaneously. I am sure there is a lesson to be learned here about human ingenuity in the face of adversity, but the men aboard Apollo XIII were probably too busy thinking about suffocation and the downward spiral their mission was on to appreciate it. I cannot say I blame them.

I must not lose sight of the situation we are in. But I must also be the one to remember the most important part of those lessons, as my team is too busy to themselves, because otherwise what's the point?

I still can't believe magic is real.

 

---

 

He'd lost something else.

It was a maddening thing to know -- that you were crumbling away and would never miss what had already been claimed, but it was the only thing he could get himself to congeal around that could stay consistent.

It was like trying to keep his head above water in the middle of a storm -- the voices would rise in intensity, drowning him out, whittling away a little more of himself. A single thought would occasionally bubble to the surface, where he would desperately cling to it, before it was inevitably snatched from him again, pulling him under once more. He didn't know how many more of them would continue to carry his weight.

Something brushed over Cloud in the dark, reminding him of himself, and he shivered.

He knew that it wasn't real, and that by all accounts he shouldn't have anything left to shiver with. Another dream? Not one of his, since he wasn't truly awake either. Zack's, then.

But it was still dark. He got the sense that wherever he was standing, it was unbelievably vast, and a hair's breadth away from his skin, like an enormous hall stuffed to the brim with hands, waiting to drag him away and rip him to pieces.

He looked around, his heart pounding. Why couldn't he see anything? There had to be something to see -- he could certainly feel it. He gingerly reached out and touched something soft.

Dieciocho... diecinueve... viente!

He felt himself stifle a giggle as a set of heavy footsteps came to a rest outside the closet door. Beside him, Aaron's knee was starting to dig into his side uncomfortably, but he didn't dare move, not when they were this close to being found.

Aaron -- who the hell was Aaron?

The closet door flew open, and a guard dragged him out of the spare towels he'd been trying to escape in, and his shout of pain cut itself off with a choked gasp as he felt the butt of a rifle rest against his forehead and his world seemed to shrink into a single point in front of him, and all he could do was sit there and shake as he braced himself for what was coming. This is what all the traitors to the state had felt like, seconds before he had --

The gun lowered. "I... what..." The guard shook his head. "Jesus Christ, cuz, this one of yours?"

Cloud chanced a look up and saw Zack, looking down at Cloud as though he wasn't quite sure how he'd gotten there. There was still lint in his hair from when he'd been hiding next to him (him? Aaron? Who was Aaron?) in the laundry.

"There was another boy," he said, still somewhat shaken. "Who were you hiding from?"

"My dad, usually," said Zack. "Honestly, we made way too much noise. I think he was just pretending to not know where we were..." He offered Cloud a hand. "I... I don't really know how this works, but maybe we can go somewhere other than, uh... whatever this B-movie freakshow bullshit is." He gestured to the basement of the Nibelheim Manor unenthusiastically. "This your place?"

"...As much as a lot of them were," he said as he pulled himself up, looking away. "If I'm being honest about it." He felt dizzy. Sick. Confused. But he was himself, real enough to remember it, and every independent thought, every bit of emotion that was his own was a gift, something he had known for a long time could never be taken for granted, and he spent a moment revelling in his own existence. "You... you came back for me again."

"Aeris said I should talk to you," said Zack with a shrug.

"I didn't think you would," said Cloud. "I knew -- I knew someone would, but they didn't. I think someone was supposed to --"

My family will come back for me.

"My family!" he blurted out. "My family, they'll -- they'll come find me, I have to... I've gotta see them again." He sprinted past Zack, trying to make it out of the basement. If he could just get out of the manor -- off the property, back to Nibelheim, surely ********* would be waiting for him. Mother would always be waiting for him.

He threw open the door at the top of the stairs and was greeted with the sight of his old cell.

It was safe in his cell, wasn't it?

He was trapped here.

Nobody was coming to rescue him. It was safe in the cell. He was going to die alone in the cell and Mother was waiting for him to come home.

"I..." Zack was behind him now. When had that happened? "Look, man, I'm not sure --"

"I need to see my family," said Cloud, more insistently this time. "I... I don't remember how to get out of here, though."

There was a very heavy pause. Zack looked away from him.

"I don't think you... I mean..." he sighed in frustration. "I don't think you can. We... we don't know how to get you out. We were hoping you'd know."

"I would...?"

That was right, he remembered (again). He was as good as dead. Zack, and by extension, Mother, had him imprisoned here.

There was nowhere else left to run to.

"...I don't know how," said Cloud quietly, as he sat down on his cot that he had earned for being good and helpful and making the Professor proud.

Zack remained standing, looking uncomfortable. "You, um. You have a family. Is there anything you want me to -- I mean..."

"I don't know," said Cloud. "I wanted to be better for them. If I was, this wouldn't have happened."

There was a sword in the room with him. The Buster Sword. His sword. It had been made for him. Or at least, it had been made for the person he was supposed to have been.

"...I don't get why you can't just... deal with me," said Cloud.

"Don't --"

"I've lost everything," said Cloud. "Really everything. My home. My family, my -- my own damn body. My name, soon enough. Those are always the first to go, names. I don't wanna be here for the rest of it. Please."

"You said... you said no one would miss you." Zack was staring at him hard.

"Yeah."

"So then why'd you say your family would come back for you?"

"...Wanting something doesn't make it true," said Cloud, looking away uncomfortably. "They can't find me anymore." He could still feel it, in the back of his mind -- finally slowed, but never stopping. He didn't know how long he had left before he faded away entirely, or before he'd start noticing just how much had gone missing in the first place...

There was another uncomfortable silence, the hum from the fluorescent lights above him the only noise to listen to. There was only noise -- the steady, murmuring whisper of background static, the room around him flimsy and fake and withering away before it. It was far away now. And he was far away from it, and he was far away from Cloud from am is here, before he was and he forced the numbness out of his thoughts.

Zack was shaking him. He knew he'd been shaking him, but it hadn't felt like it. It was something that had been happening to Cloud, who wasn't anyone, and not him, because he wasn't anyone either, and steadied himself and forced himself to be, for just another minute. And another. And another.

"Hey -- c'mon." Zack locked eyes with him, trying to get him to focus in return. "What -- what's your family like?"

"...They're nice to me," said Cloud. "I worry them a lot."

They were probably worrying about him right now. Would it be better if they knew what had happened to him, or worse?

"I've read a few transcripts," said Zack. "You talk about them a lot."

"I don't want to forget," Cloud said. His throat felt tight. "I don't want to forget about them."

"I..."

"I'm never gonna see them again," he muttered, more to himself than to Zack. "I c -- I can't --"

And suddenly he couldn't breathe again, and the world was going dim around him as the cell began to disappear bit by bit. There was nothing left for him to hold onto, and nothing left for him to hold on with, and he realised Aaron -- his parents, his friends, --

"I'm never gonna see my family again. They're gonna lock me up for the rest of my life and take me apart."

Stop it. Stop it, stop it, stop it --

Zack was suddenly shoving Cloud away from himself in a room Cloud did not recognise, with windows and posters advertising things that he'd never heard of.

"No," said Zack. "No." There was some of Cloud's own panic in his eyes now.

"...I didn't mean to -- please don't wake up yet."

"I'm not gonna," said Zack. "But you need to not do that ever again."

"I didn't -- I won't. I won't do it again."

The sun shining through the windows lacked the warmth of the real thing. If anything, Cloud felt just as cold as he did when he'd been in his cell.

There was an odd coldness to the room anyway. It was much more richly decorated than Cloud's own nearly empty quarters, but still managed to feel barren. There was a neatly organised bookshelf, filled with several thick books. Atop it, a series of trophies, collecting dust. The posters on the walls appeared to be for sporting events. There were framed photos, too, of Zack posing with several men in jerseys. His smile was obnoxiously wide in all of them.

"...You were famous?" asked Cloud, leaning in to look at one of the photographs, this one having been clipped from a newspaper. Some of the faces blurred when he tried to look at them, but a couple of the men near Zack seemed genuinely happy to be propping up a polished trophy.

"Kinda," he said. "I was smart, I guess. That got me into a lot of schools, which got me into sports. Then those sports could've gotten me into even more schools. I got a little press, I guess. People that followed sports, or were interested in the wunderkind thing. They were fun, at least. And for about five minutes, so was the media attention. " He picked up one of the trophies from off the bookshelf, without even having to stand on his toes, something Cloud had never been able to do.

"It's my own damn fault," said Zack. "I did this to myself. All of this."

Cloud stared at him in confusion.

He flinched as Zack suddenly hurled the trophy through his window into the street. "This was the first thing in my entire life I fucking earned. My designs, my petitions to get in, my own work -- don't you get it, I was finally on even fucking footing, and -- all of it, it -- and then I just go and steal Aeris's work anyway. So... whatever. Good thing for her, I guess. They were right, I'm the expendable one here..."

Zack looked over at Zack, who was still sitting on the bed staring at him unblinkingly, and he found himself unable to look away, unable to move, unable to see, unable to be anything besides nothing at all, not when he was already --

 

---

 

Zack awoke feeling mildly nauseous. In retrospect, he couldn't quite remember talking to anyone at all.

Chapter 31: Buzzards Over Piedmont

Notes:

Sorry for vanishing unexpectedly. Stuff's been going on, to say the least.

ahaha i've completely lost track of what's going on

This chapter contains brief instances of body horror.

As always, thank you to Sanctum_C, Larissa, daily-kaley, and Belderiver for dealing with this absolute mess.

EDIT: Tumblr will not allow me to interact with anything anywhere on the page, so I can't post this for some reason. Restarting the browser isn't helping. Thanks, Tumblr.

For about the hundredth time, he strained what was left of himself before remembering there was nowhere left to run to.

There were other things that weren't him, sometimes, unless he was those other things. He didn't like having to think about them, so usually he wouldn't. He was content enough to let everything else think for him.

Then, there was something that wasn't him that didn't weave him into part of itself. It spoke to him, and he thought he saw a face, painted with worry and guilt and exhaustion, but he couldn't remember how to tell it anything, and so he didn't.

Then there wasn't anyone again, and for a while there was only music and gentle floating. And once, another voice.

My child.

What a nice voice. It was part of him.

He remembered liking that voice a long time ago, too. A voice around a good feeling. Nice when it was happy. Close and together. And nice when it was hurting, bad -- he deserved it. Would make him better, to not hurt. Even hurting was good. Back when --

He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember whose voice it was.

No, no -- he had to remember. They were important to him, they were the only thing that made him worth being.

Someone would hurt him again, if he didn't remember. The music was pulling him apart again, and he knew he wasn't supposed to not be him, either, that he should only be some of the music, and not all of it, and that a stupid, stupid idiot had decided not to be, and because of him, someone... someone?

No, he needed to know this too. Someone good, that didn't cut. There were lots of ones like that. Two? Three? A thousand?

A kind smile. The sun, warm on his skin, though he couldn't recall what that was like. He'd seen the sun. The sun was -- was a place that wasn't here, that was... it wasn't him, it wasn't the music, it was the sky, and there were words for things in it, and he couldn't... he couldn't...

He couldn't remember her name. He couldn't remember anyone's names.

Did he really need to? Not when Mother was here. Mother didn't need him to have a name. Mother didn't need him to hurt, or think, or be.

A strange peace descended over him as he was guided back to Her. This was better. He could feel himself shutting down, disappearing, but there was no more fear left in him. He was safe now. Whole and wanted and part of Mother.

A picture came to him, comforting him, easing him away from himself. Light through a window, a gentle summer air, a blanket on the floor, frayed and torn and patched back together, his fingers finding the one square that always seemed to relax him the most, to keep him from picking at his wrist, where a number no longer needed to be, and...

Someone else. They'd brought berries. There had to be someone else that was sitting with him, that had held his other hand, helping him breathe.

He didn't know who anymore. There had been someone there, and if he forgot who it was then he would be alone in his room -- he couldn't forget them, he couldn't be alone, he couldn't lose everything he'd fought so hard for so long to have --

He began struggling again in despair, even as he knew that this was all that was left. He had to get away, and there was nowhere to go. Mother would win.

She dug deeper, and he quailed against Her presence, clinging to the blanket, the sun through the window, the sky, his name -- his name -- Cloud. She'd said his name. Why did he care? He must be imagining it, but it felt like it had been so long since he'd heard anyone say it...

Something -- someone -- found him again. What's going on?

It was pressed around him like a heavy fog. Maybe it could help him.

Please -- help -- let me out, I can't --

What do you mean? How are you doing this?

Just let me out -- I can't fight anymore, help me, I don't -- I don't want to go.

...What are you doing? What did you --

Light. He could see white all around him, and he tripped and fell forward onto his knees before suddenly there was nothing again.

No! I can't go back, I can't go back again, I can't --

Stop it! Whatever you're doing -- oh god --

I can't go back!

He was in agony. He didn't know what he was feeling with, or if he was really feeling at all. He could feel something tearing. He didn't care.

I am never going back.

 

---

 

Zack suddenly convulsed.

There was a voice in his head, growing louder and louder than the others. The "noise" made his head spin, and he just barely managed to give a word of warning before he fell to his knees, his breathing shallow.

His entire body felt like it was melting. He wrapped his arms around himself, terrified it might actually happen, but nothing looked any different. His skin was full of pins and needles, and something was moving under the floor. He almost managed to call out for some sort of pain meds, when instead he opened his mouth and gagged.

There was something in his throat -- something moving. He felt it reach up further, and he found himself gagging again as what was unmistakably a hand clawed its way out of the back of his throat into his mouth, digging its nails into his mouth before --

He spat up bile and knelt there in shock. The hand was gone.

I'm not going back.

Zack let out an ear-splitting scream as a sudden agony blossomed in his neck. He could feel his flesh warping and distorting as a hand seemed to grow its way out of the front of his throat. Something else pushed against, and then seemed to melt its way out of his sternum. His chest felt as though it were on fire, and more and more parts seemed to slough off of him with a wet tearing noise, until, with even greater distress, he noticed that he wasn't the only one screaming.

Cloud Strife was lying on the ground in front of him, scrambling away from him in fear as quickly as he possibly could.

He stared at Cloud for a moment that felt like an eternity. Cloud stared back, his gaze wild and disoriented. He was bleeding -- a red slash across his neck, as though someone had tried to slit his throat. His breathing came in short, uneven gurgles as he struggled to fill his lungs. Zack didn't dare move.

He didn't notice Lazard enter his room until there was a hand on his shoulder and a pen light shining into his eyes, asking him questions about the rat that hadn't died yet still curled up on his bed, so what could possibly be wrong with him -- his head was still spinning, and he nearly dragged Lazard down with him as the man attempted to help him up.

"He needs help," he slurred, pointing at Cloud, who was still backed as far away from Zack as he could get in the limited space, glancing around the cell warily, his movements heavy and laboured.

Lazard turned to look at Cloud, then turned back to Zack looking concerned. "There's no one there, Zack," said Lazard. "We were told about hallu --"

"God fucking dammit -- I'm telling you, he -- just --" He looked between Lazard and Cloud in confusion. For a hallucination, he was persistent. And tactile. And loud. Why couldn't they see him?

Lazard gave Zack another long look, then proceeded to the other end of his living quarters towards where he'd been pointing. Cloud pressed himself against the wall even further, the very picture of a frightened, cornered animal.

He stopped a few paces away and turned to look at Zack again. "There's nothing there, Zack," he repeated. Zack looked toward the observation window, and saw Cissnei and Aeris shake their heads as well.

Zack forced himself to look away from Cloud as Lazard began to run him through the usual gamut of tests. There was nothing there, he told himself.

 

---

 

He was afraid. Mother didn't want him to be afraid, but he was afraid of Her too.

He was alive. He was alive? He'd survived somehow. How?

He was real -- really, actually real. If he were asleep, he probably would have woken up by now, given how much his throat hurt. There was a floor beneath him, cold against his bare skin --

The cold, clean white of a lab greeted him, as did the knowledge that he wasn't alone.

A man in a uniform, staring at him -- he forced himself away on shaking limbs. He felt weak and exhausted, and he couldn't seem to get himself to stand, even though he was in a lab and he couldn't remember how he'd gotten here, but he remembered hurt and alone and --

He felt himself beginning to shake harder, vision blurring with tears, even as he pushed himself as far into the corner as he could get, to keep anyone from sneaking up behind him and dragging him away -- had to focus. But he couldn't focus because it was all too loud.

Another man in a uniform. Holding medical supplies. The shaking intensified, as much as he tried to fight it down. They looked at him, and then turned away, conversing amongst one another, leaving him in the corner of the room, naked and awake and himself.

He'd almost lost himself. He'd almost lost...

Something important to him. He couldn't remember...

He was alone. He was nothing. No one would come for him.

He curled his knees up against his body and remembered what it meant when it was cold and there were no clothes and he was alone. Every breath he took brought another stab of agony to his throat. There were guards that had hurt him, maybe they'd...

But he'd gotten out, hadn't he? So why was he back here?

Where was his number? His family --

His family.

He had one. He couldn't remember who, but they were there, and they...

His family had said he didn't need it. His number. He could exist for them now, instead of Mother. All the paper they'd made him with had been replaced with something. He didn't need any of their words. That's what they'd told him.

He was allowed to make his own words now. Maybe he could try that.

"My family will come back for me," he muttered quietly to himself, his voice coming out in a quiet gurgle. One of the other guards -- not guards, no gun, no baton, no aggression in their eyes, just a disquieted expression -- continued watching him. He said something to his companion that Cloud couldn't understand. Was he not doing the words properly?

"My family will come back for me," he told himself again. "My family will come back for me."

 

---

 

"He's -- he's saying something now," said Zack, as Cloud began muttering to himself. "Should I say something back?"

"Zack --"

"How do you know there's nothing there?" he objected. "Nobody batted a fucking eye when our contact said magic was real. Maybe this is magic."

"You didn't seem all that stunned about the revelation either," said Lazard pointedly, causing Zack to look away in discomfort.

"Just check alright? Maybe he's..." Invisible? Technically speaking if he was he shouldn't be able to see Zack. And Zack shouldn't be able to see him. And also he melted and put himself back together so who even knew what was true anymore.

Lazard approached the corner and sat down in ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Zack blinked hard. He wasn't sure what he'd just witnessed. Or how many things he'd witnessed. It felt like more than one. Or two. Maybe a hundred. Actually, he hadn't really seen anything at all. He glanced between Lazard and Cloud, the latter of which had apparently passed out at some point, in confusion.

"You..."

"Listen to me," said Lazard. "Acknowledging these things is only going to make them worse later on. The healthiest thing you can do is to remind yourself that nothing is there and try to avoid looking at it."

"...Alright," said Zack, even as he spared another glance at the body in the corner. He was still alive, wasn't he? It seemed like he was still breathing, but --

"Zack?" Lazard was still watching him.

"I'm fine," he replied. "Just... kinda tired."

"Alright," said Lazard. "Let Tseng and me have a look at the rat, and I'll be on my way."

Zack forced himself to stare at the ceiling as Lazard finished confirming that Remy had not yet died due to complications. It didn't feel like a hallucination -- Aeris had reported a few, just minor flashes of light, but nothing on this scale.

He chanced another look at Cloud anyway. The few grainy photos they'd managed to obtain from Aeris's own brain waves had only given them a vague picture of what he looked like, and now that nothing was immediately disemboweling him he could take a proper look. He was short. Kinda small in general. And thin, in a sickly way, as though he hadn't been eating properly. Maybe he hadn't. Apparently he'd been running around in the wilderness for a while. Was that how he'd gotten injured? Now that he was looking at it, it didn't seem that bad. Perhaps he'd imagined how wide it had been. He wished he could ask Aeris more, but she was restricted to the microphone for now, which was hardly the best way to have a private conversation.

She hadn't mentioned the scars. Maybe she'd thought it was another "personal detail" best left off, but Zack couldn't stop looking at them. He'd been bitten by an exciting variety of wildlife, at the very least. There were a few that he was pretty sure were from some sort of gun, and several of them looked surgical, too -- there'd been a general mention of war crimes, of course, but this told an uncomfortably specific story.

It was about then that Zack realised he was staring at a naked unconscious man that was trapped in a room against his will and probably panicking enough as it was. He forced himself to look away again.

He thought about going over there and nudging him himself, just to really see if he was there, but he wasn't sure what would happen if he really was there and they made contact. Still, he'd been told not to acknowledge it. He'd have to wait until everyone went to sleep to check things out further.

 

---

 

Cloud woke up in a cell.

It was difficult to make his head do anything right now, but one of the easier things to grasp was that this was very, very bad.

He had lost clothes privileges. He couldn't remember why, but asking would be bad.

Shouldn't he have clothes? Hadn't he earned clothes back? Tifa let him wear clothes, especially in public --

Tifa. She was gone. Where was she? She'd come back for him, wouldn't she? What if she'd visited, and he'd been having an episode?

He gingerly pushed himself to his feet, feeling his knees shake as they struggled to support his weight. His neck was still painfully raw, and a quick inspection revealed an open wound that he couldn't remember getting. He had to get out of here. The guards would come back and --

There was someone in the cell with him. Tall. Muscular. The distinct glow of deadeyes. He couldn't tell if he was armed or not.

He seemed familiar, somehow... he'd seen that face. Talking to him. It was... he couldn't remember.

"Hello?" he said softly. It had been quite some time since he'd spoken aloud to anyone.

The man did not acknowledge him. Cloud swallowed.

"Hello?" he said, a bit louder, wincing at the strain it put on his voice. The man -- Zack? -- did not so much as glance at him.

Cloud found himself reaching for his wrist again. He had to stop. He told his family he would stop. As he forced his hand away, he got a proper look at it and stared.

L.C.
67-2 [S3]

The tattoo was back, printed neatly across his wrist in blue ink, as fresh as the day he'd first gotten it, the burn scar curving neatly around the spot.

Cloud felt his hands begin to tremble again. It was still there. Had it always been there?

It couldn't be. He'd seen his skin in the aftermath of the rain, stripped clean of his flesh. It couldn't be back. He couldn't...

This wasn't real, then. None of it was real. He was never getting out.

He clutched his wrist to him anyway, as he always had to calm himself in his cell. Another reminder of himself to cling to. It was harder to take deep breaths when his throat hurt so much.

He wondered if Tifa had given up looking for him by now. Maybe. Cid would have, at least. He thought of the couch that had been offered to him and felt his throat tighten considerably.

Zack continued to act as though he wasn't here. Which was fitting, considering sooner or later he wouldn't be. Sometimes he looked up and spoke to someone beyond a window, and they spoke back. He couldn't understand any of it. Or at least, he couldn't understand the words. He seemed to know what Zack was saying, more or less; the intent behind the words, rather than the words themselves. He was sick. He missed his family...

My family.

They weren't coming, were they? Nobody could come for him here.

The man continued to talk to the people behind the glass. A young woman, with short auburn hair and an older man with a five o'clock shadow. Neither of them looked at him either.

He edged himself a big closer to the window and tried again. "Hello? I don't -- I don't know..."

No response. His muscles still felt shaky and worn, and he lowered himself again to sit against the wall. Wherever he was, in whatever state of between-sleep he'd entered, it was one where he might as well not exist.

He drew his knees up to his chest and forced himself not to cry. "My family will come back for me," he told himself, even as he knew it was growing less and less true by the second. "My family will come back for me..."

He didn't know how long he sat there. No one looked at him. No one spoke to him. No one acknowledged he was there.

Cloud wondered how much of him was left at this point. He had his name again. He knew he had a family, that was probably much happier without him. He knew who he was -- a shitty disappointment of a kid that had grown up into an even shittier disappointment of an adult. He probably deserved this -- forgotten by everyone and everything -- a botched project that wasn't worth remembering in the first place.

"My family will come back for me," he continued to mutter. "My family will come back for me..."

"Hey."

Cloud looked up sharply at the source of the whisper, and found the other man, Zack, looking directly at him. The lights of the room had been dimmed, and the window had metal shutters drawn over it.

Zack said something else, and gestured vaguely to his neck. Cloud stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"I don't understand what you're saying," said Cloud, shaking his head.

That seemed to frustrate him. Cloud flinched involuntarily at the irritable noise he made. If this was just another memory of a memory, then the man could and would absolutely hurt him if he wanted to.

His suspicions were confirmed when Zack stopped staring at him curiously and suddenly reached out for his arm. Cloud reacted without thinking and grabbed it, pulling him forward while stressing his shoulder, ready to tear it out of its socket.

He was about to electrocute him for good measure when a sudden impulse went through him, and he found himself letting go.

Stop it.

So he stopped.

He immediately regretted doing so -- he'd wanted to let go, they'd made him want to let go, it wasn't fair -- as Zack reached into his pocket. Cloud tried in vain to back away even further from him, and Zack produced a handful of metal scraps.

He set them on the ground in front of Cloud and said something else. Look, was the next impulse he got. Cloud looked.

Most of it was scrap metal. Some of it, he recognised -- bits that had been inside him. Surgical screws, from the crash. And...

An earring. His earring. He reached for it, then hesitated. There was only one. Was it a trap?

He looked back up at Zack, who was now staring at him again, this time looking a bit disappointed.

Another impulse came over him. Stand up.

Cloud realised that he wanted to stand up, and forced himself to his feet, his knees still shaking.

No -- no, that wasn't right, he hadn't wanted --

 

---

 

Zack stared at the man that might or might not exist.

He isn't real, he thought. But it was getting harder to convince himself of that. Could delusions touch you? He supposed if you were deep enough into one they could.

He frowned and imagined Cloud blinking twice as hard as he could. Something twinged in the back of his head, and he watched a muscle in Cloud's face twitch before he slowly complied, eyes vacant.

That was... a little disappointing. Maybe it was a coincidence.

Zack urged him to raise his left hand. There was no reason for him to want to do that.

Cloud's fingers twitched, and his his arm slowly, steadily rose, displaying an odd tattoo. Aeris hadn't mentioned it. Maybe it was another privacy thing... though, it also didn't matter, since it really all was in his head apparently --

The hallucination jerked its arm back down, and the strange tugging in his head momentarily spiked into a headache. No.

"You talk. Can you say something else?"

Cloud stared at him uncomprehendingly.

Speak English, Zack urged. If he wasn't real, then he wouldn't know any language Zack didn't already, would he?

Cloud instead began backing away from Zack slowly, now somehow looking more on the verge of a panic attack than before.

"You are real, then."

Cloud said something else he didn't understand in... Welsh? It probably wasn't Welsh, even if it reminded him of it. Bits that almost could sound like English if you weren't listening, but weren't.

You can understand me? he thought.

Zack got a slow, cautious nod in response, and another panicked mouthful of probably-not-Welsh. Zack raised his palms in what he hoped was a somewhat universal (multi-universal?) gesture for "I'm probably not going to stab you in the immediate future", then knelt and picked up the earring. Cloud let out a noise, or maybe a word, of protest, before Zack held out his hand and offered it to him.

The earring was snatched out of his hand almost immediately, and Zack sighed before shuffling back over to his bed to work out the kinks in his shoulder. If he could just convince Cissnei he wasn't nuts, maybe she could help him out a little.

Where am I?

Zack jumped at the intrusion and looked back up. Now Cloud was staring at him.

You can really hear this?

Yeah, I... He was staring at Zack now. I'm sorry.

What, for melting me?

Something seemed to register on his face and suddenly he was glowering at him through the fear. You did that. I remember you, you're -- you're Aeris's friend, the one she mentioned. Where's Aeris?

Asleep, said Zack. Are you okay? Your neck --

I need to talk to Aeris.

So -- what you're saying is, you want to be taken to our leader.

Zack got another blank stare in return. This man was no fun at all.

Where's the other one?

Huh?

The other earring. There are two. Where is the other one?

Zack shrugged. I've only found that one, sorry.

Cloud's face fell. I wasn't supposed to lose them, was all he said, before going silent again for another few moments.

Are you sure you don't want, like... a bandage? asked Zack. Some disinfectant, maybe? I bet Lazard could sew that up in no time --

No. The gaze Cloud was giving him suddenly sharpened. It'll heal.

Well... how exactly are you doing this? asked Zack. I mean... you're in my head, and --

You're in mine. Get out.

"What?" said Zack aloud without thinking. Cloud was breathing rapidly, making a soft rasping sound with each inhalation.

Get out! I'm not -- just leave me alone --

"Alright," said Zack, backing away from Cloud again. "Alright. Look, I'm -- I'm just gonna piss off. Alright?"

Whether or not any of the words got through, he seemed to calm down very slightly upon seeing Zack retreat back to his bed. He sat back down in the corner, leaving Zack to his own thoughts again.

He was definitely real, Zack had decided. But there didn't seem to be any reason he could think of where no one else could see him. Was this all an elaborate joke? A really, really elaborate joke that involved tricking him into thinking he almost died, stealing his clothes, and... maybe not. Tseng didn't seem the type, at least.

He watched as Remy groomed his fur on the floor next to him, and gave him a scratch. Who'd have thought that out of everyone here, he'd end up spending the most time with the rats? It wasn't as though he disliked the others, but the rats were easier to deal with, as long as he didn't think about what would happen to them. Remy looked healthy enough, at least.

He could hear Cloud quietly wheezing behind him. Lazard had said not to look, and for now he was gonna follow that advice, if only for his own peace of mind. He didn't want to have to think about what was in the cell with him, and what it had done.

He forced himself out of bed and went over to the mirror. In the low light, the glow in his eyes was especially noticeable. He'd have to get some contacts or something, if he made it out of this alive.

With how closely he'd leaned in, he could see Cloud reflected in the mirror behind him, one fist still balled up around the one earring he'd recovered, muttering to himself once again.

Behind him, instead of a wall, was an empty chasm that was slowly leaking into the room.

Zack whirled around, startling Cloud and seeing nothing but the other side of his quarters. He shrugged, feeling a bit stupid and sat back down on his bed again. More hallucinations, maybe? He'd been doing pretty well at ignoring the quiet murmuring in the back of his head until now, but with everything so quiet it was starting to get harder. He glanced at Cloud again, just to make sure he was still there. He was.

It occurred to him suddenly that Cloud still wasn't wearing anything.

He thought about waiting it out for a little bit, since he'd said "go away". But the room got kind of chilly, and unless there was some cultural thing he was missing he probably didn't enjoy not having anything to wear. Maybe he'd appreciate the gesture?

Zack fished out a spare uniform from the compartment under his bed. It would probably be a bit big on him, but it wasn't as though he had anything else to offer. Fully expecting to be assaulted again, he approached Cloud, who tried to back away further from him despite being up against the wall, still staring at him unblinkingly.

Zack gestured with the uniform. "Thought you might want these," he said, feeling even stupider. He laid the clothes down in front of Cloud and backed away slowly.

Cloud stared at pile of cloth blankly, then looked back up at Zack. Did he not know what clothes were? He'd been wearing them when they "met", hadn't he? Not all of the cloth they'd recovered was from Zack's suit.

His doubts were quelled as Cloud slowly, reverently reached for the uniform that had been provided. He picked it up, as though afraid they might disappear if he moved too quickly, and turned to look back at Zack again.

"If you don't want 'em, just say so," said Zack, not knowing how much good English would do at the moment. He shrugged, then sat back down on his bed, to show he didn't really care if Cloud accepted them or not.

Cloud began to weep.

It was probably a good thing Zack had the excuse of "trying to sleep" to avoid addressing it, because he had a feeling this was the sort of cry you weren't really supposed to be watching. The ones that started out as quiet gasps, that moved into pained, guttural noises, that lasted minute after minute after minute. He rolled back over and did his best to ignore it for both their benefits, even as Cloud continued to heave ragged sobs into the shirt he'd been given.

It was probably because he was half asleep, but as he began to doze off he was almost certain he heard a voice in the back of his head say, Thank you.

Chapter 32: I Spent Thirty-One Chapters Building Up To This Joke, Laugh Damn You

Notes:

Hey! There wasn't meant to be that big of a gap between updates, but I promise I have a perfectly reasonable excuse. And that excuse is I fucking hate this chapter.

Twelve drafts. Fuckening twelve. That's how many I went through of this thing by the end before it could even be considered postworthy and I still fucking hate it. This is the first thing that's getting corrected when I go back and proof this whole thing all at once.

Couple notes -- first this chapter contains brief instances of graphic depictions of violence, as is par for the course by now.

And also, I think I'm much funnier than I actually am. You're all welcome for that.

Thanks to Belderiver, daily-kaley, Larissa, and Sanctum_C for dealing with this nonsense.

There was a rat in the cell with him.

Cloud didn't necessarily mind the fact that it was running loose, but it did beg a lot of questions. Why wasn't this one caged up or taken apart or who-knew-what-else with the others?

They'd kept a few rats in the basement of the manor. If whatever the doctors dosed them with didn’t kill it immediately, they'd give Cloud himself a full dose. Then again, sometimes the rats would die and they'd try it on him anyway.

Is that what it was here for? Did they expect it to die?

It was still curled up next to the bed on the other side of the room. Zack was asleep, and Cloud didn't feel like trying his luck with him. He was infected, somehow, and bigger than Cloud, in the way that Hojo had been bigger, and could probably get rid of him again in a second if he wanted. Or maybe it could happen on accident. He was aware of the connection, though, which was bad enough. Best not to tempt fate.

He raised his hand and decided that the rat was moving towards him so he could catch it, and watched as it gently drifted across the room and into his lap. The rat woke up, none the wiser that it had been moved, and he immediately set about scratching its ears. It squirmed away from him in favour of sniffing around his knees for something to eat and he picked it up back up again, trying not to take it quite so personally that it had wanted nothing to do with him.

"Zack! Zack --"

Cloud's head snapped up in time to see a small crowd on the other side of the glass, one of them shouting something at Zack in a language that sounded a bit like Standard but clearly wasn't. Zack was stirring. They were all staring at him. He'd been caught -- he'd been found doing something bad, he wasn't supposed to do bad things --

There was more shouting as Zack finally woke up and began yelling back. Cloud thought he heard his name once or twice, or at least something that sounded a lot like it. He gestured to the window, and then at Cloud again. He was moving closer to Cloud, looking at the rat that was now squeaking in protest with how tightly he was holding it.

One of the men disappeared from view and reentered in some sort of protective suit, holding a box. He slowly crouched in front of Cloud, speaking softly and gesturing to his own neck. He opened the box, and Cloud felt his mouth go dry upon realising what was in it. The man confirmed his fears by reaching into it and pulling out an antiseptic wipe.

Cloud knew he should run. Fight back. Tear the man's head off and smash his way through the wall. Even as the man removed the wipe from its wrapper, the smell only rooted him to the spot more, every cell in his body braced for more pain, his hands trembling in anticipation. He couldn't move. If he wasn't good, they would make him hurt more later. He wanted to be good. He wanted to be good the way the doctors, the only people who'd wanted him, had said he needed to be.

He knew, rationally, that there was absolutely nothing keeping him from snapping this man's neck, and that he hadn't needed to be good for Hojo in the first place. Nothing to be afraid of anymore.

He still remained motionless, even as the clammy material of the glove prodded at his neck. He could feel things sliding themselves under his skin, which was being peeled back from his flesh inch by inch by inch --

The squeaking sound coming from his hands peaked in volume and suddenly cut off with a wet crack. The man jerked away from him with a noise of revulsion.

Cloud looked down at the rat he'd inadvertently crushed, which twitched a few times and then went still.

"Oh." It was all he could think of to say. He hadn't meant to do it. Certainly this wasn't the first animal he'd killed, for food or self-defense or otherwise, but there was something a bit sad about the tiny body he'd been petting a moment before dead by his own hands. He thought back to a million years ago when it had been scurrying around in its box, the only living thing around him that he hadn't fled from.

His train of thought was derailed suddenly by a fist connecting with the side of his face. Hard.

It hurt a hell of a lot more than it should have had any right to, but he didn't have time to think about that as another punch connected with his nose, and suddenly there was an angry Zack tackling him to the floor and raining blow upon blow on his face, screaming something that was probably an insult at him at the top of his lungs. His vision swam as he struggled to orient himself, and he felt something else beneath him crunch as he managed to catch the next fist in his own palm before kicking out and flipping them both over, this time with Cloud on top, his hand to Zack's throat, slamming the back of his head to the floor beneath them.

He was strong. Too strong. Maybe Zack hadn't noticed the way the floor had crunched beneath them from the strength of his blows, or the way he'd survived one from Cloud in return at all, but Cloud had. Zack managed to a knee up to his chest and kick Cloud off of him, which shouldn't have been possible either, and he was much too fast when he lunged across the room at him, as Cloud only barely managed to step out of the way --

"Enough!"

There had been voices shouting at them the entire time, he'd realised, but only just now had they been understandable. He looked over at the observation window and saw a small group huddled in front of the glass. Two men -- one with black hair that seemed unfazed by the whole ordeal, an older man with a five o'clock shadow that was saying something to the tall blond man in the room with them, looking haggard, and two women. One of them that had already spoken, and kept nervously glancing between the two of them and the last woman, who had bright green eyes and an authoritative air and looked absolutely furious with him and Zack both.

Zack was still shouting at him, tears shining in the corner of his eyes. He was upset. Over the rat? Probably. Maybe it was his pet, like the couple across the street. Perhaps that's why it had been on his bed. Cloud carefully picked up the little corpse, from where it had been tossed aside in the turmoil. It was still warm. He might not have been very good at this sort of thing, but it was so much smaller than he was, and he had magic to spare.

He cupped his hands around it and began to heal.

Something was wrong. He could still feel the Planet, somewhere far away, but it was like trying to reach through an ocean of mud that kept pushing back against him. Why hadn't he noticed before? Something in his chest fluttered, and he blinked stars out of his eyes.

The magic snagged, and he pushed harder. He'd always been terrible at White, but maybe, just this once, he could fucking do something right.

He was holding something, and it moved. Should he be holding something that was moving?

The rat dropped to the floor and streaked away, and Cloud slumped back against the wall, too tired to stand. Bones. Not set right. Need to fix bones. He'd used quite a bit of magic, resuscitating something that close to death, but it shouldn't have left him drained like this.

The cold dampness returned to his skin. He was too tired to fight it off. Maybe in a bit...

Something was wrong, wasn't there? Something was wrong. Something else was touching him.

It touched too deep, pulling at strings that hadn't been tied in years. Let me in, something said.

Let me in.

Let me in.

Let me in.

 

---

 

 

"Cloud."

No response. He continued to stare at her and everyone else with a vacant, bewildered expression. Aeris turned to Lazard.

"What's wrong with him?"

"He's still in a postictal state," said Lazard, wiping a bit of drool from his face. "It's normal after most generalised seizures."

"Can he hear us?"

"Hard to say. It's possible he can, but won't remember any of this. Or perhaps he can't process speech right now. Or, depending what caused it, he could be deaf. The mind is a funny thing. His especially so, I'd guess. We've got the brainwaves to prove it."

Cloud hadn't mentioned seizures, had he? He'd mentioned "episodes". Were they the same thing? They didn't seem to be, but she couldn't be sure. She wondered if he was in that same scattered state now that he'd been in before. Maybe that was why using Tifa as a contact point had been so much harder. Tseng had been so sure he'd been some sort of simple animal before...

"Do you think it was...?" Aeris trailed off, looking at Zack, who was sitting on the floor against the wall now that they'd moved Cloud to the bed. The rat he'd been holding was curled up between his legs. The rat that had been dead just minutes before.

"I don't know," said Lazard. "I don't know what else it could be, but... maybe head trauma?" he offered, clearly at a loss.

It wasn't an entirely ludicrous suggestion. There were dents in the reinforced ceramic floor where Zack had managed to put his fist and someone else's skull through. Zack himself had been strangely quiet.

"What do you think?" asked Aeris, directing the question at Zack this time. It wouldn't do to have him shut himself away like this in the middle of a crisis.

"She was close again," was all he said.

"What?"

Zack blinked hard and looked away. "Nothing. I don't know. I'm going nuts, I guess."

"Fever from infection, maybe?" offered Aeris. "Is that possible?"

"Maybe," said Lazard. "I'd know for sure if I could run some tests when he wakes up --"

"Don't," said Aeris immediately, surprising them both. "He won't -- he won't accept, and... actually, you should probably take care of that now," she added, gesturing to his neck.

Lazard nodded uncomfortably. "I brought the first aid kit in already. What I came in for in the first place."

Cloud did not come to for another twenty minutes, which was probably for the best. Aeris wound up watching with morbid curiosity as Lazard slowly sutured the gash in his throat closed.

"How do you think he got it?" asked Aeris. "He was fine when I last saw him."

"Don't look at me," said Zack. "Just showed up like that. Actually..." he frowned. "...I don't think he was busted up like that when we met, either."

"We can ask him when he's feeling better," said Lazard. "Just keep talking. It'll give him something familiar to wake up to."

"It was way worse last night," Zack suddenly added. "Y'know, when you told me he was a hallucination?"

"There was nothing there!" protested Aeris. "I promise. We wanted to believe you. You and that rat were the only two things alive in that room. Lazard even --"

"I know," said Zack, giving Remy a scratch behind the ears. It shied away from him and he sighed. "I'm just telling you what I saw."

She wondered if he'd be mad at her for having his neck sewn up while he was unconscious. Well, he could deal with it. He'd thank her later when he wasn't dying of infection. They were lucky he hadn't shattered the glass. If whatever native microbes they were carrying hadn't killed him, they could just as easily kill her. They wouldn't know for sure for a while.

What a mess. If he'd just listened...

"What did you try to get him to stop?" she asked Cissnei.

"Greek," she replied. "There were a lot of matching characters in the samples we got from him, and it matched up structurally with what we know. A little, anyway. I think it's our best bet."

"Well... good thing we have an interpreter," said Aeris. Cissnei's face lit up.

If he didn't try and throttle Zack again as soon as he woke up. Nanaki had mentioned episodes... maybe this wasn't quite the same thing, but the first time she'd woken up with someone's hand threaded through hers -- his. Would that help? The gloves made it difficult, but she managed to maintain what she hoped was a comforting grip on his hand. There was something else wrong with his arm, though, she realised. A dark spot. She turned it over, to reveal a tattoo -- the same one she'd seen before in that stolen memory. A serial number branded into his skin, the colour dark enough for it to have been yesterday.

Lazard noticed before she had a chance to flip his arm back over. "What's..."

"It's not my place to say," she said quickly, though her mind was racing. Had that always been there?

Lazard finished bandaging Cloud's neck in time for a muffled moan of distress to issue from his mouth.

 

---

 

 

His neck didn't hurt anymore. That might not have been a good thing, because he couldn't feel it at all. Maybe he was paralysed. But that couldn't be right, because something cold and rubber was touching his hand.

There were people staring at him. Zack, who he recognised. And two others wearing some sort of protective suit. The air smelled like antiseptic, and he was laying on something soft.

Cloud forced himself to sit up, and felt a strange stiffness around his throat. His hand reached up, and his fingers found the distinctive bump of sterile gauze.

One of the figures leaned in close to him, his face showing through a window in the suit. Blond hair. Blue eyes. Father? Not his father. Father was dead.

It said something unintelligible. Cloud backed away slowly as the second one peered curiously at him as well. She seemed concerned. And familiar. He could have sworn he'd seen her eyes somewhere before. She offered a tired smile, which was enough to get him to hold off on setting her on fire. Her arm was close to him. He looked down and realised she was holding his hand.

"Hello?"

A new voice on the intercom. In Standard.

"You hello meet yes no."

It was all gibberish. But it was the closest thing he'd had to a proper conversation since getting here, without anyone clawing their way into his head.

"What do you want from me?" he asked the ceiling. Zack tapped him on the shoulder and pointed elsewhere, and he turned and saw a young woman excitedly waving at him from the other side of the glass. Was that Aeris?

Another string of gibberish emerged from her mouth. There were words in there, amongst the nonsense, and things that almost sounded like words but weren't. The sounds she made kept changing, too. Was this all one language? Several of them?

"Are you Aeris?" he asked.

The woman blinked, then shook her head, still grinning. She pointed to him. "Cloud," she said. Then she pointed at herself. "Cissnei." She pointed at the blond man holding the medical supplies. "Lazard." Then she gestured to woman in the cell with him. "Aeris."

He turned to look at the woman that had been holding his hand. This was Aeris, then. Maybe that's why she'd seemed familiar.

She was smaller than he thought she'd be -- maybe even a little shorter than him. He wasn't really sure why he'd been so sure she'd been taller than him. Maybe it was just a good assumption to make, especially given Zack and Lazard.

They'd asked his name, though. They wanted names. Projects didn't have names.

She was saying something else now. Patterns of words meant to catch his attention.

"I am Cissnei," she said. "You are Cloud. She is Aeris. He is Zack."

Cloud nodded slowly, realising he was being taught.

"I am talking to you. You are talking to me. Cloud and Cissnei are both talking. We are both talking," she continued, and Cloud resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "It is hard to talk to you. It is hard talking to you."

"I... am leaving now," ventured Cloud, gesturing to the airlock. He wasn't sure if it was the right word -- parts of the language were missing, or rearranged, or were different words altogether. Still, it seemed they were both guessing anyway.

Aeris shook her head vehemently and said something else, which Cissnei translated.

"You can't leaving," relayed Cissnei, who seemed strangely excited about this whole thing. "You will sick."

"Viruses," said Cloud, unprompted, causing her to blink in surprise.

"Yes," said Cissnei, nodding. Cloud scowled.

"How much is getting through, do you think?" interjected Aeris, as Cloud's head suddenly swam again. He turned to find Zack staring at his arm tattoo. Zack looked away, and his vision cleared. They continued discussing something amongst themselves without him.

"What are you talking about?" said Cloud, not thrilled at being left out of the conversation.

"We need to understand," said Cissnei. "Can you help me?"

"...Yes," he said after a moment. "I am leaving."

"Need to understand to leave," said Cissnei, before adding something else to Zack, who nodded and retrieved a stack of paper and a couple pens from a drawer under the bed.

Lazard got up to leave, but Cloud suddenly caught his arm. "Wait --"

"Are you hurt?" asked Lazard, after a quick exchange with Cissnei. Cloud shook his head and gestured to the kit.

Cloud removed a roll of gauze from the box and wrapped his left wrist as well. He didn't want anyone thinking about it right now, least of all himself.

 

---

 

Aeris began to wonder if there was something wrong with Cloud.

It wouldn't have surprised her in the least if there was. He'd been in a confined space with Zack swapping bacteria with him for hours, apparently. She was surprised neither of them had sickened more quickly. And he'd brought a rat back to life, and had a seizure shortly thereafter, which she couldn't remember him doing the few times they'd done magic together in that field. She sighed and refocused her attention on the paper Cissnei had just passed her.

Even between the seven of them, work on translation was slow. It was another half hour before they'd managed to figure out enough common words to ask Cloud if Standard Continental was a pidgin language, and he didn't seem to know the answer. Apparently it wasn't his first language, either, leaving the quality of the translations in question the entire way through.

He seemed to have taken on some illness, perhaps. He alternately seemed vacant and half-asleep, and panicked and hostile. It could have just been nerves, but this wasn't the man she'd been talking with the first time he'd been penned up in a cell. Maybe it had finally gotten to him.

Are you feeling okay? she wrote. For now, it was easier to just compare the words they had to the notes directly. Cloud paused, then offered a small nod. How frustrating, to not be in there anymore and just know.

He was so much quieter than she thought he'd be, too. Maybe he was shy -- though he certainly hadn't seemed shy before, even when they'd first met. He hadn't hesitated to plead for his family's lives, or, once he'd gotten a bit more comfortable, to hurl insults at her. Maybe it was just the language barrier, hiding everything they might've had to say behind a frustrating wall of translation, meaning only the bare minimum was worth saying for the time being. That didn't explain Zack, though, who hadn't bothered translating much of anything, and was presently staring at the floor with an intense expression.

"What about you?" asked Aeris. "Are you feeling alright?"

Zack didn't acknowledge her right away until she prodded him impatiently.

"What?"

"Are you alright? You've been acting strange."

"I don't... I don't trust him," said Zack. "Just thought I'd mention."

Aeris sighed. "I know these aren't the best circumstances we could've met under, but we don't have any choice but to try and move forward for everyone's sakes."

"Move forward with what?" said Zack, his tone short. He obviously wasn't keen on having this conversation. "How do you know we can trust him? He gets here, and the first thing he does is kill my rat."

"'Your' rat?"

"Don't play semantics about this. You know that's one of the signs of being a serial killer, right?"

Aeris rolled her eyes. "What's your actual problem, here?"

"My actual --"

"We've been sitting here for a while," said Aeris, "and you've been fine. I've been fine. Do you feel like you're falling apart? What's your actual problem?"

"He's making this harder than it needs to be," muttered Zack. "He understands English just fine."

"Zack --"

"He does! We talked last night."

"It's rude to talk about someone when they are right there," interjected Cissnei.

"Well, fine," said Zack. He turned to Cloud, who flinched in surprise at the sudden attention. "You understand English just fucking fine, don't you?"

Cloud stared uncomprehendingly at Zack. Aeris glared at him. "Look, he doesn't. Just -- write down what you're going to say, and we can --"

"He was in my head last night," continued Zack. "He talked to me. The way he talked to you. And how he's said not to."

"What do you mean, in your head?"

"I dunno how else to explain it," said Zack. "But -- look, watch this."

There was another moment of silence as Zack appeared to go back to writing. Suddenly Cloud tensed up, and then spun around and threw his pen at Zack's head, shouting something else.

"...What did you do?" asked Lazard from the other side of the observation window, who had suddenly taken interest.

"Called him a liar," said Zack, after batting the pen away nonchalantly. "Why's he not want us talking to him?"

"I say you to stop," said Cloud, laboriously sounding out each word. "I -- you are --" he frowned, realising that whatever he'd said afterwards wouldn't quite translate, and just held up his middle finger instead.

"Can both of you please --" began Aeris, shooting them an irritated glare.

"You can communicate with him?" asked Lazard. "How?"

"I told you," said Zack. "It's -- it's like hearing a voice that's thinking, and it's not yours. That's him."

"Please write," said Cloud, annoyance painting his own face as well. "I don't understand."

Aeris handed him another sheet of paper after a moment, reading, You can hear Zack, but you don't want to talk to him?

He spent a few moments reading it, comparing to the definitions they'd managed to puzzle out so far, then shook his head. IT CAN HUPT IF HE MAΚES IT, he wrote back, in a messy, blocky scrawl.

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Zack. Cloud stared at him. "I don't understand this," simplified Zack. "What hurts?"

"Jenova," said Cloud. "She hurts. You can Her in, and I don't..." A frustrated pause, and an unhelpful gesture to his ear.

"Listen?" offered Cissnei.

Cloud nodded. "She listening when you do it. I want to talk if I can."

The others had gathered around the window now as well. "So -- you've maintained the same sort of connection with him as Aeris had, independent of us broadcasting anything?" asked Angeal, peering curiously at Zack, who shrugged uncomfortably.

"I -- I guess? I can't really compare things firsthand, but it -- I mean, I can hear him, I guess."

"How is that possible?" asked Lazard. "Physically speaking, it shouldn't..."

"We don't have a very good understanding of how Jenova works," said Aeris. "Could you tell us about Jenova?" she asked Cloud.

Now Cloud looked uncomfortable as well. "I..."

"I mean, I already told you everything I know," said Zack. "He thinks it's my fault, what happened. Says he didn't do anything."

"Why didn't you mention that earlier?" asked Tseng. "That could have been extremely helpful to know."

"Because you told me I was crazy," said Zack shortly. "And the only reason I know this isn't a hallucination is because that asshole --" he pointed to Cloud, "-- ripped open the inside of my mouth."

"After you attacked him," said Aeris.

"He crushed Remy!" Zack rounded on Cloud now. "Why did you do that?" he demanded, pointing at the rat currently nesting in his bedding for emphasis.

"I fixing it!" protested Cloud. "It is..." he offered another word.

"An accident," said Cissnei, who had edged away from both of them slightly.

"This is getting us nowhere," said Aeris. She passed Cloud another note: Zack can help you understand this if you help us understand you.

"No," was all Cloud said in reply. Aeris sighed in frustration.

"We're friends," she said. "I just want to talk."

Cloud hesitated for another moment, then nodded. "Okay. I don't... I don't say."

"You don't want to?" she asked, and he nodded again. "I will talk, then. Can you listen?"

"...Okay," said Cloud.

"Okay." Aeris glanced at Cissnei, who nodded. "Do you know how you got here?"

Cloud hesitated, then nodded and gestured to Zack.

"He brought you here?" asked Aeris, and because "brought" was a new word, they had to stop and have Cissnei find the closest equivalent she could to get the concept across.

"Yes. No?" said Cloud. "He..." There was another long pause. "Reunion. He I give."

They had a name for it at least. "But you're here now."

"Yes."

"He fell out," said Zack. "Like... he just melted out. I dunno how none of you saw that."

"Could you see us?" asked Aeris. Cloud nodded again.

"Do you know why?" Another head shake. Aeris hesitated before asking the next question.

"...What about your arm?" Cloud stared at her blankly, until she pointed to the tattoo he'd bandaged over. Cloud went quiet.

"Does it hurt?" she asked. He did not reply. Aeris let it drop. The only sound in the room was the persistent scratching of pen across paper.

Cloud quietly began to hum to himself -- a soft, slow progression of notes that made it difficult to tell if he was on key or not. His voice sounded different than she remembered. Maybe it was because she was listening from the outside, or maybe it was just the language barrier. Higher. A little scratchy from disuse. There was something familiar about it. Maybe he'd sung it before.

You are different than I thought you would be, she wrote. He stared at the note for a while, long enough that she thought perhaps he wouldn't reply again.

When he did, all he wrote was, I am sorry.

"For trying to kill Zack I hope," said Aeris, then frowned as she realised she had to wait for Cissnei to relay the message as best she could.

Cloud nodded.

Is there something you are worrying about? She wrote.

Cloud gestured vaguely around him in response. Zack looked guiltily at Cloud before returning to his own paper. A moment later, he went back to humming.

It was Cissnei that startled them all by breaking the silence.

"Is that... is that My Bloody Valentine?"

Cloud stopped humming and looked up when he realised she was talking to him.

"What is?" asked Aeris.

"No -- no, listen --" she hummed a few bars of the song herself, then groaned in frustration and proceeded back through the airlock. She definitely had Cloud's attention now, but it was beyond her why she was so...

The tinny sound of a speaker through a speaker crackled over the intercom. Aeris looked over to see her holding her phone next to the microphone, and playing over it was one of the grungey-sounding songs she'd been listening to during decontamination. Soon, said the track title.

Aeris blinked. "Wait a minute..."

"Just listen," said Cissnei, and then stood there staring with the rest of them in astonishment as Cloud began a slightly off-key but undeniably matching accompaniment in Standard.

"Yeah -- Loveless," he added, and then the implication suddenly hit him.

Aeris burst out laughing. It was too much -- the last few weeks, magic, what had happened to Zack, what he'd said about the project, the upcoming inspection, Cloud, being here, not knowing what to say to him, Tifa, infected, dealing with... she could only guess. And here amongst everything was shoegaze band My Bloody Valentine as a universal constant. Why not.

"Are... are you okay?" asked Zack.

"No -- no, great! Everything's great. Science is fake, actually." Aeris reached up to wipe her eyes and found the faceplate of her hazmat suit in the way. "I need you to tell me everything you can about this."

"Did they still have a reunion tour?" asked Cissnei eagerly. Cloud paused, then nodded.

"They did a -- a front," he said. "It..." There was another brief smattering of conversation between them as they got the vocabulary worked out.

"They made a stage play, to promote the album," said Cissnei. "It was very big over there, apparently. And a movie. He says he's heard the play is terrible. Cid has seen it and told him."

"Cid likes plays?" asked Aeris. Cloud shrugged.

"He is old," said Cloud.

"How old?" asked Lazard, an edge to his voice.

"Thirty-six," said Cloud, after referring to the number chart they'd written up for him. Lazard scoffed.

"That's not old."

"You are?"

"No," said Lazard. "You'll know when you're older."

Cloud turned to Aeris, then. "How old are you?"

"Twenty-six," said Aeris.

"You are older," said Cloud, sounding slightly put out about it.

"Is that bad?"

"No," he said quickly.

"It sounds like it's bad," she said pointedly. Cloud simply grunted.

"Is this your favourite song from them?" asked Cissnei, tapping her phone, which was still quietly playing Soon in the background.

Cloud shook his head. "It was there a some weeks before," he said. "So I remember it. It was nice then." He paused. "...After you find me the two time, I am leave. And the song plays on... on box, for..."

"A CD player?" suggested Zack. Cloud blinked uncomprehendingly at him, then nodded uncertainly.

"It was song on the CD player. I remember it from militia, when I am a boy. I like Clair better."

"Like the chocobo," said Aeris.

That prompted a small laugh from him, and he nodded. "Like the chocobo."

Cissnei shrugged. "Agree to disagree, but you are the guest." She scrolled through her phone -- her stupid, intrusive, unnecessary, wonderful phone -- and switched songs.

That was how they spent the next few hours, in a flurry of band trivia (apparently they'd gotten in legal trouble over refusing to perform at Vice President Shinra's birthday) and note comparisons (apparently they were still considered contemporary) and mindless chatter about how completely, unbelievably idiotic the entire thing was.

Though, it was also a little bit strange seeing Cloud -- or really, any of these people -- smile for what felt like the first time.

Chapter 33: It's Probably Not Important

Notes:

Hey! This sucked to write! And I hate it!

With this chapter, I'm officially behind schedule, but fuck, it's been a month so I should at least post something. Things have been decidedly not great on my end, hence the "weekly update" schedule having gone to hell a bit. Which is a shame because we're right on the cusp of more shit I actually want to write. Just gotta keep forcing this stuff out. I still intend to finish this thing no matter what.

Thank you to Sanctum_C, Larissa, daily-kaley, and Belderiver for helping out with this nonsense.

"Can I ask you something?"

"You're already asking me something."

"I'm going to accept that as a yes. How did you bring that rat back?"

The last day or so had been exhausting, but rewarding. Cloud was apparently a very quick learner, and had taken to English like... well, not like a duck to water, because it was a horrible language and he'd complained frequently about it, and all they could do was just nod and insist those were the rules anyway. But like a duck to mildly-polluted water in the middle of a desert. Aeris's progress with Standard Continental had been a little slower, but Cissnei seemed to be having a much easier time of it, which at least gave them the advantage of having someone there to explain it. It was a bit spooky, actually, how fast he picked up new information. Aeris hadn't thought he was necessarily stupid, per se, but he certainly hadn't seemed academically inclined.

They'd been trying to bridge the gap by having alternating, designated hours of English and Standard. It was messy, to be sure, and a lot of the language had to be simplified, but it was working. It also meant that she could return to pestering Cloud at around the same rate as she had before.

Cloud shrugged. He did that a lot, she was starting to notice. "Magic."

"Yes, but --"

"A lot of magic."

"You never had seizures before," she pointed out.

"I don't know why," said Cloud. "It felt bad this time."

"Do you want Lazard to --"

"No, thank you," said Cloud shortly.

"Why, because he's a doctor?"

"Yes."

"He's also my friend. You don't trust my friends?"

"...Your friends doesn't trust me."

"You killed his..." Pet? "...rat," she said eventually.

"He hit me in the head."

"You tried to choke him."

"Because he hit me."

"So, you try to choke everyone that hits you?"

"Yes. Usually, they also have..." He frowned, then motioned shooting something with his fingers.

"Guns."

"Yes. You don't do this?"

"No," said Aeris. "There's... there's never been a need for that. That isn't how we do things here." This had gotten a lot more grim than she'd wanted it to. "Can I ask a question again?"

"Okay. But I want to ask one also, when you finish."

"Deal," said Aeris. "You had two before. Now you have one." She tapped the corners of her earlobes, where an earring would be.

His face fell. "Zack only gave me one," he said. "I think I lose the other."

"I'm sorry."

Cloud just nodded and looked away uncomfortably. "I wasn't supposed to lose them," he said. "Tifa will be mad --"

"Shit!" Zack suddenly interjected, making them both jump.

"Is that one a word like fuck?" Cloud asked. "What does it mean? You never went over all the good ones --"

"Tifa -- that lady, we never told her he's not dead."

Aeris immediately abandoned her microphone for the airlock leading to the showers. "I forgot. How could I forget?"

"Aeris? What happened? Did something happen to Tifa?" Cloud's voice buzzed through the speakers behind her, her own words no longer transmitted through the mic. "I am going out there --"

"Don't!" said Tseng sternly, hopping back on the speakers. "We don't know if it's safe yet. She's just going to --"

"Actually... wait," she heard Zack say from behind her. "Last time I just assumed you talked to her through him, but... if he's here... how did you...?"

Aeris stopped. It hadn't come up in all the confusion.

"...Tifa's infected now," she heard Angeal say slowly. "That's what the new contact point is."

She heard Cloud absolutely explode behind her, and quickly ran out of the room to get into the conductive suit. Next to her, a row of computer monitors cracked as the lights in the room flickered. She resolved to deal with the power later.

Cloud was still shouting angrily at Angeal in Standard by the time she returned, but was distracted enough by the sight of her climbing into the tank in a skintight suit with bits of foil all over it to redirect his questions towards that for the time being.

"Is that how she did it? Is that how it looks like?" she heard him ask Zack.

Lazard was the one to count her down this time.

"Are you feeling alright?" he asked.

"So far," she said. "How soon can we get them out of quarantine?"

"Hard to say," he replied. "Zack and the rat haven't shown any symptoms yet. It's harder to tell with Cloud. "

"Angeal was right," said Aeris. "He doesn't have much sense."

"Nor do you. I can see why you got on so well."

"I'm choosing to interpret that as a compliment."

"I thought you might," said Lazard. "But you know, we're going to have to talk to him about the inspection when we get back."

"The -- shit." She'd forgotten about that, too. "What do you suppose we should have him do? Just 'be on your best behaviour whenever they come round'?"

"Perhaps we could hide him," suggested Lazard unenthusiastically. "Though I can't think of where."

"What about Zack?" The eyes would be easier to hide, but not by much. "Do we have any disposable shades? Contacts, perhaps?"

"Why don't we just put them back?"

Aeris gave the lid of the tank a baffled look, since Lazard's face was not available for the exchange at the moment. "Sorry? I thought you said --"

"We should put them back where they belong. They need to go back."

"Lazard, what are you saying?"

"Give them back. Give them back to us. Give them back."

Aeris gasped as a searing jolt of pain went through her body, and she lashed out at the hands that were clawing at her skin with their blunt nails in the dark.

Come back to us, they said. She tried to push through them, but the hands went on for miles and miles.

Let us in, they said. Something huge loomed in the darkness.

No.

Let us in. Let us in. Let us out.

No --

Another hand caught hers. This one felt real, and she clung to it with all her might until the bottle she was holding shattered in her grip.

 

---

 

Tifa let out a cry of shock as the sudden intrusion in her head peaked in volume before fading away entirely, taking the strange bits of nothing swirling around her with it. She looked down at the remains of the beer she'd involuntarily smashed and sighed.

Man, you're loud, said Tifa, who began to delicately pick glass out of her palms. No wonder he freaked out. Wasted a perfectly good beer, too.

Tifa! You're alright --

Tifa heard Aeris gasp to herself as she was met with the dizzying drop of the balcony overlooking the Corel Mountains instead of a smooth cement floor.

This isn't the bar. Where are we?

The Shera, said Tifa, healing away the lacerations in her hands and stepping away from the rail. She began fishing another beer out of the cooler behind her, this time opting for a can. At least if she smashed one of those she could still feasibly drink out of it. She straightened the sword she'd brought with her, making sure it didn't tip over, and sat down against the cooler, allowing the chill of it to soothe the muscle ache in her back. She closed her eyes with a heavy sigh. Looking at things was a nightmare these days. Too bright, with too much detail, and everything around her was always so damn loud, even without the voices murmuring feverishly in the back of her head.

Cid's airship, she clarified. I had him pick me up so we can all be useless together. He probably only agreed because of you. He'd been furious about the whole infection thing. They all had. Like it or not, though, she was the only contact point they had.

This is an airship? Is it -- how does it run? I... sorry.

Don't be. It's finally quiet for once, and that's not the first bottle I've done that to, since...

No, I mean -- a lot has happened. And I didn't tell you.

Like what?

Cloud is alive.

Tifa promptly crushed her second beer. How do you know?

He's with us. Zack says he just appeared. That was before he picked a fist fight with him, though --

He's okay. He's okay. He's okay, I thought...

She hadn't expected the tears of relief to come this easily. It had been so easy for her to accept Cloud as dead, after all these near misses. She'd been preparing herself to give up on him for so long; between the combat, the stigma, Jenova... maybe even something he might have done to himself. She'd taken it as an inevitability that whatever end he met would be sudden and violent and painful for both of them.

She wondered if he was as ready to give up on her as she was on him. Probably not. Then again, she hadn't put much thought into how she'd die in the first place. Or what she'd leave behind if she did. Maybe it should bother her more that she couldn't think of much more than "my friends would be sad".

Nanaki was right, she said, after a moment. He's too damn stubborn to die.

So are you, apparently, said Aeris. Last I saw you --

That was nothing, said Tifa.

Don't be modest.

No, really. Nothing happened. Guess I hallucinated the whole thing again.

But I saw it too --

You're in my head, said Tifa. Of course you saw it.

Well, said Aeris. If it's any consolation, I suppose we're both cracking up together. Before I got here, I... anyway. I thought you should know.

How is he doing? asked Tifa. You said he was in a fight. Sounds like him, he can't be too bad.

He seems alright, said Aeris. But it looks like he was attacked by someone.

Tifa frowned, taking a swig of her drink from the mangled remains of the can she'd smashed. Any idea who?

Not yet. Zack says he was fine when they met, but it looks like someone tried to slit his throat.

That... It sounded strangely familiar. She wished she could put her finger on why it bothered her so much.

He doesn't remember how he got it, I don't think, continued Aeris. So... I was hoping you'd know. We had to sew it up, since he doesn't seem to be magicking it away very well.

He was always bad at White -- wait, he let you?

Well, no, said Aeris. We waited until he was too addled to mind. He had a seizure. Big one. He never mentioned a history of that before.

Tifa froze. It made sense he hadn't mentioned it, it hadn't been a "real issue" in years, not since. ...Doing what?

Er... magic, I guess. He... did what you did to that beer can. Only with a rat.

Eugh.

Yes, well -- he... put it back together, I suppose, but a moment later it set him off. Is that... is that normal? I should have asked him if there are side effects for magic.

...Not really. He has partial seizures before episodes sometimes, but they're always very quick.

But not from magic?

No, I don't... I don't think so. They're different things, the Lifestream and -- oh.

What?

You're on another planet, right? Earth?

Yes...?

Another world, infinitely far away from the Lifestream, and Cloud had attempted to reach it anyway, and so he'd forced it, perhaps? Psychic feedback, or the lack thereof. He'd always been terrible at healing.

He's not connected to your Lifestream, explained Tifa. He's connected to ours, and ours is --

Actually, we don't have one. So it'd be just yours.

What?

We don't have a Lifestream. She felt Aeris "sigh" as she seemed to prepare herself for some sort of speech. You see, at the centre of the Earth is a molten --

So, what happens to you when you die? Your soul, I mean. Where does it go?

That's a complicated philosophical question, isn't it? There's no solid proof that it exists on a literal, physical level here -- I mean, perhaps spiritually there's -- look. There aren't souls, and Cloud explained that there are for you lot, and that's all fine and good. I'd just...

How are you alive, then? demanded Tifa. How is Cloud alive? None of you should...

That's just how things are. You can be alive without one here.

Alive without a soul. A nonsensical statement if there ever was one, like "breathing without lungs" or "Cid without saying fuck". It was part of the bargain. How things worked. Anything that didn't was an anathema to reality. Something that shouldn't be -- that couldn't be, that was fundamentally impossible without shattering every known natural law, that had no reason to be except that it was, like...

"Oh fuck," she muttered aloud.

What? I'm not trying to be rude, but that's just how --

"Shut up a minute."

Something that couldn't exist, but did. That ignored rules that existed because it decided that it could, because they weren't real... or it wasn't real to them. That found Zack beforehand, that infected him, because -- because Cloud hadn't infected him, hadn't infected anyone but her. And now here she was, chatting with an alien that could contact her, that knew how even though the only thing linking them together right now was --

Jenova, said Tifa. She's yours. That's the pattern.

What are you talking about?

She doesn't have a soul either, said Tifa, who had begun to chew on the inside of her lip. She can't possibly be alive, except She is, because She can be in your world -- that's what's keeping Her going. She's like you.

But that doesn't... Aeris had begun to object, before trailing off in thought. The data I salvaged. My mother, when she began this project, she -- I found the remains of a pattern they'd recorded, the same pattern we've found in you and Cloud, years before she'd have met either one of you, and...

She made it, said Tifa. She made it and sent it over.

But -- then, if that's the case, what is She? asked Aeris. We still don't have anything quite like Her here, even with... I mean, we have the signal, but no information about the cells, and -- I suppose they could have been destroyed in the explosion, but... she wouldn't. My mother wouldn't do something like that, would she? She... god...

Aeris went quiet, the soft pattering of the rain filling the silence between them. Some thing from another world, infesting her blood, inviting others over from the other side. Doing what it was designed to do. Why had they sought to make it sentient, she wondered? What, as well, was the point of Reunion? Of Meteor? Had that been wholly Sephiroth's idea? It would have made more sense, if they just wanted to create messengers, to have as many as possible but scattered about, but...

Tifa stopped chewing then, because she happened to look back over the balcony of the Shera and realised it wasn't raining. The tapping, scraping, pattering noise got louder.

I'm hallucinating again, she mentioned to Aeris offhandedly, jarring the latter out of her state of shock.

You hear it too?

Yeah. Why, do you hear things sometimes?

Whatever reply Aeris had given her, Tifa was no longer paying attention as the airship suddenly lurched, tripping her over the drink cooler and tossing her across the floor as her ears popped painfully. She heard screams coming from belowdecks.

Never hallucinated something like that before, though, added Aeris. Is that normal on airships? Is it like a dirigible? How is it staying up?

I'll tell you later, she replied, her teeth gritted as the cacophony continued to mount in volume. She snatched up Cloud's sword (swords?) and snapped the harness over her back, just in case. She didn't really have much idea how to use them, but it was always handy to have something heavy and sharp on hand in times like these.

The airship lurched again, forcing her to keep low to the ground. She crouched as she crept around the corner, scrambling for purchase as the ship tilted around her. She wondered vaguely in the back of her mind, as she slid across the floor again, how Cloud and Sephiroth had managed to do things like walk up walls and sit on the undersides of things and resolved to ask in the event that she made it out of this.

She managed to haul herself through the doorway using the sword as an anchor and ran downstairs to find the deck buzzing with activity. A lot of phrases were being thrown around that went clear over her head, especially with the scratching noise being nearly deafening, but she managed to catch one that stood out to her.

"It's like we were just thrown -- we're about five hundred metres higher than we started."

"What's going on?" she demanded. The pilot just shook his head, at a loss for words.

"Turbulence," he said, with it sounding more like a guess than an answer. "Some sorta air pocket, maybe."

"And... that doesn't happen?" she ventured.

"Not like this, no. We're gonna have to land, see if anything was damaged --"

The airship lurched again, and a low groaning noise echoed through the ship around them, and then a deafening rumbling.

"The hell was that?!" yelled one of the technicians, and the chatter started up again.

"A dragon maybe?"

"Sounded way bigger than a dragon."

"Weapon, maybe? Maybe there's still one running around out there, or --"

"Holy shit," said the pilot, pointing at something beyond the glass. Tifa turned around.

They had been over some of the lower mountains the last time Tifa was up on the balcony, only now there was a column of stone jutting into the sky, a churning cyclone of debris, rocks shattering against one another as the world itself seemed to twist a hole in the mountain range, independent of any wind or magic or external force that should be keeping the thing going at all.

Come here.

Tifa shook her head. What?

"What", what?

Where did you want me to go?

...I didn't say anything, said Aeris.

Come here, came the tugging again. Tifa took a step towards the glass.

What are you doing? asked Aeris.

I... She needed to be there, in the middle of what shouldn't be happening. She took another few strides toward the window, the scratching noise drowning out all others.

Tifa -- Tifa, whatever you're doing, you need to stop it.

Had to stop. She had to stop. So why was she still walking towards the window?

She felt herself slip through the glass as though it wasn't there, even as the crew behind her began making more inconsequential noise, leaving her standing on the thin metal maintenance railing. The sound was even louder out here, the vibrations of the low rumbling of the world playing off her skin, drowning out the propellers, the engine, her own breath.

Aeris had disappeared. The murmurs in the back of her mind became deafening howls, and she flinched and forced them away. Tifa suddenly realised she was standing on something not meant to support both human weight, let alone her and a sword, as the metal creaked beneath her. She didn't know how she'd gotten through the glass. It was all she could do to cling to the side of the airship as her palms grew sweatier, the wind stronger, and time seem to slow to a standstill as the airship lurched again and she was tossed off the side.

 

---

 

Tifa was infected.

A thousand possibilities opened themselves up to Cloud, none of them good. Had he bitten her during an episode somehow? Had he not been careful enough in bed? Had he failed to wipe out Jenova?

It would destroy her, the way it had destroyed him. He might have been weaker than most, but he'd seen what it had done to perfectly healthy adults, like Tifa -- had slaughtered countless of them in training exercises in Nibelheim. Sad husks that used to be people, that had nightmares and aspirations, that might have once had a pen pal from Junon, that hated cinnamon, that let deadbeats live above their bars rent free because they both had a soft spot for blueberries...

"I don't know what I did wrong," he said to Zack.

"Why do you think it's you?" Zack asked.

"I'm the only one left that could have done," he said. His mouth had gone dry. "I ruin her life. She trusted me, and I ruin her life."

Zack was silent for a while. He should have realised he wouldn't want to talk. Idiot --

"Thanks for fixing Remy," said Zack suddenly. "I don't know what you did, exactly, but -- I mean... thanks."

Cloud nodded. "Sorry for smashing him. I didn't mean to." Zack shrugged. "And sorry for choke you."

"I'm sorry for punching you," said Zack. "And giving you a concussion, I guess."

"Concussion?"

"Uh... cracked your head open." He gestured to the dent he'd left in the floor.

"Didn't cracked my head open," said Cloud. "It's only floor. But you should be careful. You can hurt someone on accident."

"How did you handle it?" asked Zack. When Cloud continued to stare at him uncomprehendingly, he rephrased it. "How did you learn not to hurt people?"

Cloud looked away. "I had to. And I had a long years. Are you sure you didn't find the other earring?" he asked while tapping his unadorned ear, changing the subject and switching back to Standard in the process. He wasn't sure what the word for "earring" was in English and didn't feel like going through one of what he'd taken to calling "translation triangles" in his head all for one word.

"Just one," said Zack, shaking his head. "It was in my neck. Maybe I ate it?"

"Does it feel like you ate it?"

"Not really," he admitted. "It might just be lost. Sorry, cuz."

Cloud nodded, feeling the pit in his stomach that never really went away twist a little tighter.

"Were they important or something?" asked Zack.

"Birthday present," he muttered, though that didn't really do them justice in his book. Though he couldn't really think of a way to explain it to Zack, either. They were just earrings, after all.

He closed his eyes and imagined he was still sitting on his bed in the sun eating bits of fancy cured sausage with Nanaki and Cid, and tried not to think of how there were still bits of glass and soot all over the floor of his room now, and boards over his window. Zack was sitting there in his computer chair looking at him curiously, and his eyes snapped open again.

You don't have to sit on the floor, y'know, said Zack, patting the bed next to him. If that's what's bugging you. I don't mind sharing.

Cloud flinched. What are you --

You're a little hard to ignore, man. Anyway, I should've offered sooner. Just don't squish my rat again and we'll call it even.

He stood, glancing nervously between Zack, who was unconcernedly scratching said rat's head, and the glass window. Everyone behind it seemed too preoccupied with the tank Aeris had climbed into to tell him off for using a bed he shouldn't have. And (though he knew rationally that it should have been expected in the first place) they hadn't made him give back his clothes yet.

Zack moved to the side a bit to give him room to sit down on the bed. You earned bed privileges, said the same voice that should be gone by now.

See? said Zack. This is way easier. No shouting in broken English across the room like fucking Balki, either.

Like who?

Never mind. Zack continued casually scratching the rat's ears. So, I've got super powers or whatever. That's pretty cool, right?

Cloud scowled internally and looked away. "Your" rat?

...Sorry?

I mean... it was the lab's, right? Should you be petting it like that?

Might as well. I mean, we're both.. we're both stuck in here. I bet Remy doesn't mind it.

You know what they do with those, right? After the project's over.

There was a pause. Yes, I do, said Zack, his voice seeming a bit colder now. I'm trying not to think about it. I'd appreciate it if you didn't remind me.

Cloud went quiet again, and a moment later began to pick at the bandage wrapped around his wrist. The third present he'd ever gotten, behind the Buster Sword and his uniform. He thought he'd finally lost all three. He'd been happy when he'd finally rid himself of the last one, hadn't he? It didn't make sense for him to be happy that one of them was back.

And here he'd gone and lost half of present number four. The one he hadn't even earned properly.

Zack was so close already. But Cloud knew by now that some people had barriers around them that kept them from just touching you. The Professor had a barrier, and the Director. Tifa, too, even though she'd told him to ignore it, and Barret, and even Yuffie sometimes. Almost everyone had them. And even a quick glance at Zack told Cloud that he had one, and it was a million metres thick.

Now that she wasn't inside him anymore, he could tell Aeris had one too. And Zack was still holding that rat.

Pathetic. Disgusting.

...Can I ask a question? said Zack after the long silence.

You and Aeris. Always questions.

We're scientists. It's what we do.

Cloud shifted uneasily. But they aren't real questions, are they?

Zack momentarily stopped petting Remy to stare at him in confusion.

You want a specific answer. If it's not the one you want, then I -- then... then you get mad. You make guesses about what you want to hear, and then you look for a way to get to hear it.

That's... a grim way of looking at it, said Zack. And I guess that depends. The findings should dictate the answers, don't you think?

Cloud said nothing for a moment. I hate questions, he eventually said. I never know the right answers.

Maybe some questions don't have right answers.

Those are the worst ones.

Zack was regarding him very carefully now, adding to his discomfort, and for a moment he felt something looking at cold in the storage room clawing at the grate screaming himself hoarse fingers sore head spinning-- "I'll be good -- I promise I'll be good -- I can be good like you wanted --" before it recoiled just as quickly.

Yeah, I guess they are. Forced it away with small and dark in the closet with Aaron the smell of fresh laundry a flashlight under a propped up blanket stolen office supplies piled in a row. "I get to be the spaceship captain this time --"

Zack let out a quiet sigh as he took that away too. Did you wanna ask me anything?

Another question with another answer. No. Just ask what you're gonna ask.

You won't like it.

I don't like any of this, said Cloud. Zack huffed in frustration.

Why are you afraid of us?

That earned Zack another blank stare. I don't... I don't know what you mean.

If you knew how many PhDs I had you would not think I was this damn stupid.

Fine. You're stronger than me and I'm unarmed. That's a position I've been in before and I don't like it. That's all there is to it.

What the fuck ever, said Zack. Aeris says you nuked a planetoid with your brain. You could have set us all on fire like... ten times over by now, probably.

That's not really how that works --

And Aeris -- you don't think she'd do anything to you? I thought you guys got along now.

We do, I think --

You think? Look, I've been the only other person here on your side since we even started to have a plan and you've been looking at me like I'm about to sprout a second head this whole time. Unless I actually am, in which case that's something you should really tell me about.

I don't know. I don't think so.

So then why the hell --

"I don't know," snapped Cloud. "I don't know why I'm afraid all the fucking time, but I am, and it sucks, and it drags down everyone I'm around that could've helped with it -- and fuck you for asking when I know that's not even what you want to -- to --"

Cloud felt himself being watched again and looked up to see Cissnei and Angeal staring at him through the observation window.

"We, uh... we figured out talking," said Zack, by way of explanation as he tapped one of his temples, and Cloud realised he'd been speaking in Standard the entire time and Zack probably hadn't caught a word of that. He closed his eyes and forced himself to take a deep breath.

I don't like not being in control of the situation, he said. It makes me nervous.

And that was the truth, and all that needed to be said. Cloud released the grip he'd had on his own arm and realised that his hand had gone numb.

A few minutes later, he felt Remy crawling across his lap, and gave him an appreciative scratch. Zack had let go of him, and he looked up to see why.

There was some sort of disturbance on the other side of the glass. Aeris emerged from the tank, soaking wet with some sort of liquid that seemed a bit thicker than water. Someone was questioning her, and then following her, and then shouting at her as she headed straight for the airlock to their room.

Aeris entered their quarters without a protective suit and began shouting at Zack, who seemed to want her out just as badly as everyone else. Cloud struggled to keep up.

"Get out there and send me through. Five seconds in and back. Can't fine tune it any more than that. Angeal won't do it so you --"

"Aeris, you know I can't go out there --"

"Quarantine's already broken!" she shouted. "Just do it!" And with that she turned on her heel and entered the chamber behind them. The sealed off one.

What's going on? What did she do? asked Cloud, but Zack had already left the room, and a moment later reappeared on the other side, vaulting over to a computer as everyone else fled the room in response to his presence.

The chamber in the centre hummed loudly and then went silent, and Zack stood there hunched over the monitor, motionless, for what felt like an eternity.

What might've been a few more than five seconds later, a yellow light flickered on in the chamber, and then a red one. A loud thud was heard from the inside.

What was that? Cloud asked, growing impatient What's going on? I know you know what I'm saying, just...

Zack wasn't responding, instead staring motionless at the monitor, his face pale and drawn. He swallowed heavily, his hand hovering over a particular button on the keyboard.

Another thud sounded from inside the chamber.

Zack? For fuck's sake, just tell me what you did --

His hand jabbed at the keyboard, and the door hissed open.

 

---

 

The air whipped past her face, windburning her cheeks, as Aeris began to realise what a terrible plan this was.

She was incredibly high up, and she was forced to suck down several lungfuls of air to keep her head clear. Air from another world, just like she'd always dreamed. All of it contaminated with foreign microbes, not to mention what she'd carried with her in her lungs. Whoops. Well, the rat wasn't dead yet. Unless rats couldn't catch space plague.

It was especially cold given how soaked she was, too. NC fluid streamed off her body in little droplets as she forced her hand against the air resistance in front of her to the woman currently plummeting to the earth just inches out of reach.

"Grab on!" she screamed over the roar of the wind. Tifa managed to turn herself around in midair and stared at Aeris in shock before reaching out behind her, managing to get a grip on her leg as Aeris herself tumbled through the air, unaccustomed to falling thousands of metres through the air to her death. She pulled Tifa closer to herself, holding her as tightly as she could, just in case.

The ground was getting awfully close. Maybe the hasty instructions she'd left on the whiteboard weren't clear enough, and she was going to splatter all over the side of the mountain. Or maybe Zack hadn't been able to do it properly on his own. And now she was going to die here and no one would ever know why she even bothered in the first place. She tightened her grip on Tifa and waited for everything to go black.

And then everything did go black, but Aeris still felt like she was falling, and suddenly the rumbling, deafening noise around her wasn't wind anymore.

The back of Tifa's head collided with the side of the chamber with a painful sounding clang as Aeris tipped forward onto her, both their knees jelly.

"Sorry," Aeris offered in Standard. Tifa just nodded in bewilderment.

"Where...?"

"Sixth ring," said Aeris. "Where I work."

"Oh." She blinked slowly, unsteadily getting to her feet. "...Thank you."

"Thank you," said Aeris, because she'd forgotten what "you're welcome" was between the near death experience and the fact that this was much closer to any of these people than she'd ever been so far. Tifa was a lot shorter than she'd expected too.

"The door should be open by now..." muttered Aeris, mostly to herself. The room was a lot more cramped than she thought it would be, and then she realised she was sharing the space with a sword that looked nearly as tall as she was -- the one she'd seen leaning against the wall an entire lifetime ago.

"Maybe the door's stuck," offered Tifa, before throwing her back, and the weight of the sword mounted on it, into the airlock. It didn't budge.

"Try again," said Aeris. Tifa nodded, and reared back, throwing herself through the doorway and onto the floor as the door hissed open behind her.

"Sorry," said Aeris again as Tifa blinked at her owlishly from the floor. She peered out curiously, and was met with a stunned-looking Cloud, and an even more stunned-looking Zack, who sunk into a computer chair bonelessly in relief.

"You're okay," he said hoarsely. "I thought..."

"You cut that a bit close," replied Aeris, wobbling her own way out of the chamber as the adrenaline shakes started to set in. "But," she amended, seeing the haggard look on his face, "I think you did well enough, given the circumstances. Good on you for that."

"Fuck off," muttered Zack, burying his face in his hands and fading back into the stunned silence that had blanketed the room.

"Tifa!"

Cloud was the first to break it, running over to her and practically bowling the poor woman over. No one's legs could support them anymore, and they both sank to their knees, exhausted. "I'm sorry," Cloud kept muttering. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

"So am I," said Tifa quietly, still apparently in a state of shock, and there was a stillness to the rest of them for what felt like an eternity. "I'm so sorry," she heard Cloud mutter again in Standard. "I'm so sorry."

Aeris staggered out of the transfer room and into Zack's quarters. She barely had the presence of mind to move the rat out of the way before she smashed it with her own back.

"How?" asked Zack, his voice barely above a murmur. "You're okay, both of you. How are you...?"

Aeris sat straight up again as the implication sunk in, and the realisation with it.

"Dunno. Maybe I wasn't there as long?"

Zack glanced at Angeal, who merely shrugged. Before he could get off a reply, Tseng cut in, his jaw set. "Do you have any idea what you've just done?"

"Tseng," warned Lazard, though he didn't look too pleased either.

Aeris sighed heavily. "I suppose now that you mention it, I violated quarantine here, contaminated someone else, brought back another alien, saved someone from falling to their death... I'm likely missing a few."

"You are. 'Potentially condemned us all to death' should be one of them," snapped Tseng. "And if they survive, they'll want to run tests."

"Hey, you don't see me bitching about it," muttered Zack.

"You are not the only one reporting back to an external party," returned Tseng. "And you're naive to think they'll continue the project on our terms after this."

"We're a bit beyond the project at this point, I think," said Angeal weakly.

"Not yet, we're not," said Tseng.

"And what's that supposed to --" began Zack, before Cissnei cut him off.

"The inspection," she said. "That's... that's today."

"...What? What inspection?" said Cloud suddenly. "You didn't mention one."

"...We forgot," admitted Aeris. "To be fair, there was quite a bit going on at the time." She turned back to Tseng. "How long until they get here?"

"Hard to tell," said Tseng, as Cloud quietly began muttering translations to Tifa. "A couple hours, perhaps. You have to get them both out of here."

"I can't," said Aeris simply. "That was the last contact point left."

"What?"

Aeris turned to Cloud, who was now staring at her with an expression of mild alarm. Aeris took a deep breath and braced herself for the fallout.

"I can't send either of you back now," she said. "There's no one left on the other side that's infected."

Cloud stared at her for a very, very long time, then slowly turned his gaze to the floor.

"What did she say?" she heard Tifa ask. "What happened?"

"I can't get you home," said Aeris. "And some people are coming soon to see us. They're in charge and that's bad."

"There has to be someone," said Lazard. "Something we missed. If we just had more time..."

"Well, we can probably think better without everyone crammed into a living space for one," said Aeris, before forcing herself off the bed and proceeding back to the airlock.

"Someone grab the rat," she added, holding open the door. "I suppose you're both part of the team now."

 

---

 

The deafening clatter of Tifa dropping a massive sword to the floor was what finally snapped Zack out of his daze. With it dropped some sort of complicated-looking leather harness. Cloud set Remy aside on a nearby keyboard and eagerly snatched the harness up, buckling it on, visibly relaxing as he did so. Was it leather? Could leather hold up something that heavy? He watched Tifa delicately prop it up against a desk as she and Cloud took their seats and wondered whether it might not be that heavy at all.

"So... we've broken the quarantine and now have two extra health violations to account for," said Tseng, glancing heavily at Cloud, who seemed to shrink under the weight of the fact that everyone was now staring at him. Zack instead directed his attention to Tifa.

She was shorter than he thought she'd be, too. Maybe whatever ethnic group they were part of was just small? He did have a significant height advantage on everyone present, though. Maybe they just seemed stunted.

And there was a strange magnetism about her as well... maybe it was the eyes. It was easy to miss at first compared to his own or Cloud's, but there seemed to be a faint glow about them, dim enough for him to wonder if he was perhaps imagining it. There was no imagining the little green rings around the pupils, though, or the way her movements were just a bit too smooth in places and a bit too jerky in others, like an insect. He watched her rummage through her pocket for something and realised she was the only one here that was actually dressed in real clothes, looking quite out of place amongst all the clean white uniforms between the rest of them.

He felt his eyes unfocus as he realised how much he hated staring at her. He needed to stare at her. It was... nice, somehow. It was nice to look through cracks.

"What do you think?"

Zack blinked and realised they'd been talking for a few minutes at least. "Uh..."

"You weren't paying attention?" said Cissnei incredulously. "We could all very well be dead soon. The least you could do is focus."

"I am focusing!" he snapped. "Sorry, I'm just... tired. I'm focusing. We're fine."

Cloud, he added. What were we talking about? I think I fell asleep or something --

Get out! came the reply, lashing out at him in a panic. This one felt different. Get out, get out, get out --

He watched as Cloud's eyes flickered from him to Tifa, who was now hunched over with her hands over her ears.

"And you're certain it isn't airborne?" said Lazard, scooting the smallest bit away from Tifa.

"Does it matter if it is?" replied Tseng. "We're just as likely to die from that as we are from whatever other diseases they brought over."

"We don't know that," said Angeal. "Zack's been fine thus far."

"We also don't know if that means anything," said Lazard, "or if the board will see things the same way you do. And after all that... if there was going to be any conflict over the findings before, imagine what could happen now." Zack squirmed uncomfortably. "If any useful microbes are discovered. If these two don't immediately prove valuable assets in their own right. If someone believes us about magic -- imagine it militarised."

The weapon. The one he'd been told to look for, that he would "know it when he saw it"... they'd be after that too. If it existed at all.

Tifa was talking again, trying to get Cloud to translate for her. There was growing frustration there, and a word buried behind all of it that wasn't getting conveyed properly, even with Cloud trying to mediate between her and Cissnei.

"Summoning?" ventured Zack. "He mentioned that a while ago."

"Yes, that," said Tseng. "It won't matter how well it can be understood, because not everyone will have the chance to understand it until it's too late. That could change everything..."

Zack wasn't listening. Cloud and Tifa were staring at him again, and something sharp prodded somewhere he wasn't even sure he had feeling.

What did you do? What are you doing, what is --

Zack barely managed to conceal a wince from the others. Tifa was still staring at him. I dunno. Just sorta leaked in. How do you guys do this?

You're doing it too. I -- I think I hate it, I hate this -- it never shuts up -- Tifa was squeezing her eyes shut now, breathing through her teeth. It gets louder all the time. I can't be stuck here -- I was supposed to have mako by now, it's unstable, it'll just keep going and --

Are you okay?

No. I don't know where we are -- I think I almost died, and it's my fault we're all stranded here and -- gods, I shouldn't have listened -- why did I listen?

Well... Zack looked over her curiously. She reminded him a little of Maile, from his high school -- built like a brick shithouse, and with an attitude to match. This woman, on the other hand, looked to be on the verge of a mental breakdown, her hands clenching and unclenching themselves until Cloud occupied one of them with his own.

Something else probed its way through their thoughts, slowly and deliberately, and for a moment they both tensed up before it spoke. Are you guys okay?

Tifa visibly flinched, and Zack looked up to see Cloud mutter an apology to her.

I think I ruined everything, he heard her say.

Zack stood up and began to walk away. Aeris followed him and caught his arm when he was nearly to the airlock.

"Wait -- where are you going?"

"I -- I've gotta -- I need to just... sit. For a while. We've got time, right?" he said, suddenly feeling as though he hadn't slept in days. Maybe he hadn't. It had all started blurring together lately.

"Not that much," said Aeris. "But... I have some ideas."

"Diplomacy," he mumbled, from what he could remember. He hadn't been listening to that either, really. "I thought you said we were past that."

"I have no ideas, then, but as far as everyone's concerned, I have ideas," she said, glancing pointedly at the rest of the team, still locked in debate. "I don't think we should leave. The minute we set foot outside, we lose any leverage we might've had."

"We can't stay here forever," said Zack. "There's only so many rations to go around, and now we've got two extra people that might not be able to eat this stuff."

"It's better than nothing," said Aeris. "I was hoping I could borrow Cloud for a little. See if we can get him involved with the translation effort."

"He'll either be totally on board with it or try to kill you," said Zack. "That's been our luck so far, hasn't it?"

"And what about you?" asked Aeris. "We don't have much time left. I need..." she glanced at the others again, ensuring they were still deep in discussion. "...I need to know if you still have any intention of doing the right thing."

"Thought I told you what my stance was on the 'right thing' --"

Aeris slapped him across the face. Six pairs of eyes turned to face them.

"Are you alright?" asked Cissnei.

"We're perfectly fine," said Aeris cheerfully, as Zack rubbed his cheek.

"Private conversation," said Zack. He received a significant look from Cissnei, but discussion began to return to the group. There was more attention on them now, so Aeris yanked him down to her eye level by his shirt collar and hissed in his ear.

"I am not in the mood for an ethics debate," she stated. "You are not fourteen. I am asking you, right now, as a friend, to help me."

"I don't even know what you're asking me to do," he shot back. "We've never had a plan. Do we have a plan now? I think, if we do, I deserve to know it."

"I need to know I can trust you. What are you doing this for?"

"For me," said Zack. "I told you. It was always for me."

Aeris was still looking at him expectantly. Zack swallowed. It was just a few words, but they were the scariest words he'd ever spoken.

"And... I think it'd feel really good to be the guy that does the right thing, because maybe that's not something anyone can do if I'm having trouble with it now."

Now Zack was sitting with his head in his hands, reeling from the sheer implications of it all while Aeris immersed herself in a second conversation with Angeal and Cissnei. Would Aaron be proud of him for this? His parents? Maybe not. They'd always been proud of him before, but now...

Hey.

Zack looked up to find Tifa staring at him again.

I haven't talked to you yet, I don't think. You're the other one that got infected.

You haven't talked to Cissnei or Tseng or anyone, either, said Zack.

That's harder, said Tifa. And getting all that information at once makes my head hurt. The talking and the language. This is easy. And it... it helps drown it out.

...Alright then, said Zack, feeling a small thrill of revulsion as two separate presences that weren't his own or the thousands of hissing voices he'd been learning to ignore wove their way through his head. Hi. You're, uh...

Tifa Lockhart, she said.

Right, the... landlady?

Yes.

Right. Hi. I'm Zack.

Hello, Zack.

Silence. Which was never silence anymore, with the buzzing of the lights, and the murmur of the voices, and the sounds of breathing.

Why she hit you? asked Cloud, who appeared to be watching Tseng suspiciously, picking at the bandage taped to his neck.

I think I'm about to commit treason, he said.

Oh.

Movement. Cloud had opted to sit on his hands.

...I've committed treason before, said Tifa.

Zack gawked at her.

Hid a terrorist organisation in my basement for three years. Planted bombs in Shinra property.

We tried to kill the president, added Cloud.

Oh -- yeah, and the bit with the president. But he was already dead, so we couldn't. And... and we're doing okay, so... y'know.

...Is this supposed to be making me feel better? asked Zack.

Tifa bit her lip. Is it not?

It... might be a little, admitted Zack, as a look of relief crossed her face. I've never been a wanted criminal before.

First time for everything, she said. What did you do?

Nothing, yet. I'm supposed to turn you over to... well, to a lot of people.

For what?

Running tests, he said, which as far as he wanted to think about was true.

What kind of tests? asked Tifa. She kept glancing at Aeris, and the sixth ring, and then Aeris again.

Did you leave something in there? asked Zack. Might as well go in and get it. We're all covered in germs now either way.

No. I... I wrecked everything by coming here, said Tifa. Cloud can't go back home. I can't go back home. And neither one of us can find out what's going on, or how you got into contact with Jenova, or... no one else is gonna be stupid enough to use that blood. And... even if they were...

She looked haggard now. I wish it was someone else, just this once. I hate myself for wishing that but it's the only way things will ever get any better, is...

A sunny-sounding beep from the computers silenced everyone. An automated voice wafted through the speakers.

"Please proceed to the exit airlocks for decontamination."

"...They're outside, then." Cissnei stood, looking at the door expectantly. "They're going to want to know why we're not coming out."

"They can ask us themselves," said Aeris. "Nobody's leaving."

"Dr. Gainsborough, we need your team outside to proceed with inspection and cleaning." A human voice this time, with an air of authority.

"There's some conditions we'd like you to meet first," said Aeris. "Is the military out there?"

"Dr. Gainsborough, you do not have the authority to make demands using an internationally-owned facility as your leverage. Your team is to exit the premises so your samples can be processed. In addition, Dr. Fair is to be taken into custody for medical --"

Zack's stomach gave an uneasy lurch.

"He's fine," said Aeris. "He's fine and we're not leaving. You didn't say there wasn't any military presence out here. Our first condition is that. Clear them out."

"You have introduced alien lifeforms to Earth's biosphere in a manner that has resulted in the death of Dr. Fair. This is a matter of international security," said the woman over the speaker. "You have ten minutes to exit the facility before you are all taken into custody to face criminal charges."

There was a pause. Tseng was the first to get up, then Cissnei. They quietly left for the door, the latter glancing guiltily back at Aeris. Lazard was next, offering a small, curt nod to her as he stood.

"It was an honour working with you." Aeris said nothing. Lazard turned, his shoulders heavy, and strode back towards the airlock.

Angeal stood then as well. "You ought to be ashamed," he said to the computer. "You all ought to be ashamed of yourselves." He received no reply, and turned to Aeris, who was still staring at the airlock door with her fists clenched.

"Come on. We have to go now," he said gently.

Aeris's voice was strained with anger, and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

"I don't want to."

"We don't have a choice," said Angeal. "We can't fight this from inside a jail cell."

Did we? thought Zack. He looked back at Cloud, who seemed to have withdrawn again, and was steadily looking at the ground. Tifa had crushed the arm of a chair under her grip, and was staring fixedly at the airlock door as well, every muscle in her body tense. In a few minutes, a bunch of soldiers and important people would storm in here and drag him off, and maybe because he'd been cooperative the States would get to him first and he'd be used by them instead of everyone, all at once. Really, just like he'd been planning. Technically speaking, he'd done everything perfectly.

He'd never wanted it in the first place anyway. Maybe he should have cared more about that in the first place. Would he still be in the same place now if he had? Or would he have been left as merely a designer, and some other schmuck would have been stranded here after getting melted together with a very confused mechanic.

Perhaps it was a good thing he was here after all. Because no one else knew the facility quite like he did.

"Hey, Cloud -- can I borrow that sword?"

"What --"

"Thanks," he said snatching it up from the counter. It felt light as air. Only the telling metallic scraping sound it made as he lifted it, drawing everyone's eyes to him, made it clear that it was made of anything sturdier than balsa wood.

And if that hadn't convinced him, the way the reinforced bulletproof glass shattered like spun sugar as he swung it into the sixth ring's observation window would have.

"What did you do?!" shouted Angeal as red safety lights flickered on above the doors and an alarm began sounding throughout the facility as it was thrown into darkness. A loud clunking noise echoed from the airlocks, and Zack reared back and slashed at the door, punching through the metal like paper.

"Holy shit," he breathed. It hadn't even been a good swing. He would have to be careful about getting into fights from now on.

"What was that?" Aeris whirled around as the voice from the computer crackled back on, barking orders at someone to pull back.

"We breached quarantine," said Zack, panting slightly. "Officially, this time. In the event of airlock failure, the whole thing shuts itself down to contain it. Nobody gets out. More importantly, nobody gets in."

He leaned into the computer, his heart hammering in his chest. "This is Zack Fair, and you can't fire me if I'm dead and I quit."

"You're --!?"

Zack put his fist through the screen. His hands were shaking from the adrenaline, and probably from the glass he'd just embedded in his skin. The ball he'd brought with him was still sitting by the keyboard after all this time. He handed Cloud back his sword, who was dazed enough to have nearly dropped it, and picked the ball up, stuffing it in his pocket with Remy. Maybe the rat would like it once he'd taken him home and gotten him a proper terrarium or something.

"We should probably go find the others," he said. "If they even made it to the second ring for their stuff, they're stuck there now. It shuts down between rings, too."

Aeris just stared at him.

"What? You said you didn't want to go yet," he said, with a bravado he didn't actually feel. He shifted on the balls of his feet to keep his knees from shaking. He was a criminal now. They'd send Interpol after him for this or something. They'd hunt him until the ends of the earth.

"I wonder how much good that did, hm?" said Aeris as she parted to allow a thoroughly confused Cloud access to the door, but she was grinning ear to ear either way.

Chapter 34: More Like AlgerGONE Amirite Folks

Notes:

Another chapter I don't particularly care for, but at least we're finally out of the awkward patch. I hope. Sorry about the overall quality dip in general.

With Part 2 of 3 drawing to a close surprisingly quickly (only like three chapters left maybe? I dunno it's subject to change), I'm once again touched by your collective support. It really does mean a lot to me that this thing actually has other people that are invested in it.

Thank you to Belderiver, Sanctum_C, daily-kaley, and Larissa for enabling me.

This chapter contains graphic depictions of violence and gore.

So you're saying we're all trapped here.

If you want to look at it that way, yeah --

Well, I do. And I am. And we are.

Then, yeah, we're... a little trapped. Zack shrugged, under Cloud's tired glare. They'd gathered in the second ring for the sake of having everyone spaced out a bit more, but that hadn't prevented Cloud from following Zack into his room. Partially because Cloud wanted to experience sleeping on a bed again, if only for the moment, and partially because Zack needed to shave. He thought of his own hairless face, and the reasons behind it, and his scowl deepened.

Off in the distance, he could hear (and feel, to an extent, as the vibrations travelled along the floor and through the walls) a faint metallic buzzing. They were drilling, Aeris had guessed, though it was in question just how deep they would go, since as far as they were concerned the only thing between themselves and an incurable space plague or two were several feet of reinforced steel and concrete. Tifa seemed to be handling the sound less well than he was, not having years of experience filtering out background noise she wouldn't have noticed before, and had requested a room alone for her to just clamp her hands over her ears and hum loudly. Cissnei had volunteered both her room and her phone, so that left Cloud to entertain himself with Zack, the only other person he could really talk to properly.

Zack seemed to be pretending he didn't notice, but the way his shoulders were tensed up and the way his gaze would jitter back over to the wall behind him every now and again seemed to suggest otherwise.

The strange veneer this world seemed to have around it seemed to be thickening, little by little. He closed his eyes and reached just a bit deeper into the cluster of thoughts that kept tangling itself up with his own. It was one of the clearer things to him at the moment, and it had been entirely too long since his last "meditation". No wonder Mother was so loud, felt so close.

Zack didn't seem to care much for the intrusion, but as Cloud had learned years ago, this sort of thing was a two way street. He only intended to take what he needed, and what he needed was words.

How funny it was, that it was so easy to remember something that wasn't his. That he'd lost before, even. It didn't seem all that long ago that he'd lost something as easy as words to mako.

Right now, this is all we've got, Zack continued. That they can't afford to come in here and drag us out, and... that maybe they're not willing to firebomb this place into the ground if they know we actually brought something back. Even the mineral samples we picked up would be worth millions. You and... Tina?

Tifa.

Yeah, you guys are maybe ten digits, easy.

Why?

Well... CERN, the guys actually fronting and in charge of this whole thing? Backed by a whole bunch of countries and all. They'll probably be a little miffed that they dumped so much damn money into this thing -- moving into the future! Dawn of a new fuckety yadda yadda whatever, and they didn't even get to grill you about your whole healing thing or nothing.

But?

But the countries behind that? Weapons development, obviously. I mean... I dunno about the rest, but the States, like... for sure. And Tseng's probably got similar orders from China.

What?

Never mind. Point is, all science winds up making weapons eventually.

Cloud heard a pained squeak, and opened his eyes to find Zack sitting on the bed scratching Remy's ears. The bones hadn't healed right. How would he even go about setting rat bones? Maybe Cid knew.

...And Aeris just... she's okay with making weapons?

Well... no. She, uh... she and I had a disagreement about that. Don't remind her, she just started talking to me again.

You're right, though. Cloud watched as Remy twitched briefly as Zack ran his hand over part of its belly that was concealing... well, probably nothing good. It was in a good deal of distress, that much was obvious from its scent. It does. I've seen it.

Another thought occurred to him. And you're just okay with it?

Doesn't matter whether I am or not anymore, said Zack. I made that decision an hour ago.

Cloud had watched Zack pick a good deal of glass out of his hand with Lazard's help, both of them utterly enraptured as they watched Zack’s flesh knit back together within minutes, but now his hand was speckled with little white scars.

I'm sorry, said Cloud, mostly out of habit.

For what?

Cloud said nothing for a moment. Zack could probably sense his discomfort anyway, and he wished for the millionth time that he was better at shutting anyone out.

Thank you for the clothes.

Uh... you're welcome, I guess, said Zack, glancing at him briefly before turning his attention back to Remy. You were naked, though.

That doesn't always mean the same thing to people.

This time Zack didn't reply, though little snippets of information leaked through anyway. He was curious, and ashamed, and apparently had the good sense not to ask about whatever he wanted to ask about.

Cloud tried again.

...So, you... you work for Aeris?

Yeah.

She said I could trust you.

Zack grimaced. Did she?

Yeah. She was real upset about the switch, though.

Can you not bring that up, too?

Cloud bristled. He'd fucked up again already. I don't need your permission to talk to Aeris about stuff.

I didn't say you did. Just... everything's gone to hell, and -- whatever. Zack examined his hand with a faint air of fascination. Sure closed up quick, didn't it?

I... yeah. You're... you look stable, I guess. Cloud leaned in closer to take a proper look at his eyes. Zack seemed to be handling Jenova's presence strangely well, but there was no mistaking that glow, or the vivid green that bled out from his pupils.

It looked better on him, Cloud thought. Less creepy. Maybe he just had the facial structure for it.

...How'd you wind up here, anyway? asked Cloud. You don't... I mean...

Huh?

You don't exactly look like a doctor, said Cloud. The others, I guess. And Aeris said her parents kicked off this thing. Where do you fit in?

You don't -- uh... you don't remember? He saw Zack spare another nervous glance in his direction before wiping off his razor in the sink.

Remember what?

When we were -- never mind.

Cloud paused for a moment. There was something buried in the fog of the last few days that suddenly pushed its way to the forefront of his thoughts. Something -- there were trophies. From sports. That's what you look like. Taller than him. More muscular, the way active men their age were supposed to be. In shape, but with none of the discipline that he would have learned in the military. Not that Cloud himself had learned it any better.

Yeah, that was part of it. It was a good place to start, anyway. Helped with the scholarship side of things.

The what ship?

There was a brief twinge of confusion that mingled with his own. See... in colleges here, you can sometimes earn grants that --

Oh. Right. Those. The things he'd been too talentless to qualify for. Never mind. I know what those are.

Uh... right, so... anyway, I just... yeah. I'm a doctor now. My dissertation's part of the reason we're here now. Don't know what else to tell you.

How old do you have to be to be a doctor here? asked Cloud. There were lab aides that had been Zack's age, but never senior staff.

I don't think there's an age limit, said Zack, who'd leaned in to watch a small nick on his face close up as thought it wasn't even there. I just skipped a few grades and got fast-tracked from there.

Oh. Smarter than him, too. That figured. But Aeris was probably smarter than he was, since she was in charge, and Cloud knew things Aeris didn't know that she really should, so maybe that counted for something. Didn't it?

So... I've got like -- super powers?

Cloud blinked. What?

Well, I'm talking to you in my head, said Zack, as he began to tick off fingers. I shoved you through reinforced ceramic flooring -- I can smell you somehow, that's... that's definitely something...

I mean, I guess, but that's not really...

Can I fly?

No. I mean, I guess you could, but it's usually not worth the trouble, so basically no --

"Holy shit, I was joking --"

"That's not the point!" snapped Cloud after a moment as he mentally shifted gears to pick through Zack's subconscious for the right words. "You're not supposed to! You can't -- the whole point of it is deciding that you just -- you just can, and none of it is supposed to be how anything -- we're freaks of nature that aren't even supposed to exist, because we can't, because --"

Cloud blinked as he realised Zack's outburst had been in Standard.

What language had he been speaking, for that matter?

Mother raised Her voice and let out a single, clear note, more beautiful and terrible than anything that could be produced by a human mouth, that sent a wave of calm through him. He watched Zack suddenly flinch, and felt Tifa's alarm a few doors down.

What the hell was that?

M -- Jenova, he explained, as Zack began looking around wildly. She wants me to come back. She wants us to come back.

Back where?

If I had to guess... back together. Reunion.

Zack immediately sprung to his feet. Welp! It's been fun talking with you but I think I'm going to be in another room now. For a while.

Cloud watch him leave, his limbs suddenly too heavy to move, and he grieved with Mother as another part of Her was torn just a bit further apart.

Stay here, he told himself. You need to stay awake.

There was another crunch of steel in the distance, and he realised he’d been clenching his teeth the entire time. He wondered briefly if Tifa was handling it any better. They'd get used to it, if they didn't go mad first. Gods knew he'd tried more than a few times to claw his own eardrums out, before Hojo had figured out what was happening and started checking Cloud's cell for used cotton swabs he'd been hiding. Zack probably didn't realise how quickly he'd get sick of hearing every little thing moving around in the night, which was probably why he kept asking stupid questions about it and was taking it more or less in stride. Tifa, on the other hand, had personally witnessed and dealt with the time Cloud had shut himself in the closet on the New Year because the combined light and sound and the lingering scent of sulphur from all the fireworks, coupled with the cacophony of everyone in the surrounding buildings singing or cheering or playing music or having obnoxiously loud sex had him about ready to throw up.

She knew, he realised with a pang of guilt. Tifa knew exactly what she was in for. She'd cleaned up after all of his panic attacks and helped him through all of his episodes, and...

What if Tifa had an episode? She wouldn't, would she? She was stronger than him, wasn't she? She'd found him in the Lifestream, kept both of them together, hadn't been rendered a drooling vegetable the way he had.

Maybe. Maybe maybe maybe. Something else to dread, as Mother’s whispering grew louder and louder.

The world thickened some more.

 

---

 

"Tifa?"

Tifa involuntarily let out a yelp and looked up to see Cloud, standing there.

"Didn't see you come in."

"I knocked."

"Sorry... must not have noticed." Everything else seemed deafeningly loud now. She could have easily missed it.

"You..." Cloud swallowed. "So, you're... you're..."

"Trapped here," diverted Tifa, not quite able to actually look at his face. She wasn't quite ready to talk about Jenova with him just yet. "Yeah. I'm sure we'll figure something out, though."

"Then... why'd she bring you over here, if there wouldn't be a way back?"

Tifa didn't answer. It wasn't as though there was much point in dancing around the subject -- he knew she was infected. Could smell it, at the very least. Could sense it, too. Had probed a couple times into her head since then without actually saying anything.

Would it actually help to tell him, though? He was panic-prone enough as it was. One of them needed to keep it together for this.

"There's a lot going on right now," said Tifa. "More than we thought."

"Like what?"

"I don't know yet," she said, wincing as the distant squeal of warping metal bit into her ears again. "Reno is dead."

"Oh," was all he said. Then, after a moment: "Did you kill him?"

"I didn't kill him," she snapped. "Shut up for -- just -- quiet."

Everything was so goddamn loud. The machinery outside, their breathing, the quiet mutterings going on next door, the things scratching away in the back of her head. Barret and Nanaki weren't here to help, and there was nothing here, in this quiet-not-quiet space, to tune it out with.

She still hadn't wanted to look him in the eye, and her gaze had instead landed on his neck, which had a large bandage going across it. Aeris had mentioned it. It seemed so familiar somehow...

"Tifa?" He was staring at her worriedly, his hands clenching and unclenching as she suddenly remembered them clutching her own, and guiding her into his room... and wrapping around her throat."Tifa, it's... is something wrong? Is it Moth --"

His next words were knocked from his chest as a gravity spell she lobbed at him slammed him into the door behind him, pinning him there. Tifa felt her vision blur momentarily and her breath grow shorter. One spell shouldn't have tired her out that much, should it? It was so much harder to feel her way to the Planet for some reason.

"I killed you," she hissed. "You're supposed to be dead."

"...Tifa?" There was confusion in his voice, and pain. It sounded so much like him, but by now she knew better.

"None of you bastards ever stay dead!" she yelled, picking up the nearest chair and brandishing it as a weapon. She no longer had the element of surprise on her side, and training or no, the real Cloud was faster than her.

The tenuous link she had to the spell she'd cast faded, and she watched the thing that wasn't Cloud land on the floor again and drop into a defensive stance. "I -- Tifa?"

"You're not him," she breathed. "You're not him, you're not -- you're not even human --"

He just stared at her, then. "I mean... I don't know how to prove that kind of thing to you anymore," he said, after another long moment. "I thought you just... trusted that I knew it was."

"Stop it," she pleaded, her voice beginning to crack. "This isn't fair. Didn't -- didn't I do enough? And it's not even you. And you're not even dead. You shouldn't -- you shouldn't even have that stupid knife -- why do you even have it --"

The thing that wasn't Cloud continued to stand there, looking lost. "...I don't -- I want to help," he said helplessly. "How do I help you?"

"You knew the first time," she said, tears starting to well up in her eyes, "when I made the whole thing up."

"There aren't -- there aren't any windows here," he said. He was panicking now, and trying to hide it.

"I saw you," said Tifa. "I saw you at home, and it wasn't even you. It was just wearing your face." She wiped her eyes and looked back up at him again. "But it was you, wasn't it?"

"...Do you want me to go?" was all he said.

"It is you, isn't it?" she choked out, "Just standing there waiting for me to tell you what to think, like always. Did you even come here to say anything?"

If nothing else would have convinced her, the look of anguish on his face just then as regret immediately flooded her would have. But she couldn't quite not be angry, because even after all that he was still standing there, waiting for orders she didn't know how to give anymore.

A knock on the door cut off any further reply she might've given, and a moment later Aeris burst through the door with a concerned looking Cissnei.

"We heard yelling," said Aeris, as Cissnei relayed the message as best she could. "Is everything okay?"

"We were just --" Tifa turned to look at Cloud, and was met with an empty wall.

Aeris said something else, but Tifa wasn't listening. Instead she buried her face in her hands and screamed.

 

---

 

"You -- you did ask her if she was okay, right?" said Cissnei, as Aeris watched the woman in front of her tear at her scalp. "I know I said it right. It's a bit difficult, mangling Greek like this, but --"

"Tifa -- Tifa, stop it," said Aeris, grabbing her wrists and pulling them away from her face. This wasn't how she'd wanted either of their first meetings to go. Tifa mumbled something to herself, her breathing shaking. "Tifa --"

"She says she is going mad," supplied Cissnei. "Do you suppose they're all like this, over there?"

"Better not be," muttered Aeris. About the only one she'd met that had any sense so far was Nanaki. "Oi -- Tifa. Come on. Let's... you ought to be around other people. Might help."

She had to all but drag Tifa outside into the hall, where she'd created a pile of junk propped up against the wall with Cissnei's help.

"Here," she said. "You can help me with this."

Tifa glanced between Aeris and Cissnei nervously.

"I'm destroying evidence," explained Aeris. "When they get in here, they'll probably go through the cameras we'd set up for the first transfer. We didn't get much use out of them, but I don't want to make it any easier. The transcripts are already backed up remotely, too late for them. Still, it's better than nothing. At the very least, it'll maybe throw them off the scent." And her notes, she'd need to trash those too. The physical ones, anyway. She’d already incinerated any biological samples she could find, much to Tseng’s dismay.

Tifa patiently listened to Cissnei translating, then nodded slowly. She then drove her fist into her hand a few times and pointed at the pile for confirmation.

"Go nuts," said Aeris, waving her forwards.

Tifa hesitated for a moment, as though worried about being told off for breaking something. Then she raised a boot and brought it down onto one of the cameras with a satisfying crunch.

Cissnei joined her shortly afterwards, sifting through the remains and smashing anything that looked remotely like it could possibly store information.

As much as she'd love to get any sort of satisfaction over the smashing of expensive delicate equipment, Aeris carried out her work with the same sombre attitude that she'd had at her parents' funeral. In a way, it was one. The end of the project, most definitely. The end of the late Drs. Gainsborough and Gast's work. The end of her old life, the one she'd worked so hard for, the one that for a few incredible days had made her happy.

Maybe she'd just been doomed to fail before she started.

That wasn't fair at all.

"Be right back," said Aeris, making her way through bits of smashed camera before Cissnei caught her arm.

"What are you doing?"

"We need to get everything straight," said Aeris, "and before that, I want to take care of something else. Go find Tseng and Lazard for me." With that, she turned and left.

She found what she was looking for next to the tub of allsorts she'd brought for herself, still untouched.

What a waste, she thought, turning the polaroid camera over in her hands. She'd thought she would get a lot more use out of it than she had. A few group shots, just with her and her colleagues. A couple candids of them sharing the excitement of whatever rocks and sponges they'd have discovered. One of them all sitting down together, eating gummy bears.

The tub would still be in Zack's room, most likely. She should get those back, too.

She knocked on the door to Zack's room, but it was Cloud that opened the door.

"...Is Zack there?" she asked.

Cloud shook his head. "He left. You need to talk to him?"

"No, I just need my stuff back," she said, as Cloud went back to slouching on Zack's bed. She peered around the room and found the tub, about half-eaten, at the foot of it.

"Was yours?" he asked as she retrieved it.

"Yes, but I brought it for everyone." She popped off the lid and offered him the container. He'd survived a couple days on the same rations she'd been eating and had been breathing Zack's air for longer. Presumably these wouldn't kill him. "It's candy. It tastes sweet."

Cloud shook his head anyway. "Not hungry."

"Alright," said Aeris, closing the container and tucking it under her arm. "There's one more favour you can do for me, then."

Cloud froze as she raised the camera.

"Say 'cheese'!"

"In -- in English, or --?"

Cloud flinched as the flash went off, and a moment later the polaroid spat out a photograph of him cringing away from what was by all accounts not that bright of a light.

"That's no good. Try not to blink for this one, okay?" She quickly snapped another one, and manage to get a picture of him with his eyes open, albeit looking utterly bewildered. Granted, it was a little odd seeing eyeshine on a human, rather than red-eye, but it was still something.

"Why was that for?" said Cloud, blinking hard a few times.

"I just thought it would be nice," said Aeris. "Should have asked. I can throw it away if you want."

"Can I see it?"

Aeris started to hand him the camera, but he shook his head. "The..."

"The photos?"

"Yeah."

She handed them to him, and watched him stare at the photo with a distant look in his eyes.

"...You have cameras on the Planet, right?" She could have sworn she'd seen photoreal images in advertisements in the brief glimpse she'd gotten of Edge, though they could have been very convincing paintings.

Cloud flinched again and nodded. "I've never had a photo of me before."

"Never? Your parents didn't -- I mean --" Was that something she could bring up? Was he touchy about it? "...Maybe your family?"

"No," said Cloud, clearly relieved at the change of tactics. "No one ever, just because it 'would be nice'. Doctors, sometimes. My chest. Arms, legs, insides. For surgery compare. Never my face."

Before she could say another word, he pocketed the photo of himself flinching away from the camera flash. "You keep the good one," said Cloud. "If you want it, I mean. It's bad."

"I can just take another one," she began, but Cloud just shook his head again.

"Not the picture," was all he said. Something dawned on him. "Can you do one of you? And Tifa?"

"I was planning on it," said Aeris. "But first we need to get a lot of things straight, and we don't have much time left to do it."

 

---

 

With eight of them gathered into the same dim hallway with the one or two personal effects they’d brought with them packed up between them, illuminated only by emergency lighting along the floor, it was a bit of an awkward shape to carry a conversation, but they managed it somehow. Cloud kept quiet for the first half of the discussion, visibly uncomfortable, allowing Zack to dictate his bits mixed in Zack's own via the pathways Jenova had carved between them over the last few days. As he contributed more and more, it got easier to talk. Just another debriefing, he’d told Zack. Claimed he used to do these all the time.

Zack left in the middle of Aeris's explanations, taking one of the as-of-yet unsmashed cameras along with him. To send a message to his family, he explained to Cissnei. He had no idea how he intended on getting it to them, but right now he was too tired to care, and it was still better than nothing. He couldn’t think of much of anything to say, and by the end of it all he’d been drained and felt like he hadn’t really accomplished much. At least they’d know he was alive, though, or would believe he was alive if he didn’t make it out of this.

Tifa painted a much grimmer picture than the three of them had expected, all things considered, and no one had much to say in response. Cloud's throat was torn open from a confrontation he couldn't remember having, some big important mountain range had a huge hole in them now, and a man named Reno was dead. And there was more, he could tell, but she kept things short and to the point, and Cissnei didn't do much prying herself, except to clarify a meaning here or there.

She'd chosen to sit next to Aeris and kept looking to her for confirmation, leaving Cloud next to Lazard and Zack. It was the arrangement that made the most sense -- she wasn't comfortable around him, she was in a better position to update Aeris on things than he was, Lazard wanted to keep an eye on his injuries, Zack could help Cloud translate much more efficiently. Cloud still seemed to be taking it personally, though.

Cloud neglected to mention his tattoo, so Zack didn’t bring it up either.

Zack told his story, then, which had more detail than Tifa's, and didn’t exactly serve to make things look any better.

"They're just camped out there, waiting for us to cave," he said, "and who knows what they'd be willing to do to get at us? They practically admitted they were willing to kill for this research a while ago, right?"

Aeris blinked. "Did they?"

"Yeah. When they didn't shut the project down the second I... y'know..." Zack glanced at Cloud, who looked away. His face was as impassive as ever, but he could sense the discomfort, and the skittering bits of thoughts about how it was much too clean in here.

He almost wanted to probe a bit further for experimentation’s sake -- almost. Cloud probably wouldn’t appreciate it. Still, there wasn’t much need. Another human mind -- an entire world’s worth of different thoughts and perceptions, right there at the edge of his own. And Tifa’s as well, sheltered from him as though separated by a thin veil. Was it something she was consciously doing? Or was it different with Cloud, due to “Reunion”?

Why hadn’t Aeris gone through the same thing with Tifa, for that matter? They hadn’t had time to test her, true, but she hadn’t reported any voices, and she -- and it was passing strange to admit it to himself -- still smelled human anyway, whereas Tifa smelled like Cloud. He hadn’t investigated much further than that, because suddenly having an entire sense giving information he wasn’t used to having to interpret yet gave him headaches.

His train of thought was abruptly derailed by Tseng.

"They only want Zack," he said. "That is what they want, isn't it?"

Zack narrowed his eyes. "You..."

"You were the one planning on selling us all out to begin with," said Tseng. "They said they want you in custody. You're the one they know was contaminated. You're the one they want to study."

"I wasn't 'selling you out!'" snapped Zack. "They wanted the research. That's all. And not even the research, they wanted some specific part of it that I apparently never found anyway, so what does it matter?"

"You know why it matters," said Angeal sternly. "Was that the only reason you joined? To start a war?"

"I wasn't starting a goddamn war!"

"Like hell you weren't." said Tseng. "You're American. The minute any of what we've found gets to the outside --"

"Then we don't tell them!" said Aeris, cutting across them both. "We don't tell anyone about any of this!"

"I joined this project for the sake of completing it!" fired back Tseng. "Not to bury its potential all over again! Certainly not to get detained over -- over 'magic'! You specifically said, when I asked you, that you were committed to the project, and now I find out you and Fair have been hiding things this whole time. How much, Aeris? How much did you throw out?"

"This is the project now!" yelled Aeris. "This, all of this, this was the whole point of it all, and --"

"Do I get a say in this?" said Cloud. While it was nice not to be stared at for once, things were very quickly getting to the point where it was starting to go over his head.

"No," said Lazard. "You're where everything went to hell in the first place. You still haven't told us what you did to Zack."

"I already said I don't know!" said Cloud. "He's the one that did it, and he doesn't know either, but you sure aren't yelling to him!"

"So now you're throwing me under the bus too?" said Zack flatly. "Great. Good to know."

"I didn't say that. Stop saying I say things I didn't."

Angeal buried his face in his hands. "Everyone, please --"

Tifa interjected in Standard, then, sounding more than a bit annoyed, as Zack realised he and Cloud had stopped translating, and Cissnei had gone uncomfortably quiet.

"We're not giving them Zack," said Lazard. "He's part of the team. They wouldn't want him if they knew about these two." He turned to look at Cloud, then, and he was suddenly acutely aware of the weight of the sword resting against his leg.

"I dare you to try," was all he said.

"We're not 'handing anyone over'," said Angeal in a pleading tone. "We've all been contaminated. Quarantine is broken. We'll all need to be inspected, and if we go voluntarily they'll likely --"

"Cut us up," said Cloud. "They'll cut us all up and we'll only get to die if they cut too much and can't fix it in time."

"I'm not getting cut up!" yelled Zack, rounding on him. "And you're not fucking helping!"

Tifa was glowering at Zack and Cloud now. Can someone just translate one fucking word or just slow down so I can --

"They're going to hand us over," Cloud explained to Tifa. "Or -- that guy wants to hand Zack over, and that one says we should all go, and..."

"He's planning something with her," said Lazard. "You said that virus influences people subconsciously to infect more people."

"Yeah, well, I'm not feeling too influenced," said Zack, "but if that's how you feel, how about I just walk all three of us out there, huh?"

"Tifa wants to know what's going on," said Cloud. "I'm telling her what's going on. Maybe if your translator translated something --"

Cissnei seemed to have shut down, and was quietly muttering to herself in French.

"She didn't sign up for this," said Tseng. "I didn't sign up for this. None of us did. Not even him," he added, pointing at Cloud, "and not that other woman either. We were here for the project. This all fell apart as soon as they substituted Zack. He knows something, or they think he knows something. Who's to say that's even Zack anymore?"

"What the hell kind of accusation is that?" yelled Zack.

"The kind that we need to be making!" said Tseng. "Those cells aren't human. The DNA wasn't even yours. I watched an inert pile of organs press itself into the shape of a person and start making demands, and suddenly I'm supposed to just trust everything that comes out of your mouth?"

Lazard jumped to his feet. "We don't know what happened yet, and all the evidence still points to Cloud. You're making a mistake --"

"I didn't do anything!” yelled Cloud. “I told you it was Reunion, and I told you I didn’t do it!”

"Everyone shut up!" screamed Aeris, and a hush fell across the group once more. “Good god, look at you all!”

Zack’s ears were still ringing in the silence. He could still hear the sound of everyone arguing echoing off the walls of the second ring.

It kept ringing and echoing and murmuring its way around the halls. Tifa buried her head in her lap and clutched at her ears.

“...I’m done,” said Lazard. “I’m ending this right now.”

“We’re still trapped in here,” said Cloud. “Unless you want me to get you out. But I don’t want to get you out, so maybe you should ask Tifa. Maybe she wants to be taken apart.”

Now it was Aeris’s turn to stare at him. “Wait -- you can get us out of here?”

“Yes, so long as you don’t mind...” he paused and got Cissnei’s attention to needle her with a few questions, who eventually gave him the term he was looking for, “...collateral damage.”

“How much collateral damage?” she asked.

“Enough.” He stood up and gave the walls a few solid knocks. “What are these made of?”

“Does it matter?” said Zack. “What would you do if you got out there?”

“Tell them about him, for starters,” said Lazard. “It’s your life I’m trying to salvage here.”

“So -- what, I have to pick?” said Zack. “That’s what you’re making me do, isn’t it?”

They were all silenced again by the sound of something heavy and metallic giving way; the first ring’s airlock, Zack realised, as the grinding noise suddenly increased in volume dramatically and repositioned itself to the airlock a few metres away.

“No, because as your doctor I’ve decided for us,” said Lazard, and before Zack could say anything else he stood up and strode to the door, unlocking it.

He probably should have done something. He watched it happen, as though in slow motion, his eyes feeding information to his brain at a rate the others couldn't have comprehended. He should do something. There was something moving -- something pressing through, blooming from a single point and shifting around in the air towards them, then behind them, then in front of them again, shadows like ink through water. He could see Lazard -- reach out -- pull him away, something -- he should do something --

One minute, Lazard was standing in front of the airlock, the next there was a combination of twisted metal and human remains smeared against the wall. The door was gone -- behind it, Zack could see even more gore smeared across the hallway from what had presumably been the workers. There were even a couple mostly intact bodies.

The smell of blood hit him almost immediately, as well as a new one he wasn’t familiar with -- death.

"Get back," Cloud ordered, as if anyone needed telling. In the distance, Zack heard more metal squeal, this time on the side no one had been drilling on. Cloud slowly took several steps back himself, picking the sword up off the ground behind him. Zack heard the rat in his pocket begin squeaking incessantly.

He heard more metal crunch and squeal, back in the first location again.

"Good god," breathed Angeal, staring transfixed at the carnage outside.

Something shifted beneath them -- around them? It seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, but nowhere at all. Zack hefted his bag, not that it would do much good as a weapon against whatever had done that.

“Zack,” muttered Aeris urgently, barely daring to move. “Zack, the photo --”

"Hurts," Zack heard Tifa mutter, and became aware of the fact that his head had been dully throbbing the entire time. He heard Aeris fumble with her bag, the only sound apart from the steady dripping of blood. He wanted to ask her what she was doing, tell her to be quiet, because if she made noise maybe it would see them, and he couldn’t imagine anything worse than having it see them.

He wouldn’t have gotten to reply anyway, as it turned out, because a second later the ceiling ripped itself upwards entirely in one deafening crunch of metal and concrete.

Zack suddenly felt something ice cold envelop him, rushing past his face, and gasped. Water. It was water. It was raining, the sound of it apparently silenced by the thick layers of the building. Above them, there had been a massive section taken out of the structure they were in, leaving them exposed to the open air. In the distance, he heard another crunch, and then screaming.

Another chunk of the building tore itself away, this time carving its way out through the side of what must have been the third ring. The fresh air, the dulled sunlight barely leaking its way through the clouds, the smell of trees and grass and burning gasoline, all of it curled through the air like music, overwhelming and nearly immediate.

Someone was tugging him along now, and he realised with a jolt that Cloud was dragging him through the doorway as the building began to cave in on itself from the structural damage it had taken on. Cloud led him to the last airlock, which Aeris was now trying to tug open.

"Move," he ordered, hefting his sword again. The entire wall the airlock was mounted on was rendered to rubble and chunks of reinforced steel in less than a second. Cloud lowered his sword and rotated his shoulder to work out the kinks in it. Zack forced himself to close his mouth.

I could do that now, he thought to himself.

"Keep going!” barked Aeris, and he found himself streaking past the others as they sprinted through the lobby of the building. Moving felt incredible -- he hadn’t even been exerting himself all that much, every step effortless and precise despite the fact that he’d been cooped up in a small room for so long.

Suddenly he realised they weren't being rained on anymore. Which was strange, because given all the broken glass falling around them the ceiling was definitely gone, and he could still feel the wind and hear the low, deep roar of the storm and the persistent tapping sound, as though something wanted in.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something move. A shadow his eyes didn't want to see.

He could feel it coming before it actually arrived -- saw something push its way through the air -- through the world itself, tearing as it went, faster than he was certain he should have been able to follow, and yet he found himself frozen to the spot. There was nothing he could do. He was going to die here. He was going to be smeared across the wall like Lazard.

The expected oblivion never came, and he looked beside him to see Cloud, hand outstretched, as the air seemed to spiral around the remaining seven of them, chunks of debris lazily drifting about as though caught by an underwater current as whatever it was halted in its tracks. Cloud was staring at something above them with a cold, detached focus in his eyes, in stark contrast to the man that had spent the last few days barely looking anyone in the face and either crying or constantly about to. There was something else about him, too, something that Zack felt extremely unsettling, but he couldn't for the life of him put his finger on what.

Then Zack looked up.

It was big. It was bigger than anything he’d ever seen, even though it was “only” the size of the building, and spilling forth from nothing, more and more of it pooling around them. It was millions -- billions of shadows, sliding in and out of his vision, clumped together, at times looking almost solid, a sea of segments that reminded him of insect legs, twitching and pressing together against whatever Cloud was doing to push back, and at times a strange warp in the air, like something moving under a sheet. He wanted badly to look away, everything in his brain telling him to stop, that he wasn’t seeing anything that he shouldn’t be seeing anything, that it wasn’t possible for him to see nothing that wasn’t there and didn’t exist. It was only in one place, but it filled the sky, the entire horizon, the entire world seeming to stretch to accommodate it, because it was so deep. The more he looked, the more he saw, the more glimpses of movement in the dark on a colossal scale, the more he realised was behind, inside, around it -- around him...

The worst part was the noise. He gasped as it seemed to expand, and let loose the most beautiful, terrible sound he’d ever heard.

“MOVE ALREADY!” shouted Cloud, and Zack’s gaze was torn from the thing as Aeris dragged him through the door to the outside. Out of the corner of her eye, he caught a glimpse of Cloud dragging Tifa, though it didn’t look like he was feeling so hot either.

The facility continued to tear itself apart -- continued to be torn apart, behind them, and ahead of them was a wall consisting of what looked like half an army. The sound of the rain and the crumbling of the building had concealed the noise, but there were tanks camped out around a barricade that had been set up, and a couple helicopters perched in the air for good measure.

"What the hell...?" breathed Zack. All this for little old them. Was the quarantine that important? Weren't they planning on taking them into custody before?

The sound of one of the tanks firing on the thing behind him made him cringe in pain and clutch at his ears. Even as he clamped his hands over them, he could still make out sounds more or less unimpeded.

“Where are we going?!” he heard Angeal yell.

“Cars, behind the barricade!” Aeris shouted back. “We need to get out of here!”

Zack continued to stumble forward, the noise in his head and around him becoming downright agonising, to where he nearly missed it when the first gun went off. Then another, and another, as more and more fire was concentrated on their group, and on the thing behind them.

“Aeris --” he began.

“We don’t have a choice!” she yelled. “Just --”

“I’ll go first,” said Cloud. “Tired of being stuck in small spaces anyway.” And without another word he took off.

Zack had heard he was military. There were bits in the transcript about the whole thing, and Zack assumed he'd experienced firsthand the byproducts of it all. But as he watched Cloud launch himself from behind the rubble they'd been hiding among, the knowledge of exactly what he was sunk in.

Cloud streaked through the gunfire in a matter of seconds, launching himself several metres into the air at the first line of defense. There was a flash of silver and a splash of red, and before he had time to register that those men were dead, that Cloud had killed them, he had already barreled into a tank, the sword effortlessly weaving and flashing through their ranks almost too fast to see. It almost looked like dancing, the way he ducked around gunfire, the ease with which he spun and leapt and carved a path in his wake, the way no one could seem to land a hit on him, as droplets of blood whirled around him; all the while as he wore an almost meditative expression on his face. Zack watched as he cleaved through a shell in midair before slicing the top off the tank that had fired it, leaping from that to a helicopter that must have been five hundred feet in the air, latching onto the underside before hauling himself into the open door and tossing the occupant that had been manning the guns inside it to the earth.

It was utterly surreal. Inhuman. Almost as strange as the way his brain seemed to numb itself to the fact that he was watching people die, and that there were bullets streaking past them, and that he was still managing to focus on the one thought that mattered, which was keep moving.

The pain in his head peaked again as the thing behind them surged forward, and they were forced to follow after the path of destruction Cloud was carving ahead of them. After weeks in a temperature-controlled lab, the wind and the rain battered against his nerves, disorienting him further. It was all he could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other, not daring to stop.

He barely managed to skid out of the way as the ground itself seemed to rip itself up in front of him, rocketing into the sky. He scrambled around it, slipping in the wet grass, and for a split second he could have sworn he saw something staring back at him from where it was. An instant later -- so fast he would have thought he'd imagined it, but time seemed to stretch and shrink around him as his eyes darted around and refocused themselves -- and it was merely a pit in the ground. He nearly fell on his face again as he put on another burst of speed and forced himself onwards, nearing the barricade with each passing second.

Cloud continued to whirl through the men in front of them, the sheer carnage he was wreaking drawing most of the fire that wasn't already concentrated on whatever was behind them.

Most, but not all.

He saw the bullet before it actually hit anything, his brain processing faster than it should have been able to, in time for him to know that it was coming, that he had run too far ahead of the group and it was just out of his reach, that he had nothing to stop it with, he didn't know how to stop it, didn't know what he was doing, none of them did, nobody knew what they were doing and none of them wanted this, why was any of it happening -- before it punched neatly through Cissnei's chest.

He forced himself to stop and turn around, saw her white uniform suddenly darken almost instantly as she crumpled to the ground, motionless.

"No!"

Zack stumbled in shock, heard Aeris make a choked noise, but Tseng bellowed and stopped altogether, running back to her. "Not here -- not here --"

He didn't see the second one coming, as the thing rushing up behind them lurched forward again and sheared his head off, the infinitely deep nothing moving through him, crunching through bone and skin and grey matter alike, rending it to shreds.

Everything was too loud, too much, too fast. A helicopter crashed into the ground several feet away, erupting into a ball of flame, the rain blurring his vision, everything swirling into a mess of light and sound and blood. Those people were dead. Everyone was dead. He wanted it to stop. He needed it to stop, to shut up -- nothing was stopping --

He didn't move again until Angeal plowed past him, having caught up to him, and began dragging him ahead. There were a couple military cars in sight, visible through the hole Cloud had punched into the barrier up ahead, and he put on one last burst of speed even as gunfire echoed around them. Tifa had already smashed open the window of one with her fist and torn out the driver, who appeared to have been bludgeoned with the same hands that were apparently capable of smashing through bulletproof glass.

The rain stopped again, began gathering and beading against nothing, but this time it was Cloud standing at the centre of the maelstrom as water, and then debris, and then soldiers, cars, twisted bits of metal, all began to gently rise into the air before being thrown by an unseen force, fanning out from the epicentre in a wide swath of devastation.

Behind him swarmed death, ahead of him a wall of guns. He turned to take one last look at the facility that was now crumbling apart entirely, the bodies strewn around them, and the thing that seemed to be lazily shrinking away into nothing.

He turned back just in time for something to impact right into his skull.

 

---

 

"...two hours from here. I don't know how much gas..."

I'm sorry.

You didn't know.

"...get back to my family. I don't know if..."

It shouldn't have mattered.

"He's awake."

Zack opened his eyes to see Angeal, grey-faced and doleful, peering over him. He was contorted at an awkward angle, and as he attempted to sit up he nearly slid off the car seat he'd been lying across. Cloud reached across to keep him upright.

"Where...?"

"We're running," said Cloud, his speech smattered with bits of Standard he was too tired to filter out. "Gotta make it to the coast. Find a ship or something. Have to get out of..."

"France," Aeris supplied from the front seat. Her voice was rough, and she sounded too exhausted for words. Beside her, Tifa was driving, and Zack could see the wheel had been slightly crushed under her grip.

"Where's -- where are the others?" asked Zack. A hush went over the group, as Zack struggled to remember the blur that had been the last... however long it had been. His head was pounding, and the whir of the engine was doing nothing to help.

"Are... are they --"

"There wasn't time to go back for their bodies," said Angeal softly. "Truth be told... we might not have gone back for you, either, if you weren't close enough to the car."

"What happened? How long was I out?"

"Two hours, maybe," said Cloud. "You're probably concussed, but that should clear itself up if it hasn't already."

"Shouldn't I be dead, then?" asked Zack. Two hours sounded way longer than the normal survivable range.

Another uncomfortable look was exchanged.

"Maybe if you were someone else, yeah," said Cloud, "since you were shot in the head."

Zack's hand flew to his forehead then, and came away bloody. There was a small gash through the skin, but it didn't seem like anything below that was damaged.

"'S not so bad," he continued, his voice flat. "I guess now we match."

It was so much blood, though. He'd read somewhere that the head just bled more than other body parts, so injuries were always less serious than they seemed, but there was just so much blood...

He wasn't human anymore, and now that meant something, didn't it?

He was a fugitive on the run from probably every branch of government on Earth. Lazard was dead. Cissnei was dead. Tseng was dead. The project was over. Everyone huddled in this stolen car were all the people involved that had made it, and behind them were about a hundred other people that had been butchered by the man currently checking his pupils for a response with some light he'd manifested out of nowhere in order to make that happen.

He'd dropped the camera with the message for his family on it along with his bag when he'd tried to go back for Cissnei, he realised. They still thought he was dead, most likely. What about her family? Did she have one? Did Lazard? Did Tseng?

He pushed away from Cloud roughly as tears began to collect in the corners of his eyes. Disgusting, crying like this in front of all these people.

They didn't deserve it anyway. He didn't deserve it. This whole thing had been part of the war machine that ate up every scientific achievement anyway, and today had been proof. Every scientist was a soldier. He shouldn't have been surprised when he'd wound up on an actual battlefield.

If there was one consolation to all of this, it was that nobody but Zack had gotten him here, and nobody would ever get him anywhere again. No scholarships, no awards, and no consolations. This was entirely of his own doing.

He could feel the others watching him. Someone put a hand on his shoulder, and he jerked away as the tears began flowing in earnest.

What a joke.

He felt something moving in his pocket -- Remy. He'd forgotten about Remy. He reached in and pulled out the rat. Its bones were still twisted into roughly the shape they should be from the rushed healing, and its breathing was laboured. It would have been kinder to leave it dead; it could barely move in this state, and it was probably in a good deal of pain. But he couldn't make himself kill it, either.

He wordlessly handed the rat to Cloud. Cloud knew how to kill things. That suddenly meant something, too.

Do it quick, he said. Cloud nodded, his face as impassive as ever, and Zack forced himself to watch as the last lab rat of the Gainsborough Project was combed over with soothing hands before its neck was broken again with the tiniest snap.

Chapter 35: Mr. Bean Visits the U N K N O W A B L E C H A S M

Notes:

AND THEN SQUID WENT ON HIATUS FOR THREE MONTHS AND THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER THE END

Sorry about that. On top of this one kind of being a bitch to write, a lot of stuff happened IRL. I'm a year older now, whoa! As such I got two commissions as a Special Birthday Treat:

WaifuJuju drew this! This part hasn't happened yet. Or maybe it has! Would you have noticed if it did? Here's a Regular Beach (TM), though.

Beautiful_Phantom did this one! (TW for body horror.) This technically hasn't happened yet either, but I also legit forgot just how many times I'd put this dumpster man through the wringer. And we're not even done yet!

Both of these people are really chill and you should check out their art, it's very good!

Also very important is this book cover. It was submitted anonymously, but whoever you are, I am in love with it and it's hella rad. Major major props to you for the cover art.

This chapter couldn't have gotten off the ground without a LOT of help. Belderiver as usual for being a big part of why this was written in the first place, as well as Sanctum_C and dailykaley for checking this over and being excellent sounding boards in the process. Larissa was an outstanding beta as well, and helped streamline a lot of this, and gurololikaasy and Beautiful_Phantom for helping me work through some of the messier parts on top of that. livandi also pitched in by answering a lot of questions about minutia in the story that most people probably wouldn't have noticed but I would have and it would have bothered me forever, and la_regina_scrive and Cat also helped out a lot as far as getting some character things worked out now that we're approaching the end of part two in a couple chapters or so. I still feel like I'm forgetting some people. This one was rough, and there were about three hundred different things I wanted to do with it, and unfortunately had to settle on like... four, tops. I intend to reuse some ideas in another story, but that's for later.

Regardless, it's out now. Hooray! As per usual at this point, this chapter contains some graphic depictions of body horror and gore.

Cloud got his first look at a real city on Earth, and suddenly it seemed such a long time ago that Aeris had mentioned she had a garden.

Cloud had come up with a picture in his head that had been slowly but surely demolished over the course of the last few weeks: initially, he'd imagined some severe-looking woman with cold eyes in a long white blood-speckled lab coat, bent over a tiny patch of grass with a few different kinds of flowers, picking at them with her needle-like fingers, pruning away anything less than perfect. Maybe surrounded by rocks or something. And kept in a glass case, the way the few live plants in Shinra Tower had been, to keep the poisons in the air from settling into the leaves, and to prevent employees from stealing them and selling them elsewhere. Live plants could go for as much money in Shinra-owned cities as it would to buy a house in the Sector 7 slums. Or what passed for a house in the Sector 7 slums, anyway.

When they'd finally met, Aeris's eyes were no less intense than he'd imagined them, but most of the picking apart she'd done had been painless, all trucks aside. At first, maybe there'd been something comforting about it. Nonthreatening, perhaps. The only time she'd touched him was... well, when he'd woke up with his hand holding a rubber glove. Still, sterile. Detached. It was a far cry from the personality he'd imagined from their conversations in his head. He didn't know why it was suddenly so much harder to talk to her.

The tiny sample size, too, no longer seemed likely -- they'd passed plenty of grass and trees on the way here before they'd ditched the car in favour of stowing away on a boat. But then, it was a rural area, sort of. The cities were sure to be just as empty and barren.

And now he didn't even know about the dome, protecting a limited precious resource, because as Aeris hurried him through the less-crowded streets of Southampton in an effort to hide them in the nearest alley they could find, a cursory glance told him things were more different here than he could have possibly imagined.

Plants. They were absolutely everywhere, not hidden behind glass, not kept out of reach of passersby, and not tiny, frail, sickly things kept alive only by constant attention and a variety of growth chemicals. Evenly-spaced topiaries along the sidewalks, patches of grass, flowers as long as his forearm, and people walking past all of it as though it were barely worth looking at in the first place. And trees. Actual, real trees -- inside a city. He could actually smell them -- that comforting, loamy scent that managed to gain a foothold even as the fumes from the many, many cars competed with them.

That was another thing -- the cars, and with it, the noise. Even at Junon, another port town filled with machinery and boats and helicopters and jets and a few small airships, there hadn't been this much going on. Or maybe it was the fact that he'd been sealed indoors or out in the wilderness for days on end. Despite him being pretty sure that this place was still smaller than Midgar, it felt bigger, too. The buildings weren't packed together as tightly, and the sky loomed above them without any crumbling wrecks of megalopolises looming in the distance. It was wide, and blue, and the wind that blew in from the ocean carried with it the scent of the food from the many, many shops that lined the roads. A lot of them sold food. There wasn't even anything close to a shortage here. He’d have liked to stop and stare more, but he’d been forced to track the others from alleys and side streets until they’d been able to meet up again -- someone with glowing eyes and a sword nearly as tall as he was was bound to attract attention.

"It's beautiful," said Cloud reverently.

Aeris looked back at him from the seagull she'd been fighting for claim of the alley they'd ducked into and shrugged. "I... suppose it is. The beach is nice --"

"The grass," said Cloud. "How do you get it with all these buildings around?"

"What?"

"It's always something I've wanted to see," said Cloud. "Plants inside a real city. And on the way here, there was trees, and grass, and... I mean... I told you about Shinra," he added, looking at the sky, which was full of clouds and unmistakably blue. "I know you didn't see the Wastes, but they stretch on for days. There's a desert where Old Corel used to be. The Junon Bay is still corrosive, even if the water doesn't catch fire much anymore. So much of the Planet was dead or dying, and by the time anyone believed that was happening it was almost too late, but here..."

Aeris exchanged an uncomfortable look with Zack, who had looked up from the ball he'd curled himself in to shut out the tortuous sounds and smells of the city around them at where the conversation had gone.

"I mean..." began Zack, scratching his neck nervously, "if it's any consolation, we haven't reached that point yet. Getting there, though. A lot of stuff's definitely gone extinct."

"...Oh."

That figured. Maybe this place was more like home than he'd thought.

"That's... I had thought, at first, I could have used your testimony to change some minds," said Aeris. "Bit late for that now, though," she added, shooing away the last seagull. "What matters now is coming up with a plan and getting out of here alive."

"Right," said Cloud, once again left with nothing he could use to approach the woman in front of him currently discussing train tickets with Angeal.

Did she blame him for the project going down in flames? She must have. She'd barely spoken to him since. But it hadn't been his fault, had it? Maybe he had done something, and just didn't realise...

He couldn't think of anything, though. If he was sure of anything through that nightmarish blur that had followed his body being melted away into someone else's, chunk by chunk, it was that in the last lucid moment he'd had prior, Zack had called him first, and he'd been powerless to resist the way he'd always been. Though Zack seemed to think Aeris was mad at him anyway, if not for that reason. How much did Zack remember? Did he remember the tug of Reunion? The feel of Cloud disappearing into himself, mind and body alike? Did he remember how nice it had felt to be whole?

Cloud forced himself to take a deep breath of the unfamiliar city air and forced himself to focus on whatever was rotting in the dumpster next to him. He gagged a moment later and nearly threw up, but it had cleared his head, at least.

Across from him, Zack had curled back up into his ball again, and Angeal was on the lookout for anyone searching the city as Tifa stepped out from the alley and disappeared around the corner. They were all stuck here until she got back with clothes and food. She was the only one of them that was dressed appropriately, could walk about in public without hiding her eyes, and hadn't been positively identified by anyone so far. Aeris left with her a moment later.

Angeal sat down against a wall next to Zack to grieve. That left Cloud alone with his thoughts -- one of his least favourite places to be.

He looked around for something to take his mind off things. There wasn't really much around him. Dirt. Rocks. A few bits of litter that hadn't been picked up. Idiots -- it'd all bite them in the ass eventually, if it hadn't already.

He willed the lid to the dumpster open and moved the old snack wrapper and crushed soda cans inside it without even having to try. This sort of thing had felt almost effortless since he'd come here. The whole place barely felt real, so he didn't have to try very hard to convince himself something could be happening, even if it very clearly wasn't. The wall behind him felt like a vague suggestion of itself even as solid as it was. He cautiously raised a hand and simply slipped it through the brick as easily as he would through fog, marvelling at the strange tingling he felt as he removed his hand, and examined it curiously. Was this how Sephiroth had experienced the world? Perhaps this is what he'd meant when he had always felt different from everyone else. Apart from the other, obvious ways.

He could just talk to Zack, maybe. Ask him if he felt any different. Or maybe just talk more about Earth. But he didn't really know him very well, and he knew Angeal even less. And Tifa was both busy and seemed wary of him for the time being. Maybe he could wait for Aeris to come back and finally talk to her then. He could just talk to her. He could say something about... about how he liked how her eyes were a nice kind of green, and not the bad kind. Or maybe he could ask about the kinds of things she grew, now that he knew flowers were apparently common, even within densely-packed urban areas like this. Or how they hadn't really ever touched properly. Maybe they could do it now? Or he could talk about... about...

His chest hurt again.

About how he felt numb and empty without anything looking out through his eyes and guiding him away from thoughts he couldn't handle thinking on his own. Before, Mother had always helped him through his time alone in the Box. And afterwards it had been Tifa that had sat next to him as he looked out at the sky. And now Aeris...

He checked to make sure Angeal and Zack were too busy collecting themselves to notice, then carefully unwound the bandage he'd tied around his left wrist. The tattoo really was there, then, still as clear as it had been before. His fingers traced the number -- his number -- reverently, as though he were afraid it would rub off. Maybe its appearance was a sign; it had returned to him when he'd needed comfort. Even now, he felt himself slowly calming as he went over the distinctive L.C., the letters denoting he'd been chosen by the Director, hand picked even, to be hers. She'd never really left him, even if the last thing she'd ever said to him was...

Well. Maybe she was just confused. She'd been recently gutted, after all, and it wasn't as though she was even the first person who'd said it. For about the hundredth time, he cursed his size, his weak features, his weak everything.

He buried his face in his shirt. It still smelled like Tifa -- like home. He thought it would make him feel better, but the hurt just twisted even deeper. How long did he have before the smell faded?

 

---

 

Clothes were the main issue right now. Tifa, having recently been interrupted in the middle of an actual trip, had brought spare outfits with the bag she'd managed to keep with her throughout the entire mess. It was less of a problem for Aeris, or even Cloud, who was used to sharing clothes with her by now, even if her pants didn't quite fit his hips (and regardless of what Cloud's thoughts were on the matter, it was just one more benefit Tifa had noticed he had due to his small stature). This left Angeal and Zack in the recognisable (and more importantly blood-and-mud-spattered) white uniforms of the facility. Angeal was older and taller, and Zack towered over all of them, and neither one of them could have squeezed into even her bulkiest, most practical work pants.

Aside from clothes, they'd also need sunglasses for Cloud and Zack, and from there they'd have to take a train to Reading, Aeris's house, and try and regroup from there. But nobody had any money to do any of that, either.

But really, what was one more criminal offense at this point? Which was why she had defaulted to their old method of fundraising from their days at Avalanche -- namely, theft. And more specific to right now, pickpocketing.

As usual, much of the heavy lifting of this bit would be on Tifa to salvage. She would have preferred Cloud's help since he already knew what to do, but the lack of sunglasses meant he would have to sit things out until she at least found some shades for him to wear; and while he could probably navigate the city well enough with his eyes closed via sound and scent, it was something that would probably draw more attention than they needed to. On Tifa's end of things, the scent was more of a hindrance than anything else. The city was huge, and full of people, and every one of them had their own scent, as did the things they bought and the buildings they went in and out of and the traces they left as they hurried to and from each one. And god, the cars -- the air was laced with chemical pollutants, muddying everything she could have picked up anyway. Someone -- maybe Cloud, but probably Zack, who was as new to this scent thing as she was -- wasn't helping matters by beaming some sort of panic attack right into her brain.

With him, Cloud, and Angeal stashed in an alley until further notice, that had left Aeris as the only normal-passing person they'd had in the group, and therefore her partner on this... job.

Aeris, to her credit, seemed very eager to learn as she explained the basics of what they'd be doing.

"You have to be perfectly forgettable," Tifa had explained, unsure of how much of the mishmash of Standard and English was getting through to her. "Polite enough about it without making their day, in enough of a hurry to leave the conversation without coming off as hostile or suspicious. And of course, the rest of it has to look natural, too."

"Right," said Aeris. "What about you? Should I signal you?"

"Don't even look at me," said Tifa. "They can't be following your eyes when I'm walking past you. Just meet me further around the corner. Either I'll have it or I won't."

She had them watch from a distance for a while, spotting potential marks. Eventually, she decided on a young woman in a green jacket, waiting by a crosswalk a few steps away. She'd emerged from a shop in just enough of a hurry for them to be able to see exactly which pocket she'd slipped her wallet into. Perfect.

Aeris was sent out first, to cut her off. Tifa began approaching them from the other direction, carrying her jacket under her arm. She watched as Aeris seemed to trip on a crack in the sidewalk and stumble forward into the woman, smiling awkwardly and muttering an apology that would have been lost in the din of the street anyway, giving Tifa just enough time to sweep past them both, lifting her wallet out of her pocket in the process and hiding the whole thing from any passersby behind her jacket. The whole thing took about ten seconds, and she hopefully wouldn't notice for a few hours.

She rounded the corner and hurried down the street, to meet Aeris a few blocks west of where they'd started, rifling through the wallet under the cover of her jacket in the process. Anything that felt vaguely paper-like, she took. The thin strips of plastic, she left. She didn't know how credit discs worked in this world, but if Cissnei's matchbook-sized supercomputer was any indication, they could certainly track transactions on them just as well if not better than they could back home. Even if they couldn't she had no network in place here where she'd be able to make use of the data in the first place. She thought of Jessie and their conversations about which credit companies were worth defrauding and sighed.

She ditched the wallet on the ground as she entered a particularly tight clump of pedestrians. If their mark suspected she'd been robbed, any of them could have taken it. And if she didn't, there it was on the ground, where she must have clearly dropped it by accident. Normally she'd have preferred to drop it in a heap of trash, but there didn't really seem to be any of those lying around the sidewalk in this strange almost-paradise.

She spotted Aeris jogging to catch up with her and motioned for her to follow her to the empty space behind a nearby restaurant.

"How did I do?" she asked. "Did I talk too much?"

"Your talking was fine," said Tifa. "You were a little early, though. Nearly wasn't there in time."

Aeris nodded. "Did we get anything good?"

"I wouldn't know," said Tifa, handing off the unfamiliar bills to Aeris, whose eyes widened.

"A hundred and thirty," she said, after she finished counting. "That's not bad." She hesitated, then pocketed the cash herself, the guilt evident on her face.

"If you don't want to be doing this, you can say so," said Tifa. "I can buy some sunglasses for Cloud right now and we can switch off..."

"No," said Aeris decisively. "I'd... prefer to be doing something. Keep myself focused."

Tifa nodded. "...Let's keep going, then. We're off to a good start, at least."

All in all, they wound up going through about nine different wallets. Technically ten, with one of them having absolutely nothing in it but a handful of change, which they'd decided to leave on the sidewalk in plain view in the hopes that it would be found by the right person. It was a lot harder to feel guilty about stealing from people rich enough to live on the plate, but she was reasonably sure she was taking food money from most of these people, judging from Aeris's reaction. And yet she seemed to have doubled down on their efforts anyway. Tifa would have liked to say something, but there wasn't really anything she could think of to console someone she'd known for a few days tops on the deaths of their colleagues that had potentially ruined her life anyway.

One thing at a time, she told herself. You have an immediate problem with an immediate fix. See if you can even make it past that one.

Clothes next. Aeris had told her to buy as cheap as possible, and had set aside money for food and train fare, since apparently they wouldn't need to fake ID to make it onto the transportation here. There were surveillance cameras everywhere here as well, but as far as Aeris knew, most of them weren't being monitored live.

A pair of pants for Cloud, and a belt instead of a second one to save money. He'd already proven himself able to fit into at least one of hers. Two for Zack and Angeal apiece. She'd been told the measurements she was supposed to have been getting, but suppose they used a different system, and just called it the same thing? Suppose she misunderstood the cost?

She had half a mind to just steal the pants anyway; just another offense to throw on the pile, and they could spend the money on food until they got out far enough out into the wilderness to hunt.

Then what?

Maybe she could just get to it when she got to it. She had to…

…pick up the pants she didn’t remember dropping. She was tired. She was just tired. Maybe she could sleep on the train. That was something she hadn’t done in years, either…

She’d dropped the pants again. She knelt to pick them up, and was met face to face with the concerned-looking clerk, staring right at her with an alarmed expression.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Oh gods, English. Her accent would give her away, if nothing else.

“I am okay,” she said, forcing herself not to look directly at the door. “I am fine. Why are you asking?"

“You kinda…” the clerk cleared his throat nervously. The inflections were different from Aeris’s, but not quite like Zack’s either, making it even harder to understand him. “Look, I’m not gonna judge or nothing. D'you want me to call you a doctor?”

"A doctor?"

“Yeah, if you're not feeling well. Are you?" he fished. Tifa swallowed. If they were anything like the doctors in Edge, she may as well hand herself into the police right now.

“No, I’m okay. Why…?”

"No reason," said the clerk. "Just... didn't look so good for a minute there. I'll go ahead and get out of your way, then."

Tifa would have liked to stop him as he walked away, because suddenly she was holding pants that she couldn't remember picking up, and she was acutely aware of how badly her head hurt. Her chest, too, that ached so much it hurt to breathe. She began to cough, and she was afraid for a moment she was going to suffocate, unable to get a single breath in until it let up. Something warm and wet splattered all over the crook of her arm.

...She refused to look at it. She could smell what it was, but she refused to look. She pressed her palm to her chest and worked her own healing as deep into her flesh as it would go, for all the good it would do, and wiped it off on the side of her shirt. It was already black. Probably wouldn't show up. She'd be fine.

Until Cloud smelled it, anyway.

How long would it take to get back home? How long could she live without mako? Would she survive the mako itself once she got it?

She had to believe she'd live. They all needed her, she had to live... though, if she did, it'd be like this. There wasn't a cure for Jenova, after all. What would it be like, with the virus ravaging her DNA? Could she handle being as far-gone as Cloud was, human in principle only? What did she look like when she moved? Were people already starting to stare? Could they tell?

Surely her family...

Her family. She might not ever see them again. Either she'd have a future -- here, in this strange world with these strange people she didn't even know, or she'd die, and Cloud would...

Would what? Kill himself? Maybe. Who'd want to spend the rest of their life alone twice over? It made sense, in a way. Not worrying about what could happen, about that long, empty stretch ahead of him where nothing that you were had any meaning because all of it was fucking useless --

She was still holding pants, and she was in a store. She must have been buying the pants. Why pants? They couldn't eat those. Worry about everything later. Only later was going to be whenever she got back in maybe ten minutes with these pants. Or food. Or something.

Tifa? Are you okay?

Or right now. Shit. She could feel Cloud's anxiety steadily prodding deeper and deeper into her own mind. She quickly scooped up the change from the transaction and hurried out of the store.

I'm fine. I just...

You've been gone a long time, he said. And something didn't... feel right. Should I come find you?

No, I can find you myself. The gentle tug of Reunion was still vaguely there as well, trying to guide her back to the only other infected people in this world. So this is how he'd done it. I just... need to finish up shopping.

Why don't you trust me?

What?

You don't trust me to help. The anxiety increased, now threaded with frustration. You think I'm gonna make it all worse.

That's not it! she protested. It's really not, I swear, it... you can't be worrying about this right --

I'm awake here, he said suddenly. I feel more awake here than I have in years. Just -- just let me help you. Please. I just want to help. You helped me, right? But --

Something changed in his demeanour, as though he'd realised something.

...I love you. You know that, right? I really, really do, and I just never know how to say it so you'll believe me, so it... so it means anything.

I know you do, said Tifa. She was running out of blocks until she came within smelling range.

I do, he said, more insistently. Everything I am that's... that's good about me, that's worth being with you, is because of you. All of you. You've... you've made me a better person when I didn't know how to do it myself.

Tifa wasn't sure if this was supposed to be comforting. She had never felt less comforted in her life. It got worse as he continued to speak.

On my own, I just... I fuck up all the time, and it's why you -- I get it. I know why you don't trust me. I... I wouldn't trust me either. But -- but when I'm with you, it's like...

Tifa paused on the sidewalk, swallowing. ...Cloud?

...You're right, he said. You always tell me what to do, because I don't know what to do on my own, and I -- and it -- and I've never been happier than when... than when I know what to do, and what I'm doing makes you happy, and... and I need you to remind me. I need you to remind me what makes me happy. Because I never know how to -- how to help, how to do anything, and it's -- it's empty, all the time, not knowing, and -- I can't -- I need --

His thoughts were less organised now. More frantic. Tifa felt all the moisture leave her mouth.

What do you mean? she asked, as though she didn't know and wasn't dreading the answer.

If I have to be used by anyone, said Cloud, then I want it to be you.

No.

Just for one day, he argued. Just until we get to where Aeris is leading us. Just -- I know you would never make me do anything I wouldn't want to, and that's -- that's part of why I want you to do it. You wouldn't. But I might, because I'm not meant to -- to do things on my own, I don't know how --

Cloud, I can't --

I know I'm a burden to you, he pressed. I'm not saying it to make you feel bad, I'm -- I know I am. But maybe you -- maybe I don't have to be one, just for a little. Because I'll be alright, because I'll be -- I'll be someone who makes you happy. That's all I want to do. I want to help. Everything I am already belonged to you guys anyway. I don't want to be anything but that. It's better than... than being what I would be otherwise.

Stop it, Cloud.

I --

I said stop.

She couldn't hold him together much longer. She was sick. She was going to die and leave behind everything she'd ever loved, that needed her so much, and she still didn't even know what she'd leave behind for herself if there was anything at all, and if they knew -- if anyone knew...

And here he was, volunteering... something she didn't even want to think about. He was offering everything he was, in a very literal way. The kind of violation he'd fought against for years, struggled with every single day of his life since.

But if she had it, instead of Jenova... if it would give her just a minute -- just a single instant, to where he wouldn't see...

She stepped out of the middle of the sidewalk and sat down on the nearest bench, just to get out of the way. She closed her eyes, suddenly noticing the dull headache she'd had the entire time, and guided herself toward it.

He was there waiting for her -- snarled strands of thought, winding around hers before shrinking away. They were brittle, she found, as she slowly pushed in further, feeling them splinter and disappear as she passed by, no matter how gentle she was. New ones appeared soon after, easily malleable, barely there at all, like afterimages.

It scared her how easy it was, to brush aside any resistance he might've had. This was just because he'd wanted this, wasn't it? Was it this easy for Jenova? For Sephiroth? He didn't seem to be in any distress, though that could have been because she didn't want him to be. She didn't really have to force anything -- he was simply there, wafting about her own thoughts with almost no input from herself. And there was so little here, as though it was made for someone to do these things in the first place. Like someone had reached inside and scraped away anywhere he could have pushed her back.

Someone had done that, she remembered with a thrill of revulsion. Now she understood, just a little bit, what that meant. Was this the state he was in, when she'd had to hold his hand and hope and pray he came back to them?

Tifa forced herself away, already sickened by what she'd seen. This was exactly the reason she couldn't have that instant for herself, that --

Why did you stop?

Tifa's train of thought ground to an abrupt halt. What?

Did I do something wrong?

Tifa fell silent.

...Tifa?

Don't talk to me right now.

And then so did Cloud.

"Er..."

Tifa shook herself and found Aeris standing next to her, trying to indirectly block people who were starting to stare. "Are you alright?"

"Yes."

"...Oh. Is..."

Tifa forced herself not to look at the concern on Aeris's face.

"We have to keep going," said Tifa, too tired to bother with English again, and jogged ahead.

 

---

 

For one brief, glorious moment, Cloud had finally been whole again.

There had been someone with him, pressed against his thoughts, and even as he had sat here in the alleyway, an invisible wall between him and everyone else, he wasn't alone -- someone else threading their way into him, part of him the way he was always meant to be.

There was no need to worry about doing the wrong thing anymore. In fact, he couldn't do the wrong thing, or even think about anything that he shouldn't be thinking of. There was only Tifa, and her presence, and the incredible relief of being freed from something he had never known how to handle in the first place -- the dreadful burden of being empty.

He would always feel that way, he'd realised before. He was Hojo's, and then he was his family's, and for a short while he was no one's. Now he was back where he belonged again. How lucky he was that he wouldn't be able to forget it anymore, was the last thought he'd had as someone who could have those sorts of thoughts on their own -- how wonderful it was, that he was finally, finally useful --

-- and then it stopped.

Cold dread began seeping through him as he waited there in the alley for Tifa to return. He'd failed. She was already stressed out, and he'd gone and made it worse, and she was going to realise she couldn't be around him and leave.

He allowed Mother to probe Her way closer to him again. Mother would never leave. Mother would always need him. Mother couldn't leave him the way everyone else could leave him --

His head pounded, and across from him he heard Zack stifle a sound of pain. It roused him enough for him to notice that there was a broken chunk of brick digging into his leg through his pants, and that it was very uncomfortable sitting like this, and that Aeris had handed him a pair of sunglasses. She was back then, along with Tifa. He fumbled with the sunglasses, not daring to even look at the others, and slid them on. The world seemed just as dim to him with them on as it was without. Maybe it was something in the air here.

Now that he could actually afford to look up without drawing unnecessary attention to his eyes, he took another look at what little of the city he could see. It was a bit colder here, the way Junon was colder -- cool ocean air blowing in off the water, with almost none of the toxins he was used to. The gulls wheeling about over their heads looked fat and healthy. Surely that was a good sign?

Perhaps it wouldn't be so terrible if he was abandoned here, he thought as he waited for Angeal to change clothes -- this world didn't seen quite as dead as theirs was, at least. And he'd felt strange ever since coming here. Not necessarily in a bad way, but the odd little skips and stutters in his thoughts were gone, and in their place was a kind of lucidity he wasn't sure he'd ever experienced before. Mother was closer than ever here, but Her voice seemed clearer to him, weaving Herself into his thoughts rather than burning them away with the loudest silence.

The buildings were strange, too -- they looked almost the way buildings should, but there was something not quite right about each one of them -- the way the lines seemed to curve in ways they shouldn't while appearing straight, or how they seemed a thousand miles high at times and yet flat as paper at others. Had it always been this way? The white walls of the lab might have made it harder to notice. Maybe he could ask Tifa if --

...Well. Angeal wasn't acknowledging it, and neither were Aeris or Zack, so he probably shouldn't either.

Angeal stepped out from behind the dumpster so Zack could take his place. Cloud took the opportunity to pick the gravel out of his ankles before standing up.

"...Where next?" he asked to no one in particular, unsure if it was appropriate to talk to any of them directly at this point.

"Next, we get day tickets," said Aeris. "Tifa's going to have to do that, too."

“And then what?”

Cloud looked up at Angeal, who discarded his muddy uniform in the dumpster next to them.

“No idea,” said Aeris dully. “We’re fugitives now, and half the people we could’ve trusted are dead. We need to catch our breaths somewhere. No one’s slept since… well...”

Cloud glanced at Tifa nervously. She was always better at this sort of thing than he was.

...She isn’t sure where to go, he said to her, prodding in as unobtrusively as he possibly could. He saw Tifa tense up at his presence, but he continued to translate anyway. She’s tired. The train tickets will be for one day, and I can follow from the alley until I get close enough to go underground, and maybe we can hide the sword under a trolley -- the kind they put bags on, I think, and Zack says he hears something --

And then Tifa tensed up further, because Cloud knew she could finally hear as clearly as he could the distinctive hiss of an MP radio moving closer. They were finally searching here, too. They’d spent entirely too long in this alley.

“We have to go," urged Tifa. "Now. Tell them we have to go.”

“Tifa says --” began Cloud, before he was cut off by a hushed, “Shit, they’re here” from Zack.

“Everyone scatter,” said Aeris. “Meet up at the station when things quiet down."

"How are we supposed to find each other again?" said Zack. "It's not like anyone has a phone anymore."

"Tifa and I," said Cloud. "And you. We can find everyone. You all smell different."

"I don't know how to --"

"You'll know how to find us," interjected Cloud, cutting Zack off. "Reunion. We have to go."

They quickly dispersed after dividing up the money they'd gotten into equal chunks, just in case. Cloud remained in the alley for a moment longer to examine his. They were all marked with little numbers, but surely the oblong coins marked with a twenty weren't worth as much as the papers?

He stuffed the wad of currency into his pocket, working out some of the kinks in his neck left over from hiding himself between crates in the cargo hold of a ship, and silently hopped up onto the roof. From up here, he could see a helicopter in the distance, likely waiting for the ground forces they’d sent out to report back.

He closed his eyes and focused on Aeris's scent. There weren't any useful markers accompanying hers the way there was with Tifa and her shampoo and the things she made in the kitchen, given Aeris had been in a cleanroom for weeks on end. Still, everyone gave off some sort of smell. Right now she smelled of stress, mostly. But there was something else familiar about it, too. Comforting, even. It reminded him a little of...

...Of Director Crescent. Cloud blinked hard. Surely he was imagining that? He scampered across to the next rooftop, concentrating on the half-submerged memory it had brought to the surface. Perhaps she was related somehow. Would that even be possible?

No, he realised, as he gently hopped down into another alley to try and find another cluster of buildings where he wouldn't be spotted. She didn't smell related -- there was a particular kind of familiarity between relatives and the smells they gave off. And she didn't really look anything like her, either, apart from the fact that they both had brown hair. And were doctors. But he couldn't see Aeris making him go in the Box, anyway.

A strangled scream behind him derailed his train of thought, and he turned around with his sword drawn, subtlety be damned.

He dropped it an instant later as he was met with his own face.

Standing next to him -- the other him in the alley, kneeling and wearing the Soldier First Class uniform he'd worked so hard to earn, was the Director, slowly and efficiently sliding her scalpel into Cloud's eye, with the purpose of removing it entirely. He remembered this; they'd attempted to replace them with artificial implants that would wirelessly transmit footage to a closed circuit system. It hadn't worked, and they'd had to remove them to let his eyes grow back a month later when he was still blind and also suffering from bacterial meningitis.

He hadn't fought back the entire time, even as they grew angrier and angrier that he could see nothing but snow. He knew better by then, and he couldn't afford to. He didn't want to lose his uniform. Or worse, his number.

Cloud swallowed and closed his eyes. "You're not real," he told himself. "You died. I killed you."

"You can see me, Series 3," said Lucrecia. "Why am I not real?" He felt a sudden stabbing pain in his own eyes that brought him to his knees, and he opened them to find he'd lost sight in one, the sensation of fluid dribbling down his cheeks all too convincing.

"No," he choked out. "No, you're not -- you --" he clutched at his face, around the eye she'd removed, and found it dry. Suddenly the other Cloud was gone, and she was much, much closer. She leveled the scalpel at the eye he could still see out of.

"I'm hallucinating," he said to himself firmly. "I've hallucinated before."

"What do you think you are or aren't seeing?" said Lucrecia, her voice as part of him as it had always been. "Those aren't your eyes."

She buried the scalpel into his other eye, and this time he clamped his teeth together and refused to scream, as she dug deeper and deeper into the soft tissue, ruining it but not yet pulling it out. None of it was real. He'd had worse from Hojo anyway. Lucrecia never liked to get her hands dirty all that often. He was going to count to ten, and it would all just disappear.

One, he though. Two. My eyes are fine. I can still smell Tifa. Three. Four. Gotta keep moving, it's not safe to stay here talking to yourself. Five...

The pain was lessening, but his vision hadn't returned yet.

"They're no one's eyes," said a voice that sounded like Lucrecia's, but wasn't.

"Meant for seeing nothing," said another one. "Looking under the surface under the surface. Give them back. Let me in."

Something gently, lovingly traced through his hair and settled at his jaw. He swallowed. The real Lucrecia had never touched him like that. Not really, anyway. Only once.

He immediately jerked his head away and sank his teeth into where he was reasonably sure her hand was. Pain immediately flared up from his teeth through his entire body as he heard something huge rear back with a deafening screech. He gasped, and then for an instant he wasn't kneeling in an alley. He didn't seem to be kneeling anywhere. There was no pain, ground underneath him, no scents drifting around him, no traffic overlaying the sound of hurried conversation -- he couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't breathe -- and he scrambled away, fumbling for his sword in the dark. His fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword, and he closed his eyes, frantically trying to force away the sea of unfamiliar smells to attune his other senses to the thing thrashing about in front of him.

Something was moving really quickly towards him, he realised, as he felt the air shift around it. That wasn't good --

He barely managed to move the sword in time to keep himself from being trampled, but it didn't keep him from being flung several metres away, landing in the middle of the street. He blinked, seeing the impossible buildings in this world wheeling overhead as clear as day, along with the crowd of people gawking at him lying prone on the grimy pavement. He kicked himself to his feet, noticing all too late that there were several people in uniform in the crowd that seemed to be looking right at him as well. He quickly scanned the crowd for more of them. Three on the left, four up ahead -- hopefully he'd spent long enough in the alley where he hadn't lead them straight to them, but --

There, approaching him from the alley. He'd recognise him in a heartbeat. Which wasn't saying much, he was easily recognisable anyway. The coat, since it wasn't as though he'd have to follow uniform standards. The boots, immaculately clean, since there wasn't much reason to deploy him anywhere, after Wutai. The hair, that Cloud himself had tried growing his own out to match, until he'd realised that long hair was stupid and juvenile anyway, and quite frankly he should've counted himself lucky that his own hadn't gone white as well, after everything they'd done to him.

And there was no mistaking the eyes, either, eyes he'd once prayed for with every fibre of his being up until he got them. Cold. Inhuman. Bright, poisonous green.

He stood there for what felt like minutes. Maybe hours. Mother intensified Her volume in his head, the way it always had, and everything sounded strange and far away and muffled. But...

...he didn't have a scent now. That wasn't right...

He's not here, thought Cloud. He can't be here. He's dead, it doesn't make sense, they both died...

The flash of light glinting off a sword he knew all too well what it was like to be stabbed with dragged him back to reality.

Once again, he barely managed to block in time as Sephiroth came hurtling at him, forcing him to take a step back as the general's strike collided with his blade. That, too, felt all wrong; it hit sooner than it should have, and Cloud realised that Masamune wasn't even touching his sword, the space in front of it apparently filled with something a lot broader -- and solid -- than he was apparently seeing.

Sephiroth raised his sword again for a flurry of strikes, and this time Cloud twisted out of the way as it went whistling past him, cleaving through the concrete like a hot iron through snow. The crowd was backing away now, eliciting screams from a few of them. If Cloud didn't have the attention of the search party before, he certainly did now.

"I didn't even have time for you two years ago," he said to Sephiroth. "Like hell I have time for you now."

Cloud turned around and bolted.

Behind him he heard the air whistling past a blade, and leapt out of the way onto a balcony across the street, using it to launch himself into the air again towards the roof as he heard the crowd gasp beneath him. He heard concrete and metal crunch behind him, and spared a glance over his shoulder -- Sephiroth had lunged at the balcony he'd just jumped from, rending it to shreds as he collided with it. He alighted on the side of the building, since gravity was more of a polite suggestion as far as he was always concerned, then fixed his acid green eyes on Cloud and lunged again.

Get to the train station, he said to Tifa, as the men in uniform had all taken notice of him by now. He picked up speed, not wanting to deflect Sephiroth and a flurry of gunfire at the same time. Break in, pay, hijack the train, I don't care. We need to get out of here now. He streaked across the roof far more quickly than any human would have been able to run in a lifetime of training, even as Sephiroth glided towards him effortlessly, getting closer and closer. Cloud put on another frantic burst of speed as he neared the edge of the row of brownstones he was racing across.

Sephiroth is back, he thought as hard as he possibly could, unsure if Zack was hearing any of this, or if he could convey it to anyone he was nearby. I don't -- I don't know how, I thought he was dead -- just grab the others and get the hell out of there. I'll catch up.

Cloud, wait --

"What is it?!" he heard someone scream. "What's -- what's doing it?"

Below him, he could see the uniformed men yelling and pointing at Cloud himself in alarm, but none of them seemed to be going near him, or even look at the man currently chasing him through the city with a sword. Everyone staring was looking solely at Cloud.

In the distance, he saw something else alarming; more of the officers closing in on Zack and Angeal that he'd drawn to their position, trying to push in through the throng of fleeing pedestrians.

Zack --

His focus was interrupted as the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and suddenly he could hear Sephiroth breathing behind him.

He dove off the end of the last building, landing in a crouch, then turning and running the other way as Sephiroth charged ahead off the roof after him before correcting himself and rushing towards Cloud again.

He was just chasing him, Cloud realised. There was no strategy, no thought...

Cloud frowned and ground to a halt.

For a moment, Sephiroth did too, before rushing towards him again. Cloud readied his sword, the blood rushing in his ears as his world narrowed down to the man in front of him, the crowd falling away into the background as irrelevant noise. He braced himself, then charged forward to meet him.

It all felt... fake. The buildings, the trees around them... for one instant, in the alley in his own body. But he knew Lucrecia hadn't really been there. He knew he still had both eyes. And he knew that Sephiroth was dead. Sephiroth died two years ago. Sephiroth was the deadliest thing Soldier had ever produced for a reason, and it wasn't because he blindly chased after opponents with little regard for something that might be an obvious trap.

He forced himself to believe it with everything he had as he leapt at the last minute, vaulting over Sephiroth and twisting around in midair to slash at his back.

His blade cleaved through something that seemed solid as easily as Sephiroth had swept through steel and concrete with no resistance with naught but his mere presence, and he landed in a crouch, blade still held at the ready. There was a cut up and down Sephiroth's body, nearly bisecting him vertically as --

That wasn't right. It was behind him. The cut was behind him in midair, even as Sephiroth seemed to split open anyway, his body twitching and convulsing while everything that Cloud was seeing was telling him that he'd missed, that he hadn't cut Sephiroth at all. The world around him finally burst just as Sephiroth himself did, and out spilled...

Music.

The most beautiful, terrible sound there was. Mother, in all Her glory, louder than She had ever been, the pattern repeating, twisting, permeating every cell in his body as the pain in his head suddenly returned with a vengeance. There was a yawning emptiness where Sephiroth had once stood, rapidly shrinking away into nothing, beneath it all a steadily growing low roar, and he wanted more than anything to fling himself into it and to know peace and to be whole.

"Cloud -- !"

A voice in the distance caught his attention, and he looked up. The music was growing louder and louder and louder -- he looked around and saw some of the pedestrians around them clutching their ears. They likely couldn't hear it the way he could, but as loud as it was they were obviously hearing something. He scanned the crowd, and saw Zack standing there, staring at the music with an expression akin to horror. Angeal was shouting at him over the noise, trying to pull him away from the five officers now sprinting towards him through the chaos.

Cloud forced himself away from where Sephiroth had been, where something was violently struggling behind something inside the air itself, and ran towards the two of them, tearing past the men and grabbing Zack's arm as Angeal brought up the rear behind them. The crowd parted around them as he began forcing himself through, and he forced himself further into it -- they couldn't shoot any of them this time if there were too many civilians in the way. Unless they used the Sector 4 method of crowd control, in which case they wouldn't care.

"Aeris is up ahead!" shouted Zack, seemingly unaware of the fact that he'd been standing there for the last few moments. "Tifa's following her, I don't know if they've made it to the station yet."

"Cloud!" The same voice from earlier -- Aeris's. Up ahead, and approaching them against the flow of the crowd.

The colour drained from Angeal's face, but Zack was the one that spoke up."What the fuck are you doing?!"

"Tifa said you were in danger," said Aeris breathlessly, as she began to run with them. "I had to --"

"Come back?" snapped Cloud. "No you don't! What did you think you were going to do?"

Behind them, the music was increasing in volume, shattering glass and twisting metal, pressing outwards and outwards. Cloud watched as a nearby car crumpled like a tin can and then simply folded into nothing. The crowd around them thickened as they all began pushing towards the train station.

"I am not losing anyone else!" she screamed. "All of this is pointless enough as it is!"

"You --"

"Later!" yelled Angeal. "We need to move now!"

There was a bottleneck at the entrance of the subway as everyone shoved against one another to try and get away from whatever it was that was ripping the avenue apart. He could sense Tifa further inside, pulling him (whether she was doing it consciously or not) and he was forced to let go of Zack and Angeal to make a hole for them by ramming his shoulder into one of the turnstiles, ripping it from the concrete it was set into and tipping it over, allowing another surge of fleeing pedestrians through. Ahead of him, he saw Aeris fighting her way through the crowd to a train platform in the opposite direction, with Zack and Angeal following suit.

"Other way!" he shouted to her, waving them over. The tugging in his head was growing stronger, but so was the growing hole in the world. Ahead he could see a train -- it probably wasn't the right one, but at this point he didn't care, and he doubted any of these people did either. The doors were already closing. He fought his way through and managed to catch the edge of one, forcing the metal back with gritted teeth. More people began to flood onto the train, and he saw Aeris and Zack pass through as the motor squealed in protest, trying to close it on his hand.

"Where's Angeal?!" he yelled. He scanned the crowd but didn't see him anywhere. A cold pit of dread settled in his stomach.

"Thought he was following Zack," said Aeris. "We have to wait for him, we need to --"

The train lurched as it began moving. A few unlucky people lunged for the opening Cloud had made entirely too late, and he forced himself to look away so he wouldn't have to see the realisation of death settle in on their faces. He moved his hand away, causing the door to slam shut.

"What are you doing?" she screamed. "We need to go back for him!"

"Aeris --"

"No! Let me go back -- I'm going back -- mmph!"

He clamped his hand over her mouth, and a moment later she saw why -- it wasn't just civilians that had piled onto the train.

Cloud motioned for them to move further back along the overstuffed cars as the officers began to weave through the panicking crowd as well, searching it.

Tifa was here. They just needed to find Tifa.

Two cars, then three, then four. The distance he was putting between themselves and the search party as he wrenched the doors open felt negligible at best. He found her crouched in the corner of the sixth car down, hands clutching her ears in agony at the constant chatter of the crowd and the roar of the train around them.

I'm here.

She looked up, then looked away, and Cloud felt her probe a bit wider, needling his headache yet again.

Can't look like I know you. They're not looking for me. She did sit up a bit straighter, though. Where's Angeal?

Don't know, said Cloud. I don't know. They're -- they're still looking for us. We have maybe two minutes.

"What do we do now?" muttered Zack to himself. "Nowhere left to run."

"Easy," said Cloud. "We jump. I've done it before --"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he hissed. "We just got done being meat slurry. Fuck that."

"We have to go back to Angeal -- we have to --" Aeris was panicking, her eyes fixed on the doors in front of them. They could see the crowd moving to accommodate someone forcing their way through the cars as well.

"It'll be a bloodbath," Tifa said to him in Standard. "There are too many people in the way."

"There's nowhere to jump to," Zack said suddenly, peering out a window. "It's -- it's all tunnel wall."

"We can't stay here," said Tifa, this time forcing English out. "They -- they wait for us, when it stop."

Angeal was gone, Aeris was nigh-incoherent. There were seconds left until they opened that door and shoved their way to the back of the car, and he'd be carted off to some lab where --

There had to be something. Somewhere he could go, somewhere -- he'd escaped before, hadn't he? In Edge, when he'd been cornered downstairs. He tried to recall the feeling, frantically calling up what little clarity he could between the pain and the confusion of the moment, before realising he'd actually experienced it before. In the alley, a few minutes ago, and --

In Nibelheim?

He thought of Sephiroth, and the things he could do that he shouldn't have been able to do. And places he'd been that shouldn't exist, that couldn't have, but --

He didn't have anymore time to think about how none of it was possible, wouldn't work, didn't make sense. The door was opening. The world pinched in around him, a sound like radio static or rain or the scratching of a thousand fingers spilling over, crackling snow covering the surface of everything as the pattern beat into his head again, and again, and again, drowning out every other sound.

Cloud closed his eyes, and felt the world against himself, and pushed.

Notes:

IT WAS RAAJ

RAAJ WAS THE PERSON I WAS FORGETTING

FUCK SORRY RAAJ

Chapter 36: You Dumb Assholes Were Supposed To Have This Conversation Years Ago

Notes:

SHE LIVES

I'm sorry this took so long. Hiatus is hopefully finally over, though, because this is the first chapter since like 30 that I actually think turned out well, and the ones after it seem to be coming along smoothly too. Which is good considering we're very very nearly done with Part 2 in its entirety.

Unfortunately it's also THE single longest chapter in this entire fucking mess of a fic, with really no way to actually split it. And trust me, I tried. I wound up cutting sequences I would've liked to have, rearranging and re-rearranging the whole thing, but I think this is probably the best compromise I can possibly make between pacing and content (which does not say anything good about how this story's panning out, I'm sure). I figured you guys would probably prefer one big chapter to two full chapters of talking that were structurally supposed to be one chapter.

That said, I've been looking forward to writing this chapter from day one, and while it's not as polished as I'd like, and while the story went places I didn't expect it to to where certain other bits had to be cut entirely, I'm actually very happy with how this turned out. I think.

Probably. (I don't know, it's a damn sight better than the ones preceding it. God why is it so LONG)

Thank you to everyone I harassed to beta this nonsense. It was a lot of people, and I don't even have everyone's Tumblr, and can't recall who had to tap out and who I couldn't get back into contact with. In particular, thank you la_regina_scrive and revolutionarygirlkaasy because this thing would have been an unmitigated disaster without you guys.

This chapter contains brief reference to suicidal ideation.

Happy Crimbus, y'all.

Cloud felt something in him tear as the world around him plunged into darkness.

I died, he thought. I'm dead, and I died. So now I'm dead. But that didn't seem right, because he could feel the way his stomach lurched as he felt himself pitch forward and fall, until suddenly he wasn't falling anymore -- wasn't moving at all even as he could feel the water tugging at his hair, filling his mouth, and then his lungs. Though he continued breathing anyway, as though it were air; more evidence towards the "dead" theory.

Cloud looked down and saw an endless expanse of nothing. There didn't seem to be a bottom to whatever space he was in -- it just went on forever. He could see something moving in the darkness, and felt strangely calmed by its presence. He couldn't quite make out what it was. The water should have snuffed out all sound as it filled his ears, but in the distance he could hear smatterings of conversation, the hum of electricity, the shuffling of feet across pavement, the buzz of static, the dull, low roar of the wind, the relentless rush of the sea. He felt smothered.

High above him, though, he could see a light. It wasn't a single point-- rather, it was a muted, diffuse glow, like the sky over Edge, more often overcast than not. He kicked his way upwards, but as he reached the surface of the water, his hand wouldn't push through to the air above it. He was trapped here, beneath a moving, shifting wall of glass and foam that he couldn't break no matter how hard he beat his hands against the underside of the water, his nails failing to find purchase in the smooth, liquid surface.

At least he didn't seem to need to breathe. Maybe there was another way out.

He dove even deeper, and he felt hands along his body trying to drag him towards the surface, though he couldn't see anything around him but crystalline water. The deeper he swam, the lighter he felt, until it felt as though his body had melted away into the water around him. He glided past whatever was trying to grab ahold of him, feeling their fingers pass through him as though he were made of air. All around him, the cacophony of sound gave way to music -- the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard, but clearer somehow. Clean, so pure, so silvery and razor sharp he could feel it on his skin as it wove through the water around him. Even Mother, in all Her glory and at Her strongest, hadn't made music like this. He wanted to listen to it forever.

Couldn't he? He didn't see why not. No one else was here.

He closed his eyes and listened. Minutes ticked by into hours. He floated there, content, the soft light filling his vision even with his eyes closed.

If this was dying, it was really kind of nice. Was this the Lifestream? This wasn't what it had been like when he'd been there before, though.

At some point, he realised he'd fallen asleep, and marvelled at the fact that he could still hear the music even in his dreams.

There was something else he should be doing. He couldn't remember what it was, though. Frankly, he didn't even feel like breathing, much less moving and accomplishing a task somewhere else, without the music.

He woke up -- or maybe he'd been awake the whole time. Did it matter?

He was completely, utterly alone here, in a way he'd never been before. But for some reason, the rush of fear, the feeling of being trapped, unsafe, didn't come to him. There was nothing but the strange peace he'd found, wherever this was. It had been at least a day since he'd been here, and he hadn't even thought about -- about...

It was nice being here.

It was nice being.

It was nice.

He started to feel strange a few hours later. Perhaps it was from not moving for so long, but then, he hadn't breathed for a while. He wasn't even sure his heart was still beating. He wasn't afraid, though. Or upset. Or happy, even. He didn't seem to be able to feel those things anymore, which was also nice. His thoughts felt muddy and slow, and it was a struggle to think too much, to decide this about that, so he stopped doing that, too.

How strange, it occurred to him, that he could just not think. A whole part of him just washed away. And then he went back to not thinking, not breathing, to just listening to the music.

He drifted for days that way. There might have been sounds around him. Or, there might not have. The light still filled the sky, just overhead. Unreachable.

He no longer felt a desire to reach it. He continued to drift downwards.

It didn't feel nice. It didn't feel like anything anymore. That was the nice part.

There was something wrong about being here -- something that kept catching, keeping him from the peace he wanted. Something that grated against the music. He hadn't struggled, hadn't moved, hadn't breathed. His heart had stopped. He no longer thought. But --

It was him. It wasn't enough to not think -- he was. It didn't matter that he hadn't done anything.

I am. That was the problem here.

He'd been sinking for weeks now. If he sank a little more, then I am would be gone too. Then there would only be the music.

And yet...

He didn't want to. He knew if he kept sinking, he'd never, ever be able to reach the surface again. That he would be gone.

Wasn't that what he wanted?

This was too many thoughts -- too many words leading into other words into feelings -- he was leaving something behind, but he couldn't remember...

Cloud stumbled as his feet hit something solid, jolted forward roughly from the momentum of the train car. He gasped, clutching at his throat, and found his lungs empty of water and his heart hammering away in his chest.

He looked wildly around him, and found the other three looking equally lost. Tifa was the only one that had managed to stay on her feet, albeit by shoving over into Aeris, and was now helping the latter up, looking stunned. He looked down, and saw an endless expanse of nothing, lurking beneath crystal clear water. Above, the sky was a muted grey, the sun trickling through a thin layer of mist. The air was a little chilly, and still smelled of gasoline and fried food.

He slowly pushed himself to his feet, his knees shaking as though he hadn't used them in months. Though he was certain he'd been standing in a train only moments ago.

He looked at Aeris then. Or what he thought might have been Aeris. She was there, a few steps away from him. Or maybe she was miles away. His head hurt just looking at her, so he stopped, and turned his attention back to Tifa. Tifa was even worse, so he stopped looking at her, too. He didn't even want to try looking at Zack.

"Is everyone okay?" he heard Tifa ask. "...Where's Cloud?"

"Right here," he said, raising a hand. "So... where next --"

"This is bad," she said, cutting across him. "This... we have to go back."

"Back from where?" Zack had gotten to his feet, it sounded like. "Shit, did we die? God, we're dead, aren't we?"

"We're not dead," Cloud said. "I moved us --"

"It just goes on forever," said Aeris quietly. She seemed to have shut down.

"It can't," said Tifa. "I mean, it probably isn't real in the first place. We just have to keep walking. It'll stop eventually."

"How do you know?" asked Zack. "How the fuck do you know we aren't dead?"

"One, because you're still talking," snapped Tifa. "And two, because I've been to the Lifestream once and this isn't it, and three, because I've seen something like this before."

"What do you mean?"

"In the Northern Crater," Cloud began. "That's where I got the idea, Sephiroth could --"

"About four years ago," said Tifa, interrupting him again. "We were in this... this place that -- it wasn't exactly like this," she said, mulling it over. "It wasn't real either, though. There was this flash, like the one we saw, and we were standing in Nibelheim. That’s this, uh… this town that I know,” she added in response to the blank stares. “But it wasn't real, because Nibelheim burned years ago. And then it just ended, and we left."

"Okay, but -- but what caused it?" asked Zack. "Did we get caught in that... whatever it was? Why isn't anyone else here?"

"I don't know," said Tifa. "Before, it was Sephiroth. Something with Jenova, I think."

"That's what I was trying to..." Cloud frowned and forced himself to look at Tifa again. She wasn't looking back at him.

"If it's Jenova," she continued, "maybe -- maybe we can get ourselves out. Then we'll go back and look for Cloud and Angeal."

Cloud slowly approached Tifa with growing dread. He waved a hand in front of her face. She didn't react.

He tried Aeris next, who continued to stand there looking stricken.

The others continued to talk around him, oblivious. Cloud felt his fingers grow numb.

"Are you doing anything?" Zack asked impatiently.

"I’m trying!" snapped Tifa. "Why don't you fucking do it, then?"

"You're the one involved in all this magic bullshit, you should know how!"

"It's not magic! And even if it was, you're more infected than I am, if anyone should be doing this, it's you!"

"Guys --" Cloud began, but no one seemed able to hear him. He glanced around at the three of them, and made the mistake of looking at Zack --

Everything went dark again. He couldn't move. He couldn't even seem to feel anything that he would move, if he were able to. There were voices in the dark around him.

You're not helping by yelling at me.

Zack’s voice, unbearably loud, blotting out thought.

Well, you're not helping period, so --

Yeah, sure, just tell me to magic the whole place away.

It's not --

Who cares, Tifa?! Who fucking cares? If you have anything helpful to contribute that's not "you do it!", now's the time!

I just told you what to do! You're the one that's supposed to know how to do it, can't you -- I dunno, hear more of Her, or --

...This is all my fault.

Aeris had finally spoken up.

No, it's not. I mean, shit, if -- if anything, it's mine, I was... I knew this was all gonna go to hell. At least this meant something for you, with your family, and...

What about yours?

...What about them? I didn't do this for them, if that's what you mean.

Zack, please. Tifa again, sounding impatient. Just -- we left two people behind. Just try.

Cloud wanted to scream. He could see flashes of colour the harder he strained -- Tifa's face, strained with worry, Aeris's quiet despair -- the train station, smashed ceramic tile and sparking fluorescent lights scattered about the floor --

And then he was kneeling on the ground again as his vision swam. For a moment, he saw everything flash, static in the dark, crackling dots appearing and disappearing as quickly as they managed to suggest a shape. It felt like the inside of his head was being drawn through a clothes wringer. He saw Tifa flinch, and wondered how she could be stomaching this as well as she was. Cloud felt like vomiting.

The uneasy feeling in his stomach suddenly peaked as he felt himself falling again, and this time he landed on pavement. He barely had a chance to sit up before Tifa landed on top of him, knocking the wind out of his chest with a pained grunt.

"Cloud!"

He barely had time to respond before she was squeezing the air from his chest all over again.

"'M fine," he muttered. "Can you...?"

She did not. She continued to sit there, practically gouging a hole in his shoulder with her nails with how hard she was gripping him.

“I thought you were back at the train station,” said Tifa. “Were you?”

“No,” said Cloud. He wasn’t really sure where he’d been.

"We're -- we're in one of those spaces, I think," Tifa began explaining, "Do you remember -- in the Northern Crater, how Sephiroth showed us Nibelheim? Zack --"

"I was there," he cut in. "I'm the one who did it." He looked around, frowning, even as Tifa stared blankly at him, nonplussed. "The first part, anyway. We're still there, aren't we?" He still felt uneasy, as though the ground beneath him wasn't solid at all, and if he moved too quickly he'd break whatever surface tension it had and go crashing through into... somewhere.

"We are?" asked Tifa.

"Yeah," said Zack. "Because there's no way in hell we're in Reading already."

Cloud looked around himself then, and found them standing in the middle of the street, just two buildings away from the intersection between Reedgrass and 25th. Near-finished architecture loomed around them, and in the distance he heard another creaking groan as yet more of the ruins of Midgar collapsed in on themselves. He spun around, expecting to see Seventh Heaven. In its place was a red brick house with a front lawn full of overgrown hedges that looked like it had been there for years.

None of them said anything for a moment. Aeris's breathing hitched slightly.

"It -- I don't know, I panicked, and it was the first thing I could think of." Zack shrugged in apology. "Not like I know the area or anything."

"Angeal," breathed Aeris. "Is -- did you see Angeal when you were gone?" She turned to Cloud expectantly.

He looked away. "I'm sorry. He's... he's probably back in Southampton."

"But we're still in Southampton, aren't we?"

"I -- no. I don't know how this works, I just kind of -- I just did it." He looked at Tifa for help, but she looked just as lost as he did. "He's... wherever he is, he's… he’s probably back at the train station," he said.

Aeris just nodded absently and went quiet again. Cloud's stomach twisted up even further.

"...Think we can go inside?" asked Zack after another moment. He turned to Aeris. "It's your house."

Aeris nodded again.

"You... you have a garden, right?" asked Cloud, as Zack pushed on the front door, which swung open without resistance.

Another nod.

"Maybe it'll be here."

"Maybe."

Cloud swallowed, uncertain of what else to say. He wasn't sure if she was the sort of person who'd want to be touched, either. She hadn't seemed like it.

He turned and quietly stepped into the doorway after Zack.

The inside of the house was quiet and clean. Much like the bar, there was a large window in the front of the living room that looked out at the street. There were off-white curtains drawn over them.

There were potted plants on every conceivable flat surface, and a cat tower in the corner. The air was still, the motes of dust suspended in faded sunlight barely moving at all.

There was no glass scattered on the hardwood floor. No ash on the white carpet. No wooden boards over the windows. Still, if he closed his eyes, he could almost smell garlic and fish sauce.

He nearly flinched at the memory, and instead turned back to the others. "We should rest. Get something to eat."

"Is it even safe to sleep here?" asked Tifa.

"Don't know."

"There was food last time I was here," said Zack. "We went on a grocery run. It... it's real food, right?" he added. "I mean, it seems like a real house."

"If it's not, we've got what we picked up in the city," said Tifa. "Couldn't hurt to have both."

"What if we're stuck in here for a while?"

"We won't be," said Cloud. The two of them turned to look at him. He shrugged. "It's... I mean, we're barely in here as it is."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Zack, frowning.

"You don't feel it?" Cloud shifted his weight a bit, the wooden floor feeling just as flimsy to him as the concrete had outside. The others shook their heads.

"Well... we're here anyway, so we should get some rest. Wash up or something." The moment he said it, Cloud suddenly felt the weight of the last few days hit him all at once. "And... we could all use a minute to unpack," he said, looking at Aeris.

Aeris simply nodded again. "Gonna make tea," she muttered, and shuffled off to what was presumably the kitchen.

They all watched her go in silence. Cloud turned to Zack then, who looked almost as wiped out as she had. "You've been to her house?" he asked.

Zack nodded. "Couple weeks ago. Was easier than flying back to the States."

Where's the garden? he wanted to ask, before remembering that everyone was a wreck right now, and wouldn't be in the mood to give tours.

"Are there showers here?" he said instead.

“Yeah.”

"Good," said Cloud. "That's good."

"...I'm gonna go check on Aeris," said Tifa, and quietly dismissed herself.

That left him alone with Zack. Cloud closed the door behind them, still feeling his eyes on his back.

"You can do it too, then," he said, kicking his shoes off and turning back to Zack.

"Do what?" he asked tiredly.

"This." Cloud gestured vaguely around them. "I was the one that got us here. But you changed it, too."

"Is that bad?"

"Depends. But you felt Her, didn't you?" probed Cloud. "Even if it was for a second."

Zack said nothing.

"You did something you know can't happen. You let Her help you see it."

Zack stared at him for another moment, then slunk off deeper into the house, up a staircase towards the back.

That left him alone in the room.

His hand inevitably strayed to his wrist a moment later. Now that he had time to breathe, the shame could catch up to him.

He'd asked Tifa to hurt him. Or at least, she'd seen it that way. And she had, and was disgusted with him, disgusted with herself with agreeing. And he desperately wanted her to do it again, because some discarded refuse of a person had had the gall, the sheer tenacity, to force its way into her life and couldn't even be bothered to fit the space it had carved out correctly. It didn't deserve the number, either. It had cheated its way into one, until it couldn't hide how much of its brain had stopped working anymore. That was why it sat there, tracing the numbers with its fingers, knowing full well that it shouldn't have one, that numbers were only for successful models, that clothes were for people who'd earned them, that earrings weren't for a walking pile of neuroses that barely even had a personality beyond them.

At least there were actually windows this time. He wasn’t sure how much time he lost, staring outside and watching fat seagulls dart across an immense, unrecognisable sky.

He looked away in time for Tifa to approach him from behind. He quickly switched his gaze to the ground instead.

"Zack's showering first," she said. "He's... having problems with the scent thing. Figured being clean would help."

"It might," said Cloud, offering an indifferent shrug. It was probably better than his coping mechanism had been when he was sixteen, which mostly consisted of knocking himself out by bashing his head against the walls of his cell. "What about you?"

"I'm fine," said Tifa shortly.

"You don't have to lie," he replied uneasily. "I -- I know what it's like at first. Maybe I can --"

"Does it matter if I'm fine or not?" said Tifa. "Won't change what's happening."

"...You're sick," said Cloud. Not a question.

"Yeah."

"How long ago did you...?"

"A week. Maybe two." He could hear the raspiness in her voice when she spoke. "Reno smuggled some of your blood out of the facility."

"...Oh."

There was another period of silence that Cloud did not know how to fill. He should apologise for earlier -- should apologise for what she'd done to herself, for him -- should try to say anything helpful at all --

"Do -- d'you want help unpacking?" he stammered out instead.

Tifa shook her head. "I already organised everything in the alley," she said. "Mostly just clothes in here."

Cloud nodded.

He could feel Tifa's eyes on him for a moment longer before she knelt to take off her shoes and sunk onto the couch, exhausted.

Cloud continued to look out the window. It wasn't helping.

"You should sit too," said Tifa after a moment.

"...Right." He kicked off his shoes and sat down next to her, the ache in his muscles suddenly much more noticeable somehow now that it was being soothed away.

Upstairs, he heard the clattering of pipes, and then the rush of water. Zack must have started the shower. Then afterwards, Aeris would use it, and then Tifa, and then himself. And he would sit here, and stare out the window, and he would feel better and then… and then...

"We need to talk," he said at last.

"Yeah," replied Tifa. "Yeah, I guess we do."

He waited for her to say something else. She did not, and continued to stare at him expectantly.

Neither one of them said anything for a long while.

“How are you feeling so far?” asked Cloud eventually. It seemed as good of a place to start as any.

“Okay,” said Tifa.

Cloud just looked at her wearily. “I mean… symptoms,” he persisted. “I just want to know…” How much time you have left, he thought. “...what I should be on the lookout for.”

“Wasn’t too bad,” said Tifa, not meeting his eyes. “Throat’s just a little sore, that’s all --”

“Please tell the truth,” said Cloud. “I know what it’s actually like. I did the whole thing already nine years ago, remember? So I know it wasn’t just -- I just want to know. That’s all. I can -- maybe I can help. If you have questions, I mean. You must have, even before. You’ll need to know now.”

Tifa chewed her lip in silence, still focused on his knees.

“...I know what the first one’s like,” he said softly. “And you -- you did that with basically no mako, and lived. That’s -- that would’ve killed me, back then. I was on almost four months' worth of mako beforehand and still barely made it. So -- so it’s a really good sign that you did.”

Or a very bad one, if Mother had decided that particular vessel was worth keeping around.

“What was it like for you?” Tifa asked slowly.

Cloud had talked about what it was like to be infected as a matter of practicality, but he’d never once shared what it had been like to become infected, because that would have meant talking about his time with the Professor. He’d never told anyone. Never intended to, either. Already, Aeris had seen more than he’d ever voluntarily divulged to anyone. He hadn’t wanted anyone to see him like that.

Beside him, Tifa continued to quietly wheeze -- just barely audible, but not to him.

“...It’s kind of hard to say,” began Cloud. “I hallucinated a lot, in the beginning. Started having really weird dreams, too. Did you get any of that?”

“A bit,” said Tifa. She did not elaborate further, so Cloud continued.

“Started forgetting a lot of stuff. You, Ma, Nibelheim… after a few years, I forgot what the sky looked like.” He swallowed. “Think that was just the mako, though.”

Worthless. He needed to provide useful information.

“The, er. The seizures,” he tried again. “It’ll mostly be a lot of little ones. But at first, it can be really bad.” He looked up at Tifa, hoping she’d be looking at him this time. She wasn’t. “It’s Mother, thinking alongside you. You’re not -- humans aren’t built for that, physically. And… before Mother really has a chance to rebuild your cells, it just -- y’know. So, you’ll have those for a little while. Blank spots, mostly.”

“Is that why --” began Tifa, then immediately closed her mouth.

“What? What’s why?”

She shook her head.

“The point of this is for you to ask questions,” said Cloud tiredly. “This is how your body works now, too.”

“...Is that why you aren’t… is that why you don’t have… I mean, with…” Tifa sighed. “Is that why you’re still a vegetable?” she said, apparently failing to come up with a polite way to say it. “Medically speaking, I mean. At the WRO, and in Mideel -- they said you pretty much didn’t have any brain activity. That’s… that’s something Jenova does? Just switches everything off, or --”

“No,” interrupted Cloud. “I get what you’re -- no. That’s just… that’s just brain damage. Botched lobotomies, mostly. Hojo...”

Tifa finally looked at him, and Cloud could barely believe he was about to say what he was going to say out loud.

“...Hojo did a double blind test,” he said, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry. “To make sure I was really in contact with Mother, and not lying, or… or crazy, from the isolation, or the mako. Dosed me with… something, I guess. And after they figured out all of me was part of Mother, they started trying more and more stuff to ‘boost the signal’. More drugs. And mako, and… a lot of what they did, the tests, they were… they were to mess with me. My head, I mean. I guess he got off on it, but… the worse things got in there, the more I hated myself, or the more afraid I was, or the more -- the more nothing I was, the easier it was for Mother to get to me. The more I’d let Her. One of the first things they did was -- was get me to say I didn’t have a name and I hadn’t earned a number, or they’d overdose me on mako -- I mean, they were gonna soak me in the stuff anyway --”

He suddenly flinched, and realised he was digging his nails into his arm hard enough to make himself bleed. He sighed and forced himself to unclench his hand. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“...But -- what I meant is, they’d do physical stuff as well,” he said. “They could do things that -- that made it hard to know you were you. Made it feel like you were being torn apart from inside your head. And there were a lot of drugs for that, too. And when the mako poisoning got too bad, and I wasn’t coherent enough to understand Mother, and they wanted their results, they thought… well, they knew if they damaged bits, they’d just grow back. So they just started shutting down all the parts of my brain the mako hadn’t ruined already. Thought maybe I still wasn’t pliant enough. And I was finally the shell they wanted, so I’d be useful, but by then I wasn’t useful as a Soldier anyway, and Mother -- I guess She knew, or something, and She didn’t want me anymore.”

He’d been staring at Tifa the whole time. More than would be considered normal. He hadn’t blinked enough, he should have been more aware of that.

He’d also been calling Her Mother entirely too much, he realised.

“So -- so you won’t wind up like me,” finished Cloud. “Not all the way, anyway.”

“Do you know how you’re -- how you’re walking around?” asked Tifa quietly.

Cloud shrugged. “Aeris asked the same thing. But she’s walking around without a soul, so… maybe it’s something like that. Something I inherited from Mother, I mean, if Mother was something made here. I don’t know.”

After a moment, Tifa reached over to his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“I -- I know that wasn’t easy to talk about,” she said. “But I’m glad you did.”

An enormous wave of guilt washed over Cloud immediately. This was supposed to be for her benefit, and he’d gone and made it about him when Tifa was still --

“Keep talking,” said Tifa. “Please. We need to keep talking. It -- you were right, you have to listen to someone else or it just never shuts up.”

“I -- are -- is there anything else you want to know?” asked Cloud. “I know you said you didn’t want to have a baby, so maybe you won’t…”

“Not worried about that,” said Tifa. “Maybe this will finally make that whole situation easier.” There was just barely a hint of irritation in her voice at the mention of their… “relationship”.

“I can -- I can sit with you if it gets too bad,” said Cloud, “the way you do with me. Once it gets going. It -- it might not. I don’t know. When I was infected, there was still Mother left to perform Reunion with, but now that She’s gone it might not be as bad.”

“And what if it is?” asked Tifa.

“...You’ll hate every second of being alive for no reason,” said Cloud. “Because there’s something wrong with you, and nothing you do will fix it no matter what. Everything is bad to look at, bad to do, bad to hear, because you aren’t part of Mother.”

He was doing it again. He was fucking doing it again, but She was Mother, he couldn’t -- She was Mother. That’s just what She was. But She wasn’t, She --

Tifa slowly nodded. Her eyes looked wet, but her expression was stony, her mouth thinned into a line. “How long until that, then?”

“I don’t know,” said Cloud. “Maybe never. Maybe -- you’re so much stronger than I was back then, you -- you’re --”

She couldn’t really hide her fear from him. Not anymore, not when it bled into the back of his mind, like smoke from charred bodies, filling the air with the scent of burning hair for weeks to come.

"...I'm sorry," said Cloud. “God, I -- I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry.”

"Cloud, don't --" Tifa began tiredly. He pressed on.

"This isn't fair." He took a deep breath in through his nose, and let it back out through his mouth, the way Aeris had him do in his cell at the WRO. It seemed to help. "It isn't -- it's not fair. Not to you, not to anyone."

Tifa was watching him carefully. He could see the faint remnants of mako exposure in her eyes, and forced himself not to look away.

"You know what'll happen to you if we can't get back in time, right?" he asked, as though she didn't. Of course she did. If she were lucky, she'd die from organ failure before she wound up like Hojo. Like Lucrecia.

"I had to," she said. "There wasn't anyone else that would've --"

"So why'd it have to be you?" he interjected. "Why did -- it wasn't worth this. It wasn't worth me."

"Cloud --"

"It wasn't!" he said. "You know it wasn't. What if I was still stuck to Zack, and there wasn't anything left for you to bring home? What if it killed you? What if --"

He hesitated, trying to summon up the will to actually say it. It wasn't fair to pretend it wasn't an option if she hadn't thought of it already. "...What if you decided you wanted me to leave? Shit, are we -- are we even dating?"

"I don't know," said Tifa. "I don't... know if it’s the best thing for you to be in a relationship right now."

Cloud closed his eyes as he felt his heart stop in his chest. She'd said it at least. There. It was better this way.

"I don't... I don't want you to feel coerced," she added. "And I think a lot of the time, you are."

"I -- I asked you to," said Cloud, shifting uneasily, returning his gaze to his knees. "I thought, y’know, since we were together, we should -- I know I shouldn't have, maybe it was a lot to assume, but I --"

"That's not what I mean," she said. She chewed on her lip for a few moments. "When you do things, is it because you want to do them? Or because you think you have to?"

"You're one to talk," he huffed. "You can't tell me for a second you didn't hate every minute of what you've been through."

"It doesn't matter --"

"Yes, it does. You don't have to --"

"I owe it to you, I owe it to everyone after --"

"It's okay to not want to do something, Tifa!" he burst out. "It's okay to be fucking miserable putting up with me -- I know, alright? Trust me, I know it's obnoxious. And I know what it's like to go outside and want to stab yourself in the goddamn head because everything is too fucking loud, and I know you know that, and -- and that's a choice you get to make. Okay?" He forced himself to look at her again. "It's okay to not want to throw your life away."

Cloud heard her make a strangled noise in the back of her throat as her breathing became shaky and uneven. He hesitated for a moment, then wrapped his arms around her shoulders.

"Everyone's been through so much," she croaked, "and I always just sit there, and whenever I think of anything to do it just makes everything worse." She paused to cough, and Cloud grimaced as he heard fluid rattling around in her chest. "I mean, maybe you don't think it matters, how much everyone has given up compared to me, but..."

"...You lost more in Nibelheim than I did," said Cloud after a moment. "I always hated it there, and I don't even really remember Ma. And you -- this isn't -- do -- do you want my permission?" he asked finally, at a loss for words. "Do you want to know if it's 'okay with me' that you want to grieve? Because -- because, what, you think I'll -- I'll bail if you can't prop me up every hour of the day?"

Tifa was having a harder time strangling the noise in the back of her throat. "Wouldn't you?" she said pointedly.

"It shouldn't matter," he said, hugging her a bit tighter as a pang of guilt wormed its way into his gut. "We were fighting for you too, remember?"

Cloud sat there with her for a while, listening to her strained breathing, feeling his shoulder grow steadily more damp. She still smelled ill. He knew she would get worse.

"Hypocrite," Tifa said with a breathy laugh after a few more minutes. "You never answered my question."

Cloud let go of her to give her a questioning look.

"How much of what you do is because you think you have to?" asked Tifa. "Because you're afraid of what will happen if you don't?"

He looked away again, no of course not, and I'm sorry, and yes please please please don't make me be alone again all swallowed back into silence until he could weigh which one was most appropriate. Like most things he'd learned in Nibelheim, it was funny how much of it applied everywhere else, no matter what. People still hated getting answers they didn't want so you had to pick the right one, and he was never doing as well at anything as he thought he was, and clothes were a privilege, not a right.

She frowned at his silence, then suddenly began to rummage through her pockets. "I brought the rest of your stuff," she said, "if it helps any."

"...The rest?"

"I figured you'd want it back," said Tifa, who'd hoisted her bag onto the couch to go searching through it again. It wasn't as though Cloud owned much of anything. Just his bike, and his sword, and...

Cloud watched her withdraw two objects from the front pocket. One was the little red radio he'd gotten from Ms. Suk. The other was --

"You really should wash these things, you know," said Tifa, offering his missing earring to him in her palm.

Cloud took it from her gingerly, as though it would break the minute he touched it. "You... where did you find this?" he breathed.

"The ground," said Tifa quietly. "Along with everything else, smelling like Jenova. We thought you were dead."

He rolled the little pewter wolf's head around on his palm. Below it, his number was set into stark contrast against pale, clammy flesh. The metal of the post was tarnished by the oils in his skin, not to mention whatever dirt and grime that would’ve had time to really bake into it from work. Tifa's ring was in much better shape. She likely hadn't worn it as much, would have naturally taken it off to wash dishes, or to cook.

He felt Tifa staring at it. He still didn't know what to say to her. Beside him, she went quiet as well. Maybe she didn't know, either.

For the first time in a very, very long while, he thought of the other Cloud. The one he'd made. The one that was a Soldier First Class. He tried to imagine what things would be like now, if he wasn't just himself.

He still hadn't provided an answer. Silence was always worse than not providing an answer.

"I want to be what you want me to be," he began, throat suddenly squeezing painfully tight again around words that had already spilled out and were no longer there to be smothered. "It's the only thing worth being, and -- and I don't know how, and you don't give me orders -- that's all I know how to do, is just -- is just be used, it's all I've ever done right, and everything I've ever -- it's all from Hojo, all of it is, a-and -- and I've never -- I still don't know what to do," he said. "I don't know what to -- how to not be like this. No matter what I do, it still feels like -- I don't know." He swallowed around the lump in his chest and tried again. "It's all I know, and I'm afraid --

"It still feels the same," he said. "No matter what, I don't -- I'm still this, and I figured I could at least... I don't know. I don't know.”

His hands felt clammy, and his eyes stung, and his heart was clenching in his chest so hard it was a wonder he could even draw breath.

"Every time I think I know what it’s like to have nothing, I lose something else. What if I’m wrong again?"

"...The world isn't Hojo, Cloud," she said quietly.

"I know that. I know."

"Sometimes, I think you forget," she replied. "You still treat us like him. You think you have to make us happy, or we'll all turn on you."

"I want to make you happy," he said. "Because I love you. I love all of you, and -- and I don't know how, and I know it hurts you all if I don't do it right. And you shouldn't have to deal with that -- I know I should just know how, but I don't --"

"Cloud --"

"I don't know how to -- to just do things," he said. "I've never had to, I always just... there was what I needed to do, and I did it, and that was it. And now the rest of you are telling me that I-I can just -- I can't mess this up." He could feel his hands getting cold, but he forced himself onwards. "I thought -- if you just -- just made me do whatever you wanted to, I'd be what you wanted, and I wouldn't have to worry about doing something you didn't want, and I know it's stupid. I -- I want to be Cloud so, so bad, and everyone just -- everyone's so good to me, I want to --"

He couldn't breathe. Everything was too loud, even things he couldn't hear.

"I can't -- I have to --"

"You don't!" Tifa pleaded. "It's not the point of any of this that you have to do it, it's alright if you don't know --"

"It isn't fair. It isn't fair that it's so hard to do anything right, and make anyone happy -- nothing's -- nothing's changed since I figured out I never made it into Soldier, nothing's -- you're all -- I've never once done anything that -- that wasn't --"

Suddenly he couldn't rant anymore, because Tifa's mouth was pressed against his, a hand curling behind his ear. He could still feel his hands shaking, even as he uncertainly reached for her cheek. She didn't pull away, at least.

When she did, he buried his face in his hands in shame and sat there, hunched over on the sofa.

"Do I make you happy?" he asked. "Do I make everyone happy?"

"Are you happy?" asked Tifa.

He didn't reply.

Something shifted in her posture then, and she steadied her own breathing. "I didn't really get an answer for that other question either," she said.

His eyes still stung. Deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

"If you didn't... want to be in a closer relationship with me, you would say so," she continued. "Right?"

In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

"Cloud, it's really, really important I get a straightforward answer to this," pressed Tifa. "If you only say yes to things -- the hours you work or… or when you slept with me, because you're worried I'll kick you out of the bar if you don't --"

"No," he said quickly. "Gods, no it -- it's not that, it's --"

“We’re being honest right now,” said Tifa. “It hurts to see you just… keep telling me you’re fine with it all. You know what it would mean if you weren’t, right?” She gave him a steely look. “Don’t put me in that position.”

“I won’t,” said Cloud. “If I agree, it’s because I want to. I just…”

He sighed. "I just want to do this right. I have to do something for everyone. It isn't... it's not right, that I haven't... I'm sick of not knowing what to do. If I did... maybe I wouldn't be afraid all the time. And I'd be more like the person I want to be for you, if... if I could just figure it out on my own."

Upstairs, he could hear the water still running in this place that perhaps wasn't as real as the train station they'd been in prior and shouldn't have running water. He thought of Nibelheim burning, feeling the heat of the flames even though they'd been standing in a frozen wasteland at the end of the world as it fell out from under him, and about sitting down against someone in front of a sunlit bedroom eating blueberry cheesecake made especially for him, and about two words echoing around the interior of a cell as he clung to things that were a privilege, not a right.

"You don't have to tell me," said Cloud. "I know it's stupid."

"...You were doing really well, before all this," said Tifa.

Cloud nodded. "You too."

The water shut off. He realised with a jolt that Zack could hear as well as he could, and probably heard every word they'd said, and realised he was too tired to care.

"Just wanna have it all done with," he muttered. "And it never stops." He brushed his other earring off a bit and fit it back into the hole in his ear, securing the back with a soft snap. Back where it belonged.

"...What now?" he asked.

"Dunno."

"I don't know how to help you."

Tifa shook her head. "Me either."

Cloud let out a noise somewhere between a bitter laugh and a groan. "...This sucks," he said. "Everything about this sucks, and -- and it isn't fair. And it's bullshit."

Tifa started to laugh, then -- a hysterical, ragged sound, half choked on leftover tears. "I'd kind of hoped you'd say that," she tittered.

Somehow, that was the breaking point. Cloud started to laugh as well, even as tears began leaking from his own eyes. He wasn't sure what was funny. Maybe he was just losing it. It felt good though, somehow. Like crying with his mouth at the same time.

The quiet tinkling sound of porcelain shattering abruptly silenced them both.

“Gimme a minute,” he muttered, getting to his feet. He needn’t have bothered; Tifa looked dead on her feet, and merely leaned further back into the couch cushions.

He didn’t have to go far to find the source of the noise. He passed through a kitchen, sparsely decorated save for another row of potted plants above the sink, and found a sliding glass door leading outside. Aeris was standing just in front of the door, her back to him.

“Aeris?” he called out softly. She jumped slightly anyway, and there was a hollow look in her eyes.

“...Still not entirely convinced I’m not dead,” she said, returning her gaze to what was on the ground in front of her.

Another Aeris, fast asleep under a chair on the patio. Someone had thrown a blanket over her at some point.

“I dozed off out here last… last month?” she said, before Cloud had a chance to ask. “It’d been a couple days after we went and got that brain scan with Tifa. I missed gardening.” She spoke simply and matter-of-factly, but her hands were still shaking.

“And Zack found you?” he asked, wiping the remaining tears from his eyes. No need for her to see him like that again.

Aeris nodded. “...What happens if I wake up?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” said Cloud, stepping around the remains of the teacup to begin picking up the shards. “This is Zack’s memory, mostly. It depends on what he remembers. I don’t think it -- you -- I don’t think she can actually see us.”

“We’re in a memory?”

“Not quite. I guess… a place that looks like one. It’s almost real. Feels real, anyway.” He actually looked around, and found himself surrounded with flowers taller than he was, bushes full of brightly coloured flowers, pink and blue and purple and yellow and white, and a row of all sorts of vegetables right next to the brick wall of the house. The only ones Cloud recognised were the tomatoes, but they all gave off a tantalising scent, mingling with the rich loam of the living earth they were growing from.

“...This is your garden?” he asked.

“I suppose so,” she replied. “The real one’s probably dead by now, though.”

“Oh.” He stepped inside to discard the broken bits of porcelain in what he assumed was her trash bin, and returned to find Aeris still staring at her own body. It hadn’t moved.

“Do you think we’re dead?” she asked him.

“Probably not, if you’re here,” said Cloud. “You said you didn’t have a Lifestream to return to, right?”

Aeris made a noise in the back of her throat and did not respond.

“...It’s nice here,” said Cloud. “Nicer than a lot of the stuff back home, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” said Aeris. “Reading doesn’t have magic.”

“Reading has flowers,” said Cloud, because that should have been obvious. He was dying to touch one. It had been a few years since he’d seen any. He remembered them being soft. The non-carnivorous ones, anyway.

“...I’m sorry about your friends,” said Cloud.

“You shouldn’t be apologising,” she said. “It’s not your fault.”

"Sorry," Cloud said before he could stop himself.

"I'm glad I got to meet you," said Aeris, though she didn't sound very glad about it. Not that he could blame her.

"You too."

They were both jarred by the sudden movement at their feet. The other Aeris woke up, shivering from the cold. Her mouth moved in a pantomime of speech, though no sound came out. She looked back down at her hands, examining the nails purposefully. Then she winked out of existence.

"I sort of got used to them being yours," said Aeris softly. She still wouldn't look at him.

How stupid of him, to wish her out of his skin so he'd be able to sit next to her. Now he couldn't seem to bring himself to do it.

“We should… we should go back inside,” said Cloud. “Get cleaned up. Zack’s done with the shower.”

“Are you sure that’s alright?” asked Aeris.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Tifa. You two were fighting. I thought I’d give you some space.”

“It… it wasn’t that bad,” said Cloud, already halfway facing towards the door. “How much did you hear?”

“Not much,” said Aeris. “I mean, I heard all of it. But you were talking too fast with not enough English mixed in.”

Right. Standard. “That’s probably for the best,” he said. “C’mon.”

He let himself back inside, where it was at least a little warmer, and was pleased to hear Aeris follow after a few moments.

By this time, Zack had returned from the shower, and was curled up on the corner of the couch. His eyes were closed, but he flinched imperceptibly as Cloud reentered the room, his fingers drumming incessantly against the remote. The television remained off.

“Are you okay?” asked Tifa, as Aeris emerged from the kitchen with a tray containing three other cups.

“Dropped my tea,” she said noncommittally, her voice still somewhat hoarse. Tifa didn't push it, and accepted the teacup with a polite nod. “Chamomile. Thought it might help.”

“Shower’s free,” said Zack tersely. He didn’t open his eyes.

Cloud exchanged a glance with the other two, who were apparently also waiting to see who left first.

"...You should warm up,” he said to Aeris after an uncomfortably long pause.

"I can wait," she replied, "if anyone else wants a go."

"I'd rather get dinner started," said Tifa. "I'll wash up afterwards."

She nodded, and headed for the stairs without another word as Tifa departed for the kitchen. Zack gave another imperceptible twitch at the sound of her footsteps and spared a glance over his shoulder at her before bowing his head and closing his eyes again to resume his tapping. Cloud took a seat on the floor next to an end table and tried not to feel sick to his stomach. He took a careful sip of the tea. It did actually help a bit.

“Why not help out with supper?” said Aeris. Cloud looked up to see she was speaking to Zack. He shrugged in reply.

“I could if you want,” he said tersely.

“You cook?” asked Cloud.

"Yes,” said Aeris, “really well, actually. I’m surprised he hasn’t jumped at the chance to show it off."

“‘m alright,” said Zack, which prompted a raised eyebrow from Aeris.

“Tifa’s sick,” said Cloud. And she shouldn’t be cooking, he wanted to say, you should be cooking so you can do something useful for once.“She could use the help, if you’re up for it.”

“You enjoyed it last time, anyway,” said Aeris. “Up to you.” She shrugged and left for the shower.

You got any strong feelings about dinner? asked Zack. Weird alien allergies or anything? If I give you guys garlic, will your eyes boil out of your heads?

Cloud flinched at the sudden intrusion, and looked up at Zack. He was still sitting on the couch with his eyes squeezed shut, fingers still tapping away.

You're not gonna talk?

No. Head's -- bad. Shower’s over, gotta deal with the noise again. So, I thought I could drown it out by doing this.

Oh. He supposed having someone talk directly into your head was easier than having someone talk out loud nonstop to you.

You should've done that for Tifa, Cloud told himself bitterly. He would do it next time. He would be better next time.

So, allergies? A muscle in Zack's jaw twitched. I saw this one movie where caffeine made you dissolve into a pile of froth. Well, not “you”, I guess. Though if I had a squid living in my head digging holes in my skin, I’m pretty sure it’d feel like this. You got any hidden tentacles I should know about?

...Are you alright?

I wanna blow my fucking brains out.

"Don't do that," he blurted out in alarm.

Keep your voice down.

Don't --

It won't stop, continued Zack. And it's -- it's bad. Feels bad. It won't stop. It's loud. Please, please tell me it stops at some point.

Cloud swallowed. If anything, it would get worse, given Zack's exposure was presumably to a much, much greater degree than Tifa's. He was thankfully spared from having to answer by her poking her head back into the living room.

“Don’t do what?”

“Nothing,” said Zack. “I’ll join you in a bit.”

Go on, keep talking, said Zack, and stood up in order to begin frantically tearing through drawers.

I don't know what you want me to say, said Cloud. Look, you shouldn't -- what about Aeris? She'd --

Aeris can't stand me, said Zack, and I really don't blame her. Relax, I'm not actually gonna. Just... everything's so damn loud. Inside and outside. Never thought I'd miss quarantine. Be real nice to not think for a little bit, y'know?

Cloud decided not to answer that one either.

Though, if you think about it, my life's basically over anyway. I'm a fugitive, stranded in another country. I've lost my job that I spent my whole life getting, I'm a freak of nature, I just watched all my coworkers die, and I'm never gonna see my family again. Not that it'd matter, they're probably disowning me for disgracing them as we speak.

Zack was still rummaging, the clattering noise he was making blending in with the sound of Tifa going through cupboards in the kitchen. He wondered if Aeris minded strangers going through her belongings like this.

...Why would they disown you?

Because I'm a crushing disappointment that excels in self-sabotage, said Zack. Cloud also wasn't sure what to say to that one.

You're kinda bad at this talking thing, said Zack.

Cloud shrugged. I don't have a lot to say.

That definitely wasn't the case with Aeris, he snapped. I know she wasn't writing down half the shit you said to her.

What the hell is your problem? he retorted. If you have issues with her, go tell her yourself.

Regret flashed across Zack's face for an almost imperceptible instant, but Cloud could still feel the uncomfortable gnawing in the back of his mind anyway. ...No, it's not... fuck. Everything's fucked, all of this is. He looked up at Cloud. We were supposed to be working on an escape plan for you, y'know, said Zack. Just me and her. I was the only one she let in on it. But she didn't, she just... started talking with you. A lot. And then you just got out anyway.

There was still bitterness in his words, but it lacked the pointed resentment of before.

...I thought we'd get along better than we did, but we didn't. She had more in common with you than she ever would with me. And you -- I've got nothing in common with you.

What do I have in common with Aeris? Cloud asked in spite of himself. The only thing that came to mind was that they both liked chocobos and magic. You guys are geniuses or something, aren't you?

Yeah, I guess we are, said Zack flatly. And she clawed her way to the top through about a hundred mobs of people telling her she was crazy and her parents' own corpses to get where she is now. And then I coasted in on a bunch of scholarships and favourable media coverage and took it all away from her. He slammed the drawer shut in frustration, causing the wood to splinter under strength he evidently still wasn't used to keeping in check. God, will you fucking say something?

Cloud flinched again, then glowered at Zack twice as hard to make up for the momentary lapse. Zack glanced down at the drawer he'd just smashed, his face falling.

Sorry, said Zack. I guess I should... should deal with that, huh.

If you're going to talk to Aeris, you should calm down first, said Cloud. And... you should really keep in mind the kind of damage you can do, he added.

"'M not gonna talk to her," said Zack, forcing himself to sit back down. "Shouldn't even be talking to you, only I barely know your girlfriend, or whatever. I know you're not my biggest fan, either."

"...You gave me clothes," said Cloud. The cramped, guilty feeling coming from him intensified.

He'd come back for him, too, in the dream, and then left him to Mother for Her to slowly tear him to pieces. He didn't know what to make of Zack.

"How much... how much do you remember?" asked Zack. "When we were, um..."

"During Reunion?"

"Yeah, that."

A lot of crying and pleading, with Hojo, with Mother. With people that weren't even there to listen. With Zack.

"Not a lot," said Cloud.

"Well... look," said Zack. "I -- I saw some stuff, and I can't help but... but wonder, I guess, if... if you saw some stuff too."

"Not a lot," Cloud repeated. "Saw a kid that looked a lot like you once or twice. You were mostly looking into me, though."

Zack nodded. "So... I think... some of it might have been personal," he said. "So maybe, to pay you back, we should -- trade. I guess. Y'know, if you wanted to know anything about me."

"...Maybe," said Cloud after a moment. He hated that he had to look up at Zack to actually address his face. Felt too much like grovelling.

(And yet he'd done that too in a heartbeat, because he hadn't had anything resembling dignity since he was sixteen, when he'd thrown himself at the feet of a man who'd stripped every scrap of clothing from his body and refused to let him sleep for two weeks, begging him to give him one more chance to prove himself worthy.)

He clenched his fist to avoid picking another sore into his arm.

"What were you looking for?" said Cloud.

"Aeris's tablet." Zack gingerly opened the drawer below it, which had begun to tip to the side now that the wooden panel it was anchored on was barely still in one piece. "Not that we'd have internet access here anyway. I mean... would we? We have running water. I dunno what the grid's like out in some sort of liminal space barely removed from the universe as we know it."

"What's internet?"

"A mistake that's long since grown past the naive short-sightedness of its creators into a terrifying, inscrutable shoggoth of a thing that cares for neither the whims of man nor god," said Zack casually, closing the drawer much more carefully this time. Cloud blinked. He knew enough English to understand maybe half of what Zack had said. "Forget it. Thought I'd try and email my family. Look up some recipes. Check the news. Play a game. Shit, jack off or something. Do something other than sitting on my ass feeling terrible."

Cloud heard the shower upstairs shut off. It'd be his turn soon, then.

"...Why do you want to tell me about yourself?" Cloud asked.

"Well... I mean, it's only fair, like I said. And if Aeris likes you, then -- then I figure, you're probably the kind of guy worth getting to know," Zack said, not quite meeting his gaze.

"If you say so."

"And besides," said Zack, looking directly at him this time. "You clearly want to. Or at least, you want to want to."

Cloud froze.

"You're afraid," said Zack. "You said so. And I am too. So maybe you'll feel less stupid about it this way." He picked up the remote then, and switched on the television. A cooking show in English began to play. "Ugh. Same episode."

"I mean... maybe --"

"I'm not stupid," said Zack. "You're the one that said I was a genius. I've been around emotionally constipated frat house cabrónes since basically forever. You get good at reading people, especially the ones that go outta their way to clam up, until it all boils over later in a huge tantrum and an assault charge. Sound about right?" Zack pressed on without waiting for a response. "And... honestly, it's kinda hard to admit to those kinds of people that you're afraid and you have no idea what you're doing. After a while, it gets really hard to keep doing that, and it's not even for a good reason."

"I don't need any shit from --"

"I'm not giving you shit," said Zack. "I'm giving you truth. I woulda known you were a nervous wreck even before you dreamed about me shooting you in the face. And -- and maybe I don't want to be someone that you think is gonna shoot you in the face? Just maybe! Maybe I've made enough shit decisions in my life so far anyway and don't wanna make it worse. Because I'm a nervous wreck too and at this point the only person that's gonna understand that is you, and I don't even know about that." He shrugged. "Food for thought."

Mutual need, thought Cloud. It probably said something unpleasant about him, that none of his friendships had actually started out through genuine interest.

"...Gonna shower," said Cloud. He grabbed the entire bag in lieu of taking the time to dig out an outfit and dismissed himself without another word.

The shower door was still closed when he got upstairs, and from the sound of things, Aeris was still inside it. The water had been off for a while. What had she been doing this whole time?

Before he had time to knock, she opened the door herself, and started slightly upon seeing Cloud in front of her.

"Sorry," she said absently. Her eyes seemed a bit red. Maybe from the steam. "Had to fix my hair. It mats rather easily if you let it."

Cloud would have questioned whether or not she was feeling alright, until it occurred to him that she was wearing naught but a towel, unless he were to count the pink ribbon she was clutching with her free hand. He immediately directed his gaze towards a spot over her head. "Shit, sorry --"

Aeris seemed almost amused by his reaction. "You're a bit late for that. Technically speaking, I've seen all of you naked already." She paused, considering this. "Except Tifa, actually."

"Oh." He coughed, and went back to maintaining almost-eye-contact. This was easier anyway. "I mean, I could ask her if she's okay with --"

"I'd prefer if you didn't," she said quickly. "...Anyhow. Shower's free, towels are in the second door." She picked up a wad of dry clothes off the toilet lid and stepped into what was presumably her room to change, leaving Cloud to finally shut the door and crawl out of Tifa's borrowed outfit, dumping her bag on the floor.

It took him a moment to figure out how to get the water running -- there was only one knob there, with a handle, and a gradient from red to blue around the circular metal setting it into the wall. The farther out he pulled, the more the water pressure increased. A streamlined version of a familiar process. It reminded him a little of a sink he'd seen once, in Shinra Tower, though the gradient was new, as was the design. Were they all like this on Earth? There had been a normal sink inside quarantine, and the bathroom sink here seemed to follow suit.

The toilet, at least, was familiar. Lift lid, flush, close lid. Small miracles, he supposed.

He almost cried out in relief as he stepped into the near-scalding spray of the shower, and decided right then and there to just sit down. He knew he shouldn't. He was wasting the five minutes he knew he should allocate to bathing. But maybe he could do six this time. The water felt incredible, as did the pressure the showerhead was beating into his back. Hopefully Tifa wouldn't mind if he...

He winced at his own selfishness. Of course she would mind. She just wouldn't say that she minded, and meanwhile she was downstairs tired and exhausted and here he was about ready to take a nap in a bathroom. If anyone could benefit from a shower, it would be her. The white noise of the water would make it a bit easier to deal with Mother. He reluctantly forced himself to actually start cleaning, guessing which bottles were which since he hadn't actually asked which words meant "shampoo" or "conditioner". There were stains soaked into his skin from the soldiers he'd cut his way through at the barricade. Rust red and dirt grey. He scrubbed as quickly as he could, acutely aware of how much time he'd already wasted.

He watched the dirty water disappear down the drain, eventually leaving the floor of the shower more or less clean. He wondered, briefly, where the water went afterwards. Or even where it was coming from. Surely Zack wasn't consciously thinking about plumbing, or remembering the descriptions on the bottles of soap.

Cloud finished rinsing and shut off the water. The mirror had fogged up to where he couldn't even see himself in it -- he'd been in here for entirely too long.

The clothes Tifa had picked out for them all consisted of nondescript denim and unmarked t-shirts, likely to make blending in easier. The shirt was a little big on him. At least the jeans fit. Wearing Tifa’s shirts was all well and good, but most of her pants were too wide in the hips to stay on properly without a lot of constant hitching up, even with a belt.

Something in the shower behind him rustled.

Cloud finished buttoning up his pants and frowned. It didn’t sound like he’d left the water on. He realised a moment later that what it did sound like was breathing, and he froze.

He knew he shouldn’t look. He knew nothing good ever came of him looking at these things. He should turn around and go downstairs and see if Tifa had coughed up any organs yet.

He turned around, determinedly not looking at the shower at all, and instead was met with another him, standing between him and the door, its expression serene.

It followed his movements as he slowly edged around it, eyes still fixed firmly on him, but otherwise made no move to stop him. But it didn’t go away, either.

Just ignore it, he thought to himself. Ignore it and your brain will forget about it eventually. He pressed himself against the wall, determined not to touch it as he gingerly reached for the doorknob behind it.

He could still feel someone’s gaze burning into the back of his neck. He rounded on the hallucination, scowling.

It didn’t quite look like him, he realised. The eyes were different -- the pupils were round. Human. They were a rich green that he knew he’d seen before somewhere, but couldn’t place where. It wasn’t wearing any clothes, which allowed him to notice its skin was devoid of any scars, save for the new one across his throat. Gone were the discoloured lines dotting his chest from the many, many times he’d been stabbed; the mottled pits and puckers of healed gunshot wounds; the various imprints of teeth from particularly aggressive wildlife; and the melted-looking skin spreading up his arm onto half of his chest, left behind from the cure for the stigma. Its body, too, was shaped wrong -- the hips wider, the pectorals more pronounced, the shape of the jaw rounded somewhat. It continued to stare at him impassively, unblinking. Cloud knew he wasn’t doing himself any favours by continuing to acknowledge it, but he couldn’t seem to look away, either.

Something rippled beneath its skin, and he realised with a thrill of revulsion that it was a hand, brushing against the inside of its flesh as though it were moving under a sheet. There were more, he realised -- little disturbances under the skin all over its body, pushing hard enough to leave an impression, but not hard enough to actually break through.

Cloud decided he’d seen enough at this point, and turned to leave. The other him was standing behind him, directly in front of the door, its face as placid as ever.

The world spun around him, ink swirled through water. It reached up and grabbed his arm, dragging him forward. He dug his heels into the carpet and pulled back, but its strength more than matched his own, and he was wrenched forward.

Instead of colliding with its chest, he watched in horror as his arm slowly sank into its flesh, until he couldn’t feel it anymore. He squeezed his eyes shut, even as it continued to drag his arm deeper and deeper inside itself, a warped parody of what the thing Zack had turned into had done to him.

It’s not real, he told himself. It’s not real -- it’s like in the alley, it’s not real.

He felt his shoulder meet with warm, tacky flesh, and felt bile rising up in the back of his throat.

“Tifa!” he screamed -- or tried to. He felt the air leave his lungs and the hum of his larynx, but no sound escaped him. He couldn’t pull away, stuck to whatever the thing was, and his remaining arm reached frantically for the doorframe, well out of his reach as the side of his face pressed against its neck, causing his face to go numb.

It’s not real, he thought frantically, as the world went black around him, his arm -- all that was left of him -- struggling and grasping at nothing as it disappeared bit by bit. It’s not real it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real it’s not real --

He suddenly crumpled to his knees, shivering. He was alone in Aeris’s bathroom, slightly damp from the shower. It wasn’t real. Of course it wasn’t real. Of course. He knew that.

He took a quick inventory of himself anyway. Two hands -- a good start. An entire face, also a plus. His arm was still disfigured. To be certain, he took a quick peek down his shirt, and found the remains of Sephiroth’s last tantrum engraved in his chest. He let out a shaky sigh of relief, then noticed a smudge he’d missed in the shower across his left shoulder. All that time he’d wasted, and he still hadn’t even cleaned off properly…

He scratched at it with a fingernail. It didn’t go away.

No. No no no no no no no. It couldn’t -- it was cured, wasn’t it? There was no way. There was no way it was back…

It was a fairly sizeable patch, too, about the width of his hand. It couldn’t have developed overnight without him noticing.

He cautiously gave it a firm prod. The blinding pain he’d expected from an infection in this stage didn’t manifest. He was breathing alright, too. Last time he’d been sick enough for the sores to start showing up he’d already been coughing up the lining of his lungs for a month. He poked it again, harder this time, digging his nail in hard enough to break the skin. Apart from the obvious source of pain, nothing happened, and the cut bled, instead of producing pus. It healed away a second later, taking the pain with it.

So, it wasn’t really the stigma. But then, why was it here? Was it another hallucination? They were certainly getting… vivid. They’d never been this bad, ever, even when Sephiroth was actively ripping his subconscious to bits.

He’d have to ask if anyone else could see it. Not now, though. He was so incredibly goddamn tired.

He could smell the onions before he actually saw them sizzling away in a cast-iron skillet. Tifa was leaning over the stovetop, stirring in a bunch of herbs and spices he knew the smells but not the names of. Beside her, Zack was chopping vegetables with the kind of speed and precision he’d expect from a line cook. He thought of Jensen, briefly, and the rest of the staff, and wondered if they’d found other jobs.

“Shower’s free,” he said, jerking a thumb back towards the stairs.

“Later,” said Tifa. “I want to eat first.” She spared a glance at him, then, frowning. “You look like shit.”

“Later,” he echoed. He leaned against the doorway to the kitchen, watching Zack slicing some sharp-smelling herb into ribbons.

“What, you don’t like cilantro?” asked Zack, noticing Cloud staring.

“I like lots of food,” said Cloud. “I’m just watching.”

“Did you want to help?” asked Aeris.

“No,” said Tifa immediately. The other two stared at her.

“Trust me, it’s for the best,” supplied Cloud, scratching his neck. “I’m good out here.”

And he was. It was nice to watch someone do something as normal as cook. He pulled up a chair at the kitchen table to watch them.

“Could you peel this for me?” said Tifa suddenly, offering a bulb of garlic to Aeris. “You’re the only one here with…” She paused, then turned to Zack, muttering something to him and gesturing to her hands.

“Fingernails,” said Zack.

“Those ones,” agreed Tifa.

“...Sure?” She stood up and retrieved a bowl from the cupboard, then sat back down across from Cloud.

“We’ll need that roasted, too,” said Zack. “Shit, we should’ve done this earlier. The chicken has to go in now…”

“I’ll throw it in with the tomatoes,” said Tifa. “It’ll blend better that way.”

“What are you making?” asked Cloud.

“Bullshit rice,” said Zack. “What happens when you have three specific recipes in mind but you don’t have all the right ingredients for any of them, so you just throw in whatever you have on top of a carb and hope it’s edible.”

“It smells good,” said Cloud.

“It does,” agreed Zack. “I could get used to the weird smell thing. Makes it a little hard to tell when something’s done when you can already smell it cooking anyway, though. Think I just dried out the chicken.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Tifa. She rummaged through the fridge and found some leftover milk, dumping a splash of it into the pot of rice she was stirring, which already smelled faintly spicy. “See? We’ll just cover it in cream sauce.”

“It’s gonna be too watery,” said Zack, frowning.

“Not if I cook it down,” said Tifa. “And if it is, no one will care. I’ve seen Cloud eat roadkill.”

“It wasn’t roadkill,” interjected Cloud.

“It was hit by a truck,” fired back Tifa. “That’s what roadkill is.”

“We saw it get hit by a truck,” he insisted. “It was fresh.”

“It was gross.”

“Nanaki liked it.”

“I’m sure he did,” said Tifa tiredly.

Zack coughed loudly. “Well -- anyway, mine’s done. Eat it at your own peril.”

“Thanks.” Tifa picked up the pan and began stirring the mixture into the rice she was already cooking.

“...What do you want me to do with this?” asked Aeris, holding up a plate full of peeled garlic.

“Smash it,” said Tifa. “As fast as possible, so it can go in soon.”

“A little wine would be good,” said Zack, giving the mixture a sniff. He turned back to Aeris, who was now crushing cloves of garlic against the plate with a fork. “You got any pinot grigio or anything?”

“I don’t think so,” said Aeris. “I don’t normally drink.”

“We’ll live without it,” said Tifa. “Since we’ve got running water, we can probably start on the dishes.”

“What about your gross champagne?” said Cloud to Aeris. She stared at him in surprise, and he shrugged. “I mean -- you mentioned it. Before.”

“I don’t think I have any left,” said Aeris. “That was almost a year ago.”

“Did you have any of this food in your house, though?” countered Cloud. “You said your plants should be dead, too.”

“I’ll check,” said Aeris, abandoning the garlic paper she’d been shredding into even finer bits and opening a door that appeared to lead to a pantry.

A moment later, she stepped out with a half-empty bottle of booze and a disconcerted expression.

“This isn’t even the one I had,” she said, offering it to Cloud. He got up to have a look, and realised the label was written in Standard Continental.

Grigorio
Est. 5403
Fruit Brandy

There was a silhouette of a diving gryphon with an arrow clutched in its talons. The cap had teeth marks on it.

Cloud unscrewed the lid and took a sniff of the contents. “Definitely champagne,” he said, handing it back to Aeris.

She passed it to Tifa, who went still as she saw the label. “This is --”

“I know,” said Cloud. “Beats me.”

He had a guess, though. It just wasn’t a very good one.

Tifa set the bottle down and didn’t pour any in. “I want some of the moisture to be absorbed first,” she said, finally adding the garlic to another pan she’d been stirring tomatoes and sausage in. “It’ll be ready in a little while.”

“Why don’t you go shower?” offered Zack. “I can take it from here.”

“I still need to finish cooking,” objected Tifa. “I said I would make us something to eat first, and we still have dishes to wash, so --”

“We’re practically finished already. It’s mostly just stirring and waiting after this, right? No point in just standing here,” said Zack. “Besides, you’ve been doing most of the work so far anyway. I’m gettin’ antsy here.”

“I already got you a towel,” added Cloud.

Tifa glanced uncertainly between him, Aeris, and Zack. Zack waved her away.

“I’m not gonna burn it,” he said. “The… the water helps with the voices a lot. Are you that convinced I’m gonna set us all on fire?”

Tifa bristled. “No.”

“Then let someone else do something useful for once,” said Zack. “That mooch --” he gestured to Cloud, “-- hasn’t done anything this whole time. How do you feel about dishes?”

“I feel really, really great about dishes,” said Cloud. Tifa gave him a skeptical look, so he added, “And Aeris is gonna help. We’re gonna do them in the sink.” He looked at Aeris. “Right?”

“Sure,” said Aeris, shrugging.

Tifa stared at the tomatoes still sizzling away in the pan for what felt like an eternity, then moved away from the oven, allowing Zack to take over stirring.

“You need less soap than you think you do,” she said to Cloud, before departing for the stairs.

It was quiet in the kitchen for another few minutes apart from the sound of the sink running and Zack stirring the pot of rice, which now smelled incredible.

“She’s really good at this,” said Zack after a moment. “The cooking thing, I mean.”

“Why didn’t you tell her that?” said Aeris.

“What, and sound like a kiss-ass? No thanks,” said Zack. “She is, though.”

“She designed the menu at Seventh Heaven,” said Cloud, trying not to think of the smashed windows and singed floor. “And all the drinks, too.”

“Do you cook any?” asked Zack.

Cloud snorted. “I’m banned from going near most of the appliances.”

“Wha --”

“Don’t ask.” He passed another dish to Aeris for her to dry and shrugged. “I mix drinks sometimes, though. Or clean tables.”

“Well, remind me to take you guys up on that later,” said Zack. “I wanna take notes.”

If there was a later. Cloud thought back to the first meal he’d eaten with Tifa; mashed potatoes that he’d thrown up minutes later, not realising it was also his first meal in nearly five years. And she’d joked that one day, when they’d miraculously toppled Shinra, she’d make him something he could actually handle, and he’d grown indignant at the thought that he could possibly have a weak stomach.

She’d made good on that promise two years later, on the first of August.

Zack was still stirring by the time he and Aeris finished with the dishes. The kitchen returned to its previous silence.

“Too quiet,” said Zack. “Just -- can’t you say something else?”

He glanced at Aeris, and realised she’d been staring at him the entire time, looking rather thoughtful. He cleared his throat.

“Oh --” Aeris shifted in her chair. “I’ll…”

There was another pause as they scrambled to think of something else to say.

“Please,” urged Zack. “I’m -- I can’t hear myself think, please --”

“I think I’ve got a CD player,” said Cloud. He retrieved his portable radio from the living room and set it up on the kitchen table. Upon switching it on, it began making the same hissing noise it had in Shinra Tower. He frowned and swatted at it a couple times, trying to adjust the signal, seeing Zack visibly untense as scratchy, jumbled static filled the room.

“That’s… not a CD player,” said Zack.

“Aeris said it was,” said Cloud, not looking up from the dial.

“Because I thought you were talking about CD players,” said Aeris. “That’s a radio.”

“Then what does ‘CD player’ mean?”

“It’s… they’re little discs made of plastic,” said Aeris. “And you put them in a machine that reads the little holes on the underside of them.”

Cloud stared blankly at her.

“What about cassettes?” asked Zack. “You got those? Little boxes, with magnetic tape in them.” He held up his hands to approximate the size.

“Oh!” Cloud nodded. There was a company that made little portable ones of those, so associated with the device that the brand in question had become synonymous with the product. “We have those. Panasonics.”

There was another beat, as Cloud realised Zack was staring at him again. Aeris meanwhile had taken a deep breath through her nose, and looked as though she badly wanted to hit something.

The radio finally crackled to life with another firm shake, as some pop ballad he didn’t recognise began blaring through the speakers, entirely in English. So that worked here, too.

“I dunno which stations are good in the UK,” said Zack. “Suggestions?”

“I haven’t listened to the radio in years,” said Aeris. “I have a phone.”

A grim look flashed across Zack’s face for a moment, and was gone just as quickly. “Just pick something you like,” he said, and turned his attention back to the rice.

Cloud slowly worked his way through each station. There were certainly more than two, that much he could tell. Presumably there hadn’t been a complete collapse of infrastructure here that had taken down nearly every broadcaster available. A talk show. Another pop ballad. A fast-paced club track. Some sort of folk song, which he was a little curious about, until he wondered if people had similar attitudes about being forced to listen to traditional folk music here as well. The channel after it was some sort of rock song, though -- if he left it between the two he could hear both at once. The violins sounded kind of nice on top of the guitar, even if he could only barely hear them bleeding through.

He moved it past the station with the guitar, and was met with more static between there and the next station, and then after that the dial stopped turning.

He frowned. Moved the dial back, and heard the radio shift through various stations all at once. Moved it forward again, left it between stations. This time, he could only barely hear the guitar. And the talk show and the pop ballad were too far apart, and he couldn’t hear either one if he left the needle in between. They weren’t really bleeding through on top of one another -- it was simply what he heard at that particular frequency. Sometimes, though, the violins would get a little weaker as the signal faltered, the guitar overtaking them. And sometimes the radio would act up again, lapsing back into the indistinct speech buried under layers of static.

“If you’re into alternative, you’ll want to try eighty --” began Aeris.

“Wait a moment,” said Cloud. There was -- there was something. A nagging feeling he couldn’t put into words, that he knew he should know… Zack -- Zack had been infected. Before Cloud had gotten to him, even, but he hadn’t been when he’d left. So something he’d run into on the way over had done it. But there was nothing to run into. He would have been moving through nothing. Unless everyone here had already been infected? That lined up with Tifa’s theory, that Mother had come from here; this strange place where everything was alive without a soul, practically walking around with their chests torn open and their hearts ripped out while a lake of molten metal bubbled away beneath their feet. And there was Aeris, too -- who seemed to have gone through the same process as Zack, and yet was very clearly not melted together with Tifa, or him for that matter, and as far as he could tell she was still completely human. So not everyone here was infected, even though Zack had been the one to initiate Reunion, and Cloud had been too worn down with stress and isolation to resist any longer.

Reunion. Mother still kept trying to pull him, as She had for years. At first he’d attributed Her continual whispers to the stigma, but when it was wiped out -- when Sephiroth had been wiped out, no longer available to use Her against him, it just kept going. She had to have known Cloud was the last piece of Her. And he’d checked -- been sure there had been no one else, after that nasty business with the Remnants, and had gone on a three month search around the world to be absolutely certain. He’d never sensed anything but himself. And She still kept pulling and pulling and pulling, but never to anything. There were no actions She really wanted him to take, aside from general hostility, no people She wanted him to meet, no places he should be going to; just a general sense of wrongness, that he was still incomplete. The only time She’d ever actually shut up was when Aeris had been talking to him, and… and very very briefly, after he’d arrived here, in this world. Here, where nothing had seemed quite real even when it had been, like walking through a dream that only he seemed aware of, where he was pretty sure he’d thrown a tank into another tank through sheer force of will when about two months ago he’d barely managed a couple drinking glasses. Here, where magic didn’t exist and shouldn’t be possible, and when trying to tap into a Lifestream an entire universe away that was apparently still keeping him alive had sent him into a Jenova-induced seizure. Where a machine that shouldn’t have worked did, because of someone else’s rules. And now that they were here, the call to Reunion was stronger than ever. Zack had actually been doing incredibly well when they were in quarantine together, seemed like he had some kind of natural resistance, and instead of it becoming more manageable as time went on, he seemed to be getting worse. He hadn’t stopped twitching since they’d had a chance to sit down. And meanwhile Cloud hadn’t had an episode since waking up naked on the floor of the sixth ring. But Tifa seemed to be recovering the way one normally would, at least mentally, so it wasn’t as simple as just being infected, either. Or… maybe it was? It was all the same part of Mother. They’d both been exposed through his blood. And in Zack’s case, his organs and bones as well. Was it just a matter of Zack being more infected -- less human -- than Tifa? So in that case, Tifa should be having the same problems as Zack, albeit maybe milder. Not to mention, she’d travelled with Aeris between worlds, too.

He looked down at the radio he was supposed to be setting and realised Aeris had taken it from him and was trying to get his attention.

“...hear me?”

Cloud blinked. “Yeah -- sorry. Just thinking. You can pick something out.”

Aeris went ahead and picked out a jazz station as Cloud’s mind continued to race, still gazing vacantly at the polished red plastic.

Aeris had said she hadn’t done anything to Cloud in order to… possess him, he supposed (he wasn’t really sure what to call it). She’d had some sort of electrical impulse or signal pattern or something she’d been following beforehand, which was apparently Mother. How had she even gotten that? If her parents had made Mother -- Jenova, and sent it over, then how was it billions of years old? How had Aeris never heard of the lynchpin for her own project? How had Zack encountered it if it was already over in Cloud’s world?

Unless -- unless it wasn’t. Not anymore. Not if what was left of Her that desperately wanted Reunion was somewhere that, until recently, had been out of Cloud’s reach.

He wondered what was keeping Her from claiming him right now, and realised the answer couldn’t possibly be anything good.

“Dinner’s ready,” said Tifa. Cloud jumped at the noise, letting out a startled yelp.

“When did you get here?” he asked, trying to retain what little dignity he had at this point.

“Ten minutes ago,” said Tifa. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “How ‘bout you?”

“I’m alright,” said Tifa. “I’ll feel better once I’ve eaten something. We all will, probably.”

The finished product turned out to be some sort of spicy, creamy chicken-rice sausage dish that, after weeks of hospital food and half-raw rabbit, Cloud decided was the best thing he’d ever eaten.

“I guess it’s jambalaya?” said Zack, through a mouthful of sausage. “But it’s not because there’s no seafood, and this is the wrong kind of rice, and we didn’t have any red peppers. It’s… Cajun-adjacent. See? Bullshit rice.”

“Wish I hadn’t forgotten garlic for so long,” said Tifa. “It would have been nicer if that was stronger.”

“It’s fine,” said Zack. “I mean, your cream sauce thing probably salvaged this, it would’ve been inedible otherwise after I overcooked the chicken.”

“You were also managing a pan while cutting up more vegetables I forgot to add,” countered Tifa. “I probably should have helped prep more beforehand --”

Cloud was already in the middle of wolfing down his second bowl, so it was Aeris who looked up at them with a steely gaze in her eyes.

“It is delicious,” she said, her voice like sharpened ice. “And I really like it. Thank you for making this.”

The two of them returned to eating with a mumbled, “you’re welcome”, and no one said anything else for another few moments.

It had been so long since he’d last done something as normal as “sit down at a table and eat food”. Even if it was food that maybe didn’t exist, and was something that Zack was sustaining because he’d convinced himself it was there, but maybe not. Possibly.

He felt a little guilty considering he was about to ruin it.

"So..."

The other three looked up at him. He swallowed.

"I don't want anyone to panic," he said, which was a mistake as he saw Tifa immediately start to panic. "I just wanna... check some things. Make sure I'm not going crazy." He said it offhandedly, as though he was joking and didn't strongly suspect he was actually cracking up.

"If any of you can see this, just -- just say so," said Cloud. He raised his hands to the neck of his shirt and paused. "Don't freak out," he added. It wasn't helping. He sighed and pulled his shirt down, exposing the patch of "infection" covering his left collar bone and most of the pectoral.

Tifa immediately choked on an onion.

"Okay, that's one," said Cloud. "Anyone -- does anyone else...?"

Aeris frowned. "I thought you already showered?"

"I did."

"You got some kind of skin condition?" asked Zack. "Never seen anything like it."

Tifa finally finished coughing. "How long were you hiding --"

"About thirty minutes," said Cloud. She stared in response. “Forty-five tops. Didn’t show up until after I got out of the shower.”

"It shouldn't be that big that fast," she said. She reached for it. "Can I...?"

"Sure." He tapped it a couple times to demonstrate. "Doesn't even hurt. There's no fluid in it, either."

As expected, Tifa scratched at it just to be sure, and as expected found no dirt under her nails.

"What is it?" asked Aeris.

"Geostigma," said Cloud. "This plague from a couple years ago. Mine was already cured, though. How I got this." He tapped the melted, scarred skin on his forearm. "Sores like this don't show up overnight. I should already be having seizures."

"You had one back in the sixth ring," said Zack.

"That was different," said Cloud. "I don't know why that happened, exactly, but it didn't feel the same as the last time. I don't have any other symptoms, either. I'm not coughing up blood, I don't have a fever, and -- I mean, I haven't eaten in a while before this, but I don't feel like throwing up."

“So you’re not -- you aren’t sick, then,” croaked Tifa.

“If I am, this is the mildest case of a life-threatening illness I’ve ever had,” replied Cloud, mopping up a bit of sauce out of the bottom of his bowl and licking it off his finger. Tifa crumpled in relief.

“...What do you think caused it?” asked Aeris after a moment.

“I have a few guesses,” said Cloud. “Though, it’s hard to tell what’s what since I’ve been hallucinating pretty much constantly since I… got out of Zack, I guess. But -- listen. We both saw that bottle, right?”

Tifa nodded.

“And you can all see the stigma, too. And my -- my number.”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” said Zack. “Nobody could see you at first when you showed up, and I’d swear they were looking right at you.”

“That’s my point,” said Cloud. “Listen, I’ve been thinking about some stuff, and I just… I want to hear what you guys think.”

“About what?” asked Aeris, going for her second bowl as well.

“You said… you said the people on the first half of the project -- Gainsboroughs Senior, they must have made Jenova,” he began to Tifa, “and… and sent Her over somehow.”

She nodded. “It would explain how She’s alive without actually being alive. And how it’s what they left for Aeris to track.”

“Right, but -- in that case, how’s it been preying on civilisations since basically forever in our world?” Aeris didn't actually seem to want to touch the food she'd gotten, so Cloud took her bowl and began finishing it off as well.

“To some degree, we can access other points in time, as long as there’s a point of contact,” said Zack. “We stopped doing it with you after the second time, when it messed with our notes.”

“Made it difficult to tell what I was looking at as well,” said Aeris. “More than it already was, anyway.”

“So, what contact point was available billions of years ago, to send Jenova back so She would exist so they could send Her there?” said Cloud, gesturing pointedly with his spoon.

“It’s possible there could have been something similar, just less stable,” began Aeris. “There was some data lost in the explosion.”

Zack shook his head. “The reason we haven’t blown up is because I designed the sixth ring with different methods than the ones used in the first bridging experiment,” he explained. “Mine’s safer. In layman’s terms, it just makes you not exist, which gets you out of the universe entirely, and from there you can reach the signal on the other side. They tried to go straight through in person immediately by just ripping open a hole in spacetime. They wound up making a micro black hole that lasted just long enough before evaporating to boil everything in the room with regurgitated gamma radiation. The sixth ring uses a few of the basic principles, but other than that...”

“You’re making it sound like they just went for it with no regard for what could be on the other side,” said Aeris tersely.

“Didn’t they?” said Zack, raising his eyebrow. “If they didn’t know what was already over there, why bother going in the first place?”

“But it must have worked to some degree -- they had the signal recorded,” said Aeris.

“I don’t think it did,” said Cloud. “Or… I think it worked, but I don’t think it worked the way they wanted it to. Because -- because none of this makes any sense if you consider they were trying to reach the Planet.”

Something appeared to click in Tifa’s head, as she blurted out, “They weren’t.” She coughed a couple more times, dislodging traces of food from her throat, and continued, turning to Aeris. “That -- that space we fell through, on the way back --”

“I saw it all the time, when we contacted you and Cloud indirectly,” she continued. “It looked different then, but… I always felt like there was something there with me.”

Silence went through the group as Cloud finished polishing off Aeris’s leftovers as well.

“They said you’d know it when you saw it,” said Tifa. “That’s what your bosses told you, right? But you didn’t.”

Zack nodded. “They didn’t seem interested in alien life, or first contact, or fucking magic being real. They just said to keep looking. After all that fuss of the project being funded out of nowhere when Aeris completed their work.”

“You mentioned you saw something,” said Aeris. “I thought it was just shock, from what had happened, but… did you?”

Zack looked away uncomfortably, then slowly, reluctantly nodded. “Yeah. I saw something.”

“When?” asked Cloud. “Was it --”

“Why didn’t you mention it sooner?” said Aeris, frowning at him.

“I didn’t -- I didn’t wanna think about it,” said Zack. “I still don’t. It -- it hurts to even remember, and every time I try it just… stops. Like -- like trying to lick your elbow. I can’t. But it was bigger than -- than everything. I saw it right before I met Cloud.” He pushed around the bay leaf that had made it into his bowl with his spoon. Everyone went quiet again as the implications slowly sunk in.

“That’s what’s been calling us,” said Cloud. “That’s the rest of Jenova. That’s what they were looking for.” He turned back to Aeris. “All that trouble to find us, and it turns out we were a happy accident. You overshot.”

“I’ve always wondered how he did it,” said Tifa. “Sephiroth, I mean. Walking through walls, and moving things without touching them, and… and doing things like this,” she said, gesturing to what was almost Aeris’s house, or at least a strong impression of the idea. “None of it should be possible. You said… he just convinced himself none of it was real. And that was how you did it too.”

“It was the other way around,” said Cloud, a mixture of dread and excitement beginning to collect in his gut. “Because Jenova wasn’t -- wasn’t from the universe at all. She didn’t exist, and She was part of him, so -- so he wasn’t entirely real, either. It’s why Aeris could use me, and then you -- it was just -- we’re bits of that space in between that they sort of knew about, that doesn’t actually exist, walking around. There’s -- there’s a scale, of how real things are, and from what world, unless they don’t exist at all in either, and -- and She wants…”

He could still hear Her voice that wasn’t a voice, growing clearer all the time. “Let me in. Let me out.”

“She wants them back,” he said. He thought briefly about how much of him was Jenova at this point. Definitely more than the average Soldier, possibly even on par with Sephiroth. How much of him shouldn’t -- didn’t -- exist?

“...Is that how I got infected?” asked Zack. “If I didn’t exist in your world and I -- I went through, uh… ‘Jenova’, I guess...”

“So then…” Aeris spoke slowly, as Cloud realised he’d been talking very quickly using a combination of thickly accented English and a language she’d only learned in the last couple weeks, “why am I not infected? What about the rats? Why was it only Zack?”

“Maybe because he was the first one through?” said Tifa, not sounding particularly convinced by her own argument.

“There’s still something else we’re missing,” said Cloud after a moment. He turned back to Zack. “Whether or not you believe me, you were the one that melted me. But you… you shouldn’t have been able to. Even if you were infected… I mean, Tifa’s been here the whole time, and nothing’s happened.”

There was something else bothering him, too, something he couldn’t place. Things he’d seen that he was almost certain were hallucinations, the return of his number and the stigma, Sephiroth’s and Lucrecia’s “appearances”, the scar on his throat from a wound Tifa couldn’t have possibly inflicted on him...

“We know what they’re after, at least,” said Aeris. “Which is more than we knew when we started.”

“Guess so,” said Cloud. “For all the good that does us.” He shrugged and helped himself to a third bowl. This stuff really was good. He’d have to see if Tifa wanted to put it on the menu for Seventh Heaven if they made it out of this alive, and if the place hadn’t been looted and burned to the ground by the time he got back. He thought briefly of Fenrir and sighed.

He was too full of food to do much more than sprawl out on the couch after they’d finished, and everyone wordlessly agreed to leave the dishes for tomorrow.

“So, how much do you think this place exists?” asked Tifa, as she sat down next to him.

“I dunno,” said Cloud, dragging his swords closer to him with his foot to begin disassembling them. “...Mostly seems real, I guess. We’ve got running water and electricity and radio.”

“But it’s not,” said Tifa. “Nibelheim wasn’t, either. How do you suppose we get out?”

“I doubt this place goes on forever,” said Aeris, returning from upstairs with a large handful of blankets. “We’ll see if we can leave tomorrow.”

“And go where?” said Zack. “Also, what are those for?”

“Sleeping arrangements,” said Aeris. “Someone’s going to have to take the couch.”

“I’ll do it,” said Zack. “The guest room’s got a bed in it, which should cover you two.” He nodded to Cloud and Tifa.

“Ah. Well, that settles that, then,” said Aeris, and dumped the pile on the floor in front of the couch before settling in. “Do you have reality television in your world?” Cloud opened his mouth to answer, before she plowed ahead anyway. “Never mind that, we’re watching this, even if it is a rerun.”

She directed their attention to the screen, which was still playing the cooking show from before. She pressed a button on the remote, causing it to rewind and play from the beginning. It must have been on VCR, then, though he couldn’t seem to find a slot for a tape to go anywhere.

It wasn’t the worst thing she could have put on. A little hard to follow since it was all in English, though it did help when Aeris put on subtitles. Occasionally, he or Tifa would ask Aeris or Zack for a definition of a word, or he would ask Tifa what a certain kind of food was. Zack didn’t seem to be paying attention to the show at all, his eyes glazed over the entire time he was explaining what proofing was.

“...D’you think Shithead’s okay?” said Aeris suddenly.

Who? Cloud almost asked, before Zack replied first.

“Probably,” he said. “I mean -- it’s not like they put them down if you don’t show up in time, I don’t think. Worst case, she’s been given a new home with someone else.”

Oh -- the cat. It hadn’t even occurred to him what she’d done with it during her time in the facility.

“I miss her,” said Aeris. “She was all the company I had, until now.”

“No friends from school?” asked Zack.

She shook her head. “I was a thirteen year-old surrounded by university students. And until recently, the only doctors that wanted anything to do with me were ones that kept trying tell me about their studies in ‘pyramid energies’.” She glanced wearily over at Cloud. “I don’t suppose that’s real in your universe too, is it?”

“Pyramids like… buildings?”

“Never mind.” She turned her gaze back to the television. “I suppose you were right all along, about this being a power grab.”

“I wish I wasn’t,” replied Zack. “Woulda been nicer if you were right. You were about everything else.”

“Nothing to be done about that now,” said Aeris.

“Do you think,” began Tifa, more to herself than anyone else, “do you think they’re still looking for us?”

It took Cloud a moment to realise she was talking about their family. “I -- maybe. They’d be looking for you, anyway. I ran off after telling everyone I was hearing voices.”

“They’d be looking for a body,” said Tifa, her face grim. “The last time they saw me I was jumping out of an airship with no parachute.”

“They’d keep looking for you, though,” said Cloud. “You’re the one they actually liked.”

“Cloud --”

“Well, it’s true,” said Cloud. “It’s not like I contribute anything. I mostly just wait for you guys to drag me out of bed. Don’t tell me you enjoy that.”

“I want you to look me in the eye and tell me that Nanaki doesn’t like you.”

Cloud looked away and grunted.

“There’s something admirable about it,” said Aeris suddenly. Cloud looked at her in surprise. “The way you all found each other. I… had hoped, before, that I’d get more of a chance to speak with them. Maybe I should have.”

“Maybe you still can,” said Cloud. “I mean, you found us too.”

Aeris was silent for a moment before quietly saying, “It wasn’t as thought I had a choice not to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’ve known exactly where my life was going to go and how it was going to get there, up until now. I’ve never actually chosen anything.” The cooking show behind them had ended at some point. No one seemed to be watching it anymore.

“Yeah, but you still did it,” said Zack. “You didn’t have your career handed to you.”

“You both have careers,” added Cloud.

“And all three of you actually worked for something,” interjected Tifa, “instead of just coasting through --”

Aeris opened her mouth to object. “I --”

“Everyone just -- stop,” said Zack. “We’re tired. Everything’s gone to hell. Let’s… let’s just see how things play out from here. Can’t do anything about it now.”

Aeris retrieved the remote from under the couch cushion and turned the television off. “Should we turn in now?”

Zack didn’t answer right away. “If -- if you want, yeah,” he said.

They had all slouched off the couch into the pile of blankets at some point. Zack was pointedly not looking at anyone, and had gone back to drumming his fingers against his knee.

“It’s just --” he said suddenly. “It’s… we could all be dead tomorrow, the way this is going, right? So…” he cleared his throat, adapting a more nonchalant tone. “I mean -- if you guys wanted to just -- talk for a little longer, that’d be neat too.”

“Why don’t… why don’t we just sit here for a little bit?” said Cloud. “It’s -- it’s comfortable, right?”

“Better than quarantine,” said Zack, a little more firmly than he’d apparently intended. He looked away again. “Get up when you want to. I won’t stop you.”

He could always get up later. But for now, Tifa was warm against him -- perhaps a little too warm, but he tried not to think of that. And Aeris was sprawled out under the blankets already, looking as though she was about to pass out anyway. So, he was fine here for now.

If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine Barret and Yuffie were there, stuffed into an overcrowded tent that still smelled of grass stains and dried mud.

He opened them to find Zack staring at them with a rather hungry expression on his face.

Cloud stared back. “What?”

“Nothing.” He went back to sitting up, staring intently at the drawer he had smashed earlier.

Cloud almost wanted to roll his eyes. Zack didn’t feel comfortable being next to Aeris, barely knew Tifa, and still wasn’t sure if Cloud wanted him dead, or vice versa. So he’d elected to just sit there. No wonder he’d volunteered for the couch. It was hilarious.

Cloud couldn’t actually bring himself to feel happy about it.

“Tight squeeze?” he said as a cover.

“I --” It took Zack a moment to process before nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, it, uh…”

“Teef,” he muttered, “switch places?”

She looked at him, bemused, but shifted over to the left, now sandwiched between himself and Aeris. Cloud patted the blanket on his right.

“That should be enough room,” said Cloud.

Zack looked at him for what felt like an eternity before settling down next to him.

“...Thanks,” he mumbled.

Cloud nodded. “I still owe you one.”

Zack didn’t say anything after that. No one did. But they were all very warm, anyway.

“You’ve all been so good to me…”

Cold nipped at his skin through his jacket, the Buster Sword clattering off the rocks from where he’d thrown it away, out of his reach. The world seemed to warp around the edges.

“Maybe one day you’ll meet the real Cloud --"

 

---

 

Cloud didn’t even realise he’d fallen asleep until he was woken up by the sound of a microwave beeping, followed by a glass door sliding open and then closed. He wasn’t sure how long he’d actually been out. Maybe a couple hours. It was hard to tell -- the sky outside was dark, but there wasn’t anything in the sky to signify what time it was, and for some reason Aeris didn’t keep a clock anywhere in the house.

Aeris -- she wasn’t here. He carefully sat up, easing himself out from underneath the blankets as delicately as he could without waking Tifa or Zack. Tifa stirred a bit in her sleep, and Cloud tried not to think about how it was probably getting harder and harder for her to breathe.

She’d be fine. They’d get home and get her stabilised, and it’d be fine.

He didn’t have to go far to find Aeris, fortunately -- she was back out on the porch, sitting on a folding chair with a mug of tea.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked, leaning against the wall next to her.

“Bad dream,” she replied.

“D’you wanna talk about it?”

“Nothing to talk about.” Aeris paused to take a small, careful sip of her tea. “I’m likely having anxiety regarding the very real chance we could all be eviscerated by something that only sort of exists.”

“You get used to it,” said Cloud.

“I’d hope that’s not the kind of thing anyone would have to get used to,” said Aeris curtly. “Though, you still do owe me that story.”

“There’s… there’s nothing to tell that you don’t already know anymore,” said Cloud. “I was a failure until I wasn’t. Then some people decided I could live with them as long as I fixed the door so it wouldn’t slant so much on its hinges.”

“But they still chose you.”

“...I guess they did.”

“That counts for something, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe. But…”

“But what?”

“Forget it.”

Aeris thankfully didn’t press him on the issue, and they sat in silence for another few minutes. The flowers (or maybe, a mostly real idea of flowers) all smelled different, and it was enough for him to close his eyes and try to pick out individual smells in a wash of perfumed air.

"I think I did,” Aeris blurted out suddenly.

“...Did what?”

“I -- I liked being you,” she said. “You asked me earlier.”

“I don’t remember asking you that,” said Cloud, shifting in discomfort.

“I’m not surprised,” said Aeris, though she seemed disappointed. “You were really out of it, in that cell. So I think I owe you an apology.”

“For -- for what?”

“Because I shouldn’t have enjoyed it, and I did,” said Aeris. She paused. She was staring at Cloud again. There was something about the intensity of her gaze that made him uncomfortable, and he looked away. He wasn’t used to actually having to look at her.

“I loved every second of it,” she said. “The way it felt to move. Being that strong. Getting to explore your planet before anyone else. Getting to do magic. Meeting you eventually. But I only got to meet you because more than anything else, I liked the control.”

Cloud could still feel her staring at him, hollowing him out with her eyes.

“...Or at least, the illusion of it,” she added. “I wouldn’t have been there in the first place if I’d actually had any. But it was nice to pretend.”

“Seems like you had control,” said Cloud. “Who says you don’t?”

“I do,” said Aeris. “And… I suppose, so did my parents. My mother, Doctor Ifalna Gainsborough. She started all this.”

“And you kept doing it.”

Aeris nodded.

“Even though it’s not really your decision.”

She nodded again.

“I’m not sure I’d know how to act, if I didn’t,” said Aeris. “I don’t know what kind of choices I’d make without her. Maybe that’s a bit stupid.”

“...I think I liked having you there too,” replied Cloud. It clearly wasn’t the response she was expecting, and the disarmed expression on her face softened her gaze enough for him to actually look her in the eye again.

“Maybe even for the same reasons,” said Cloud. “Sort of.”

“But you didn’t have any control at all. Wasn’t that why you hated it?”

“Neither did you,” Cloud said. Aeris fell silent again.

He closed his eyes once more, but this time he allowed himself to think about it. Aeris, waking up in his skin, only it wasn’t his anymore. And she got to explore the Planet, the way she’d wanted to, and do magic. And the Director was so, so proud of her -- and proud of him, finally useful the way they’d wanted him to be --

“You’re crying.”

Cloud blinked and found his vision blurry. He hadn’t even realised. He quickly wiped his eyes and coughed.

“Do you want to come inside?” he asked.

“In a little bit,” said Aeris. “Want to finish my drink first. I didn’t mean to wake anyone.”

“...Alright.” Cloud wiped the bottoms of his feet off on his pant legs and opened the glass door. Aeris did not move at all.

Maybe he should wait here for her.

Maybe she just wanted to be alone.

If she did, his presence here was a bother already.

He stood there, fresh pebbles digging into the soles of his feet again. The world already felt so thin, and she was still too far away.

He wasn’t aware of the fact that he’d already turned back around until he found himself awkwardly hugging her, trying to avoid her tea and still be at chair level from a standing position and never, ever wanting to let go.

He realised a second later she hadn’t hugged back, and he stepped away almost immediately. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’ll --”

Aeris looked at him expectantly, then set her tea down by her chair and stood up.

“Well?” she said. Cloud’s throat tightened. He wasn’t sure what she wanted, didn’t want to give a wrong answer --

Then he realised there were arms around him, and a voice in his ear as he squeezed back even harder than before, a strangled laugh, whispering, “It’s about time.”

Notes:

Here's the calm...

Chapter 37: Aeris Makes Breakfast Because Zack Is Too Tired To

Notes:

...and here's the storm.

Thank you so much to everyone who's shown enthusiasm toward this disasterpiece, to revolutionarygirlkaasy, Sanctum_C, la-regina-scrive, deathrebirthsenshi, and daily kaley for looking this over, and to everyone that has encouraged me along the way. All of you made this possible.

This chapter contains depictions of body horror and gore.

This isn't your fault, Cid thought to himself. Kid's a bad influence, neither one of 'em were all there in the head. How the hell were you supposed to know? This isn't your fault.

Still, it was hard to actually believe it, actually looking up at the sheer cliff face that Nanaki was carefully making his way down, ears flattened.

"Good news? Bad news?" asked Cid, not even sure what either of those would mean anymore. "We found most of the remains" could be both at this point.

"Nothing," replied Nanaki, licking his nose. "We could try checking the river. Maybe she landed in it, and she survived, and the current carried her off, which is why I can't smell her, and why we haven't found anything --"

"Not until the others catch up," said Cid. "Don't want you wandering too far without backup, 'cause you're the only nose we got left in the group."

And because it had been a week and they'd already lost two. Cid wasn't ready to lose a third.

He sat down on a rock next to Nanaki and lit himself a cigarette. Nanaki sat next to him and dropped his head onto his lap. Kid was exhausted -- Cid wouldn't be surprised if he had to physically drag him over to a bed.

In a strange way, Cid envied him. It was better than just being numb. He felt worse about not feeling worse than he did about watching Tifa phase through glass and plummet to her -- death. To her death. She was probably dead. If he just accepted that now, he'd be ready for the shock when they found the body. It had been two days. Surely they'd have to find something eventually.

Nanaki let out a huff of discomfort as Cid's phone buzzed in his pocket, beneath his chin. Cid moved his leg away and dug his phone out of his pocket, flipping it open.

"What?" he grunted.

"Hello to you too," came Yuffie's voice from the other end. "No luck on my end. Shera wants to talk to you."

"Put 'er on," said Cid, grimacing. Things had -- understandably -- been a bit chilly between them. He'd said a lot of things he regretted, and as much as they'd managed to work past some things, there was always the incident with the first launch and the years following it festering in the background.

It had been a bit of a shock to the system, joining Avalanche. There were oddities like Cait Sith and Nanaki, of course, but there were other little things that had surprised him too, like the fact that some scrawny prettyboy barely out of his teens was giving orders as though he had any kind of authority, and that people, including a man that probably could have snapped said "former Soldier" across his knee like a twig, were actually following them. And that he got dumped by their equally-twitchy technician not two weeks after Cid had signed on, but then they just kept talking with each other the next day like nothing had happened. And that someone else was the heir to the Wutaian throne and apparently had a thing for extremely loud croptops.

And that every interaction hadn't ended in a shouting match. About the closest they got were Cloud and Yuffie's frequent juvenile dick-measuring contests (at the very least, they eventually found out why he acted like an emotionally unstable teenager, no wonder they got on like a house on fire). It was just... nice to be able to talk to someone without years of resentment in every word. He hadn't even realised how tired it had been making him.

He remembered the first week after joining, when Tifa had had a particularly bad day and on an impulse had taken one of his cigarettes without asking. He'd opened his mouth to snap at her, as he'd done a million times, and then remembered that she wasn't Shera, and that she was working hard, and that she hadn't done anything to him, and that they were just cigarettes.

They were always just cigarettes.

Cid's head felt numb along with the rest of him. Maybe it was a good thing the grief hadn't caught up to him just yet.

"Cid? You there?"

"...Hey, Shera."

"Hey. Listen... I know this is kind of soon to ask, but... about Cloud..."

Cid's mouth went dry. He knew this question would have come up sooner or later. They only had the resources to pursue one of them. "...Don't really know yet. Cloud's been missing for longer, but we haven't found out what happened. Could still be out there. Tifa was a couple days ago, but... I saw her jump. Even if she is infected, no one's surviving that fall."

He tried to take another drag from his cigarette to calm himself and realised the cherry had fallen off. "Whole plan's kaput anyway. Wherever Cloud is, he ain't in the facility no more. You can probably give Reeve back his materia."

"Is he still with you?"

"Nah, he's out in Junon trying to use his 'connections'." Tifa still needed mako. If she wasn't already dead, she certainly would be. Or worse. "I'm with Nanaki. We're still lookin'."

"Well... look. I can stay here and make sure I'm ready if he's in the area, or I can come out to meet you and look for Tifa. You were closer with them than I was, you'll -- you know them better."

Cid felt his jaw clench. It was only natural it had come to this -- Cid had been the next to lead; after Barret had abdicated due to personal reasons, since apparently someone had killed themselves a couple months before Cid had joined the group; Cloud had graduated from deep psychosis and a dissociative fugue to a complete and total mental breakdown and wound up a vegetable; and Tifa had left to wipe up his drool, because apparently she sure knew how to pick 'em. And he'd led a team briefly in the space programme. It wasn't as though he didn't have experience leading.

But he was still being asked to give up on one of them.

He thought of Tifa again, and the two months she'd tried to take up smoking to cut through the stress, and the way she'd spread herself thin between the bar, and Cloud, and Marlene, and the rebuilding effort, and donating eggs, always making up for something, until something else happened that she was convinced was her fault. The Northern Crater, the stigma, this whole fiasco. Without mako she’d be dead within weeks.

And Cloud, who'd spent most of his first "birthday" in a daze, too stunned to even smile, meeting Cid a week later and still trying to give back the jacket he'd gotten him because he still couldn't process it as his, who'd teared up when Cid had come by to see the bike he was building and said he was impressed, and spent the rest of the day following him around, listening to him talk about airships for hours with rapt attention.

Oh. There was the grief.

This hurt.

"It hurts."

Cid's head whipped up around the same time as Nanaki's did.

Standing in front of them was a naked woman he'd never met before, staring impassively at them.

"It hurts," she said in a near monotone. "I can hear Her. It hurts. Don't leave me here."

Nanaki's fur was on end now, a low growl building in his throat.

Cid dropped his cigarette and lunged for his bag, hoping to god he'd brought a weapon down from the ship with him. His fingers closed around a pocket knife, and he whirled back around, praying she hadn't moved further.

She was gone.

"Cid? Cid, are you there?" The phone was lying face-down in the grass, and he snatched it up with mildly shaking fingers.

"...Keep the materia," he said. "And tell Reeve to meet me back in Rocket Town. I think -- I think Cloud's alive."

 

---

 

The sky was burning, the ugly red colour of an open wound. Gulls circled overhead, screaming, darting through twisted, broken I-beams and crumbling cement edifices.

She realised she'd had this dream before -- knew what it finally meant, even if she didn't know how. And, of course, it was a dream, because she was Cloud, but Cloud was in front of her too, shaking her shoulder gently

He was afraid, that much she could tell. She tried to tell him that she was fine, they were just dreaming, but her mouth didn't seem to work anymore. Cloud was screaming at her now, glancing over his shoulder at something behind him, but as she craned her neck to see what it was, his throat split open, drenching her in a hot red spray as his own heart pushed the blood from his arteries with every beat. His body slumped lifelessly against her.

She could see something in the wound -- something giving off a cold, white glow, like a torch through smoke. She calmly sat down and pushed her hands into the cut, determined to open it further to reach in. Pressing her hand inside, she was met with something uncharacteristically soft as her fingers became tangled in a mass of pink ribbon. She pulled her hand back, and the ribbon streamed out after it in one long piece. She kept pulling and pulling, her hands wet and slightly sticky with slowly drying blood, and the ribbon kept unspooling into her lap. The pile continued to grow, until at last she reached for more ribbon and found herself at the end. Smiling triumphantly, she looked down at Cloud, only to realise he wasn't there anymore -- she'd unravelled him completely.

Well, she'd find out what was at the end eventually. Aeris sighed and then reached into her own mouth, grasping the ribbon sitting on her tongue and trailing down her throat, and began to pull.

"Hey."

She heard Zack whispering before she registered he was gently shaking her awake. She rolled over, picking the sleep from the corners of her eyes, and found him crouched behind her, taking care to avoid stepping on the pile of dead leaves next to his foot.

Aeris stared at it blankly for a few moments, then allowed her gaze to wander around the rest of the room. Nearly every plant was dead or dying, though the cold grey light peeking through the slits in the blinds painted stripes over a table covered in a thin layer of dust.

"I thought it wasn't --"

"Real?" finished Zack. "Who even knows anymore."

She yawned, not quite wanting to wake up from the best sleep she'd had in weeks. She'd been having a nice dream, too, though she couldn't quite remember what it was. Something about ostriches, she felt.

Cloud seemed to have already gotten up, if the crumpled blankets piled next to Tifa were any indication. Zack leaned back against the couch now that there was more room to spread out and closed his eyes, his face drawn and pale.

"Not feeling well," he said. "You -- if you can, keep your voice down. There's too much noise."

"What time is it?" asked Aeris, picking some grit out of her eyes. "Has anyone eaten yet?"

"Don't know, and don't know," replied Zack. "...Can you hear them?"

"No," said Aeris uneasily. "Hear what?"

"I don’t know," said Zack. "There's not -- it's too far away for me to tell." He grimaced. "There's that brain damage kicking in, huh?"

"Perhaps," said Aeris, getting up to go make tea. "Cloud would know better than I would."

"Mm," replied Zack, still not opening his eyes. "Listen... Aeris? I --"

Aeris paused warily in the doorway. "Yeah?"

"You believe me, right?" said Zack. "I didn't know. I swear I didn't."

Aeris's grip tightened on the doorframe as her shoulders tensed.

"...I don't know," she said after a moment. "I know I want to believe it."

"I didn't," insisted Zack. "Look, this -- all this was the best thing that ever happened to me. At least, at first. It... it really felt like maybe we were doing something good, even if..." He sighed. "Whatever. I'm not trying to fish for sympathy here, I just -- I need you to understand --"

"You keep saying that," said Aeris. "You 'need' to."

Zack fell silent.

"I understand what you mean," said Aeris. "But you ought to know, you've got an awfully punchable face. Perhaps try smiling less."

A soft chuckle issued from behind her. "Yeah, I'll... no promises, y'know?"

"Of course," said Aeris, before disappearing into the kitchen.

Now that she was properly up, she was beginning to realise how chilly the house was, given she hadn't touched the thermostat since late September. She made tea as quietly as possible, snatching the kettle off the stove the instant it started whistling, though not quite soon enough to prevent Zack's pained groan as he lay sprawled across the couch. The toast had a much less noisy preparation, at least. She came back to find Cloud and Tifa huddled together in a knot of blankets, with Cloud looking even more surly and anxious than normal.

Was he...? thought Aeris, but before she could place what was wrong, Cloud spoke up.

"I owe you a story."

Aeris froze halfway through handing Tifa her plate.

"We talked it over this morning," said Cloud. "And we thought, given the circumstances... I mean... Jenova. I guess it'd be good for you to know."

"Neither of us were there for all of it," said Tifa, as Aeris sat down next to her, warming her hands on the mug. "And the pieces don't line up, anyway."

"This... this seems like something I should've been told a while ago," said Aeris with a hint of irritation in her voice.

The two of them exchanged an uncomfortable look in response as Zack rolled over to face them.

"There are parts that -- that I don't like talking about," said Cloud. "You might not like it either."

"Why's that?"

"There are parts of it that --" began Tifa delicately, before Cloud interjected.

"I fucked up and didn't want anyone judging me for it," he said. "I'm not gonna try to defend what I did," he added, shooting a look at Tifa. "At least you didn't know. I knew, though. I just didn't give a damn."

Zack stared at him. "Look, if it's anything like what I saw, with..."

Cloud shook his head. "Not really. But -- listen, I know I -- I don't want or need your pity. Okay? I don't need anyone else treating me like I'm gonna go to pieces at any second. Even if I am. I've -- I've had time to think about it, and I'm only telling you this to -- it's just more information we can use, alright? And -- and because I owe it to you to be honest about -- about what I did. I owe you."

"Cloud, maybe we should start a little slower," began Tifa again, but there was a fevered look in his eyes now, the same one he'd had while stuck in quarantine with a doctor.

"...You start," he said after a moment. Tifa sat there for another beat looking terribly uncomfortable.

"I think it might help for you to do that instead," she said eventually.

"Yeah." Cloud swallowed. "Yeah, I guess so."

He took a few sips of his tea, apparently oblivious to the fact that it had barely stopped boiling.

"Fine. We'll start from the beginning."

 

---

 

Cloud wasn't really sure what to make of the little blue numbers etched into his wrist at first. In fact, it was a few weeks before he even noticed they were there at all.

Tifa had apparently bandaged them when he was -- while he was sick. Fever or something. He assumed he'd been injured, and it wasn't until Jessie had talked him into the whole dress thing and he'd needed to actually peel it off that he noticed it was there. He'd asked Tifa about it when they'd had a chance to talk, and she'd hesitated for a moment before replying that yes, she'd seen it, and covered it, because he'd gotten it while he was in Soldier, and they were trying to be inconspicuous; the eyes were bad enough, and the pupils were unusual even for someone of his rank. And Cloud had nodded -- of course, he remembered getting the tattoo in with his buddies in Soldier. How could he have forgotten? The day he'd gone out with all the friends he'd had and gotten it meant a lot to him. Enough that, for some reason, just sitting down when he was alone and staring at it was enough to calm him down. It was a little fuzzy, but the day he'd gotten that tattoo had been the happiest day of his life. He was sure of it.

And there were other things he had to ask Tifa about, too, when they'd found the President dead with a sword in his back. Nibelheim, mostly. Because after he'd recounted what happened, right up to the reactor, he realised he wasn't exactly sure what he'd been doing for the last five years.

Until he remembered -- of course, he'd been a mercenary. He'd been doing merc work, and... and travelling. Whenever he tried to remember specifics everything went fuzzy again, but there was really no use thinking that hard about it.

And then there were yet more things, things that Tifa had fewer and fewer answers to as time went on.

Why did his chest hurt so much sometimes, especially around mako springs? He felt as though he shouldn't be there -- like someone wanted him out. He'd always been a little sensitive to psychic feedback, he remembered from his Soldier exam -- the mako scratch test, which he'd passed with flying colours -- but then so was Nanaki, and Nanaki didn't feel as though he were trespassing on something he had no right to be anywhere near.

Why were his eyes like that? He'd only ever seen them on Sephiroth. And... and the things in the pods in the reactor. One of them had had eyes like that.

Why wasn't he more well-known, having made it into Soldier at the tender age of fourteen? When most Soldiers were a foot taller than him, even as an adult? Surely that would have been a bigger deal.

Why were there others with numbers?

Tifa didn't seem to want to answer that question. Cloud was growing less and less sure he wanted her to.

They kept piling up.

Why did he -- sometimes, not very often, it wasn't a problem -- do things, say things, without really understanding why? He knew it had made sense at the time to try and abandon the group, but when they'd found him hours later, staring at a wall of some crumbling ruin that he'd been certain was important to him somehow, he wasn't sure what it was. He'd been less certain when he'd been told he'd been muttering in his sleep, and even less when he'd started to hear a sound -- a loud one, too, and soothing, and beautiful, and was told that there was nothing there to hear.

Why was there a third prototype of Soldier he didn't know about? If he was First Class, that would've been information he'd be privy to. Expected to know, even.

Why, when he was in the temple of the Ancients, had he been overcome with a powerful urge to wrap his hands around Yuffie's throat and squeeze, and had been about a second away from tearing her head clean off her shoulders with a placid smile on his face before Tifa hit him over the head with a rock?

Why did he dream about leaving piles of cadavers in his wake, in Junon, in the Golden Saucer, in Bone Village, only to find them in the waking world hours later, the bodies still cooling?

Why did he hand over the Black Materia?

Why did he want to hand over the Black Materia?

Why had Jessie, upon accessing the computers in Nibelheim, discovered there had never been anyone named Cloud Strife that had ever existed? Why, if the whole thing was obviously a cover up, had Tifa been spared having her records wiped in the same way?

Why did he just know where to go? Why did he keep seeing things? Why was everyone treating him like there was something wrong with him when there wasn't, he was fine. He was fine...

Why wasn't... why wasn't Tifa telling Sephiroth that he was lying, that...

"It doesn't even look like him, Tifa," he said. "Real Soldiers don't have eyes like that."

"Tifa -- Tifa you saw me there!" said Cloud, his voice increasing in volume along with his growing sense of dread. "You saw me go to Nibelheim, you -- tell them --"

"Yes, Tifa. Tell them."

Tifa remained silent. Cloud felt his heart drop into his stomach.

"...Tifa?"

"I'm -- I'm sorry, I --"

No. She was just confused, or Sephiroth was... was twisting the facts, or something, she...

"I didn't know what to say, you didn't -- you were so sure, I --"

Cloud swallowed. "Tifa... he's lying. He's... remember? I -- I promised --"

Tifa just shook her head, tears quietly streaming down her face. "I'm sorry. I don't -- I don't know, you could have... I don't know."

"Didn't you ever wonder about those numbers on your arm?" asked Sephiroth dryly, as Cloud's vision began to swim. Sephiroth shouldn't know about the tattoo. Maybe he'd seen it when they were in Soldier together? Or even through the connection, somehow. "Perhaps it hadn't occurred to you to wonder, the way a human that could think for itself would."

"It -- I got it in Soldier, with my friends." Not like the ones they'd seen so far, quietly muttering to themselves. Not like them. He wasn't like them. Tifa had even... she had even said it was...

"You think you're upset," continued Sephiroth. "You aren't. You don't actually feel emotion, the way a real person would. You've only ever wanted what you've been told to want. The successful ones were the ones that were empty inside."

"Shut up."

"L.C 67-2. S3," repeated Sephiroth. "It's really very descriptive when you know what it means. The prototype series of the Jenova Project all died due to complications. I was the first -- Series 1. And the mass-produced, streamlined process -- they're all Series 2. Which makes you the cancelled Series 3."

"No." Cloud's thoughts had all ground to a halt. "I..."

"Property of Lucrecia Crescent," continued Sephiroth. Head of the Science Department, the one he always felt strange around. "I'm sure she could fill you in on where you've been for the last five years."

Tifa was still crying.

"Do you know what your supposed mother looks like?"

She wouldn't look at him.

"How did you get into Soldier at your size? Your uniform doesn't even fit."

He couldn't think.

"Do you know how you ran into Tifa, after all that time? Tifa does."

He couldn't breathe.

"You would think if you had been around for twenty-something years you'd remember more."

Everything was too close -- too loud -- he'd been a thousand miles away before and hadn't realised it, and now he was choking on a million sounds, reaching for something to drown them out, finding nothing but silence.

"It's not Tifa's fault, of course. After all that time, you turn up looking like you do? Of course she'd want to pretend. But the thing is..."

"I was in Soldier... I was in Soldier! And my friends -- I got the tattoo with my friends..."

"...wanting something doesn't make it true, Series 3."

His heart was pounding in his ears. The world was suffused with a cold white light, the static noise growing painfully loud again before he realised he was standing on jagged rock.

"Where did he come from?!" someone behind him said.

The words around him were mush now. Tifa was shouting something else. Kept shouting even as he took the Black Materia from Barret. Kept shouting even as he finally brought himself to look up, and found himself face to face with Hojo.

The number. Hojo had given it to him. He hadn't had any friends... he'd been no one before this. He wasn't in Soldier. He wasn't Cloud. He wasn't even human.

But... but he had a number, didn't he?

He swallowed. "I -- I did it."

Hojo stared at him. Something familiar burned through.

Series 3 --

Pain. A cold floor, stealing the heat away from his skin. Eyes on all sides behind glass through liquid green, wires and tubes burrowing through his arms and throat and into the back of his neck.

It was true. It was all true.

"I made it here," he continued. "The -- the voices I hear -- that's Jenova, isn't it? It's... you gave me a number. That... that means I was a success, right?"

Hojo continued to stare at him.

Cloud offered his wrist. "Look, that's... you gave that to me. It... it always cheered me up, just having it, even when I couldn't... when I wasn't sure about anything else. So -- so thank you."

He looked up at Hojo again, who continued to appear completely indifferent.

"...Are you proud of me?"

And then, when that got no response:

"...Do you hate me?"

He could have sworn Hojo looked pained for an instant, before his expression morphed into one of cold fury.

"What do you think, Series 3? It certainly never occurred to you to wonder that before."

Images began playing out behind his eyes, increasing the volume of the muffled rushing noise in his ears.

"Do you think I enjoyed making you when Sephiroth was no longer available? Do you think you had any right to demand something in return for your mediocre progress?" Cloud's face burned with humiliation as tears finally began spilling down his cheeks. "Do you think you have the right to come crawling back, now of all times, now that Sephiroth is alive to usher forth Reunion? I gave you every opportunity to succeed. I provided you with a sword and a uniform, under the mistaken belief it would encourage you to live up to the bare minimum standard those who have actually earned that rank can achieve, and you still consciously decided it wasn't good enough. And now you have the audacity to ask me to feel something towards you?"

Cloud couldn't bring himself to look at Hojo. His mouth didn't seem to work anymore, either.

"Perhaps I will," said Hojo. "I will grant you this last favour. You sicken me, Cloud."

Every breath was a struggle with the air this thick, with his throat burning this much, with his head pounding as the music grew louder and louder still.

He needed -- he needed him -- something -- needed him, closer -- there was yelling, and guns, maybe, and everything seemed to splinter, and there was something clawing its way through his chest as he imagined the Professor holding him -- the Professor cutting away piece by piece as he pleaded for it to stop -- the Professor with his hand on his shoulder, solid and warm, outside an inn in Kalm -- the Professor saying -- saying anything -- the Director gently combing her fingers through his hair, humming a song he couldn't quite remember --

There were corpses lying around him, he realised -- a few guards that had gotten close, their bodies twisted and bent like crushed twigs. Professor Hojo was suspended in the air in front of him, a pile of broken bones, his neck twisted at an extreme angle, head lolling forward. His glasses slid off his face and clattered to the ground.

Cloud dropped him with a yell. He hadn't meant... he had, but --

"...Professor?" he asked the body. He didn't respond.

"I didn't mean to..." He knelt, sitting it up, as though that might help. He felt very fragile this way -- thin, papery skin over aging bones. He'd seemed so much bigger than that before.

He turned around to face the many humans now staring at him in horror.

"I'm sorry."

It was all he could do. Everything felt too close and too far.

"You've all been so good to me. I hope -- if he's alive... maybe one day you'll meet the real Cloud."

There was still someone left he could go to. Someone still needed him.

Cradling Hojo's body to his chest, he looked up at the network of crystalised Lifestream above their heads. Sephiroth was in there, still calling him.

Now that he knew he could -- that he wasn't human -- it was easy enough to know what to do. There was a sharp gasp from someone below as he lifted off the ground, flying up to Sephiroth like he understood he could have all this time. He lighted on the underside of the branch, the way things like him could do -- and he was doing it now, wasn't he? -- and sat there. There was something else he wanted to do first, before he ran out of uses entirely.

He held Hojo closer to him, even as conversation continued below -- about him. What he was. What Sephiroth was. Reunion. None of that mattered now. What mattered was that Hojo's body was still warm, and his weight was against Cloud, and with his arms over his shoulders it was almost as though he were still here.

We did it, he thought. We're all here now. And you're here for Reunion, too. He buried his face in Hojo's shoulder. It smelled of death.

He looked up at Sephiroth, encased in materia. He liked you better, he thought. You should be proud.

He was wasting time. He stood, positioning Hojo's body along the top of a branch, then walked along the bottom of it to the centre of the structure.

Sephiroth looked, for all intents and purposes, dead. Mother's heady song still emanating from him was all that told Cloud otherwise. Now that he knew he could, Cloud slipped his hand through the solid rock, the way he'd seen Sephiroth do before. He hesitated for a moment, his hand surrounded by materia as though encased in it, yet able to push through it as though it were water. He didn't want to let go. If he let go, he wouldn't have anything left to give to anyone.

Did Sephiroth even know he was there?

Please say something.

Sephiroth remained silent.

It was too late on that front then.

Cloud let go of the Black Materia and withdrew his hand.

The smell of burning heated metal immediately filled the air as more magic than Cloud had ever used before in his life was drawn to the spot in front of him. It was done, then. He had emptied himself entirely.

He crawled back up onto the branch he'd set Hojo on and curled up against his body, even as the rock around them began to crumble, even as the airship Shinra had arrived on disappeared into the distance, leaving him alone in the crater, even as Mother's song raced through inside of his veins and his vision went grey, and then white, the world feeling further away than it ever had before, and he fell into an endless sea of blue fire.

 

---

 

They'd found him, of course. And taken him in, and fed him, and clothed him, just as they had the first time. It was the doctors in Mideel that had told Tifa about the materia lodged in Cloud's chest, though the whole place had collapsed in on itself before they'd had time to remove it. Even then, they had to wait another day while she and Cloud recovered from their trip in the Lifestream. The whole time, Cloud's eyes glowed like floodlights until the mako in his body stopped reacting to the presence of raw spirit energy, and Tifa was told later that apparently she'd wandered around the airship in a daze, looking for some unspecified object, before being gently escorted back to bed.

And then after that, Shinra had pulled that stunt with the rocket, and then after that they'd had to deal with four different Weapons, and by the time they'd been in a position to remove it Meteor was already looming close enough to turn the whole sky a faint, burnt red.

No one present was an anesthesiologist, let alone a doctor, and Cloud had taken one look at the syringe and immediately refused anyway. Their only recourse was to get him absolutely sloshed on anything even remotely alcoholic they could find, and give him a stick to bite while Jessie (who they'd decided had the steadiest hands) made the cut and Cid hastily healed it shut and stitched close what he couldn't catch with the rush job before Cloud had a chance to bleed out too much.

He hadn't even screamed throughout the entire thing. "I've had worse," he'd said shortly when questioned about it.

Tifa chose to believe it was simply because he was very drunk. It was nicer than the alternative. He hadn't quite been the same since they'd pulled him out of the Lifestream. Though, of course, it would have been foolish to expect him to be. They'd both changed a lot after Nibelheim.

But here it was, about the size of her fist, cool to the touch. This was their last resort.

The White Materia wasn't truly white, the way she thought it would be from what the elders in Cosmo Canyon had said. It was more a pale green, with milky streaks of off-white inside, that, upon close examination, were very slowly moving.

Cloud, whose magic was the strongest, would be the one to cast it. Cid would have been a more ideal fit given his affinity for White, but they needed enough raw power to match, and hopefully exceed, what Sephiroth had cast. Cid was waiting in the wings in the event nothing happened, though. Cloud always had been terrible at White.

Apparently, though, Holy wasn't even necessarily a spell. It was supposed to destroy whatever was a threat to the Planet, which could easily include humans. They might all be condemned to death anyway given Meteor's approach, so it didn't really matter too much. Either way, though, once they lit the fuse on this it was out of their hands for good. The rest would be up to the Planet.

The airship touched down in the ruins of Mideel with a gentle bump, prompting Tifa to scrape the rest of her lunch in the trash and head downstairs to meet the others that had already gathered outside. They needed a place where Lifestream activity was high for something this big, and with Sephiroth squatting on the big obvious one up north, the only other place that came to mind was the gaping hole in what used to be a town.

"Are you certain you don't want Cid doing this?" asked Nanaki. "This isn't like forcing a heal. There's no shame in admitting this might be a bit beyond you."

"No," said Cloud firmly, hefting the materia as though getting ready to toss it. "I'm ready."

And then he suddenly winced, his lips moving silently, mouthing out words Tifa couldn't make out. He shook his head to clear it.

"Jenova," he said, by way of explanation. "It's... it feels closer, somehow. I don't know."

And as if on cue, a low rumble went through the air, not loud enough to hear, but just loud enough to feel, as though something was moving through the air, leaving it still and undisturbed but dragging itself greasily across everything it touched.

Tifa grimaced. "We're running out of time."

"I know," said Cloud.

There was a pause, as though he was considering something.

"Cid's right behind you," said Tifa. "Just do what you can."

Cloud nodded. He opened his mouth slightly, as though he wanted to say something, then appeared to think better of it. Then he centred himself and closed his eyes.

The group was absolutely silent. Nothing happened for a moment, and then two. Tifa could feel the air grow heavy with the sheer amount of magic brought to bear. Cloud's breathing was slow and steady, his eyebrows knitted in concentration.

Suddenly his breathing hitched, and he began to grip the materia even more tightly. However much power he'd been using, it must have tripled. This was more than she'd ever seen him put into a summon. Or even ten summons. This was last resort death's door magic. Nanaki's fur bristled in discomfort, a low growl issuing from his throat.

The White Materia began to glow.

"We did it," breathed Yuffie. Her face split into a wide grin. "We --"

Cloud made another pained gasp, appearing to snap out of whatever trance he'd entered, his eyes squeezed shut in pain. He dropped the White Materia, still glowing brightly, clutching his wrist, and his hand -- oh god, his hand...

The flesh seemed to go grey, and then white, and she'd barely had time to register what was happening before it began to dissolve like spun sugar in water.

Things happened much too quickly afterwards. She'd screamed. Cloud had opened his eyes and stared at his arm, too stunned to move, as more and more of it began to dissolve. Cloud had finally started screaming as well, falling to the ground and writhing in agony as more and more of his body was eaten away. They'd crowded around him, Barret holding him up, shouting at Cid to heal faster, Tifa demanding they cut off the arm, Nanaki pleading with him not to go yet, Yuffie frantically fumbling for her knife, before suddenly the arm Cid had been touching was gone entirely along with the other one, and then Cloud made an awful gagging noise as it encircled his chest, as what was left of his face looked pleadingly at them as they helplessly watched him get eaten away like burning paper.

And then he was gone, with the only clue he'd ever been there at all being a single materia, its glow slowly fading away before going out entirely.

"No one touch it," said Reeve harshly, cutting through the tremor in his voice, as Cait Sith knelt and gingerly retrieved it. "I'll -- I'll fly out to meet you in person in the next forty-eight hours. Don't try to use it again."

Tifa knelt there in shock. No one seemed to want to move. It didn't seem fully real. He was just here -- how was... it couldn't be over like this.

Nanaki threw back his head and howled.

"He -- he knew the risks," said Jessie, her voice hollow. "He --"

"Did he?!" snapped Yuffie. "Was this a risk he should've known about?"

"None of us knew what this was going to do!" she yelled back. "How was I supposed to --"

"Both of you shut up!" interjected Barret. "You shut your damn mouths for five seconds --"

The whole party erupted into a shouting match. Tifa continued to sit there in silence, staring at the spot on her lap Cloud's arm had been resting on.

She'd done it again. She'd just sat there.

She hadn't even realised they'd stopped a good half hour later until someone touched her shoulder. She looked up and found Barret standing over her, his eyes red-rimmed and swollen.

"We gotta regroup," he said softly. "Consider out options. Come on inside."

Tifa nodded and allowed herself to be helped up and led back to the Highwind's operations room. She thought she'd be feeling more sad about this. She thought she'd be feeling more anything. Everything felt distant and strange.

She didn't contribute much to the meeting over the next four hours, either. Reeve was on his way, would bring whatever defectors he could with him, but that wasn't a lot. It was a big risk coming out to meet them, given he was just about the only authority figure left in Midgar right now. Meteor still loomed in the sky. Jessie informed them they were basically in the middle of an information blackout otherwise, with so much of Midgar's telecommunication network knocked out. Nanaki curled up next to the Buster Sword in the corner and remained completely silent throughout.

And then Cloud landed on his back in the middle of the table as though flung, wheezing from the impact, stark naked.

No one dared to move at first. Cloud's arm was outstretched, as though he'd expected to grab onto something. He stared at it in consternation for a moment before he seemed to realise where he was.

"Oh," he said. And then, "Hey -- watch it -- !" because Tifa had grabbed him and pulled him into a hug that nearly dragged him off the table, which was now broken.

"Don't you ever pull a stunt like that again," said Tifa. "Don't you ever --"

Nanaki clambered over the remains of the table and practically tackled him out of her arms, and then she was crowded out by Yuffie anyway.

"You alright there?" asked Barret, clearing his throat to hide how hoarse it was.

"Kinda cold," said Cloud. "Could go for some pants."

"I'm sorry," began Tifa. The adrenaline shakes were starting to set in on the heels of shock, and then relief. Cloud shook his head.

"For what?" said Cloud. "Let's be honest, it'd be worse if it was Cid. I barely know how to fly this thing."

"This mean it worked?" asked Cid, pulling off his jacket and tossing it to Cloud, who was forced to pry Yuffie off of himself in order to catch it.

"I have absolutely no fucking idea, and I'm not doing it again to make sure," said Cloud plainly. He frowned, considering the question. "I spoke to the Planet, I think. Or something that was probably the Planet. Definitely didn't like me much, that's for sure."

"Do you know why?" asked Tifa. "It's that mad at humans, maybe?"

"I think you're half right," said Cloud. "Said I was 'tainted'. Pretty sure I know why."

"So it... what, 'cleaned' you?" asked Yuffie.

"If it did, it did a pretty piss-poor job," said Cloud. Sure enough, his pupils were still slits. His eyes seemed greener than they usually were, too. "But..."

He shook his head again. "Never mind. It's..."

"We gotta remind you what happened the last time you told us to 'never mind' somethin' you saw?" deadpanned Barret.

"I don't even know how to explain it," said Cloud. "It was really dark for a while. And there were... there were other things in there, I think. And then there was someone else."

"The Planet?" asked Jessie.

"It could've been," said Cloud with a shrug. "It was... it was quiet, around where I was. And I could think again, and I could sort of... know I was there. I don't know how else to explain it. And then it said that anywhere was better than here, and -- and now I'm here."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Sounds like the Planet decided to give you another chance," said Reeve. "Let's not waste it."

"Would've been nice if it had given me some pants, too," said Cloud pointedly, and everyone parted to give him some space. Cid's jacket wasn't exactly covering a lot.

Tifa followed him back to his quarters, still worried that if she looked away he'd disappear again somehow. "So, what about Holy? If the Planet decided to bring you back, does this mean it's gonna help?"

"Could be," he said again, though this time he didn't sound as certain. "I guess we'll find out, won't we?"

"That's it then? Just hope for the best?"

"There's something to hope for in the first place," said Cloud. "I think... I think I'm okay with that. That's all really anyone can do anyway, right? Can't ask for better odds than that." His lips quirked into a small half-smile, and Tifa realised how many of those she'd seen over the last month, even as the world continued to burn around them.

"Yeah," said Tifa. "Guess we've got another Soldier First Class to deal with first."

 

---

 

Aeris blinked as Cloud stared at her expectantly.

"I didn't really think anything of it, until Zack mentioned you sending him over in that machine last night," he said. "And then I remembered -- that time you visited me at the WRO. It felt like that. But... that's where I was, I think. So… like I said, I owe you one."

"...This is a lot," said Aeris, glancing between him and Tifa nervously.

"But that was... how many years ago was that?" objected Zack. "Four or five?"

"Four," said Tifa. She turned to Aeris. "Do you remember anything else?"

"...I was in deeper that time," she said slowly. She was still processing the thing with the crater. "Maybe... I mean time loses meaning the further out you go anyway. It's why we had to commit to doing things in order, so the data wasn't completely garbled. But that was... that was you, wasn't it? I thought I was in your head?"

"Yeah," said Cloud. "And you were also going through Jenova. There's less of a difference than you think, I guess."

Aeris opened her mouth to ask for clarification, and had Tifa's hand promptly clamped over it as Cloud and Zack suddenly tensed up.

She immediately stuck out her tongue and licked it. She was getting awfully tired of people doing that, and they needed to learn there were consequences.

Tifa jerked away in revulsion, but didn't actually do much to move away from her. "Keep low," she murmured.

"I wasn't crazy," said Zack. "It's -- it's that noise I was hearing. I thought it was just me."

"Can you tell what it is?" asked Aeris.

"We're surrounded," said Cloud. "Did -- they couldn't have gotten here without us hearing them coming, how...?"

"They must've been here the whole time," said Zack. "And we were just removed enough to not register them."

Aeris realised there was a low rumbling coming from outside. Engines -- a lot of them. And people too, it sounded like. Did they know they were here? On the other side of the room she saw Cloud buckling his harness back on with practised, methodical movements.

"What do you mean, 'removed'?" she began to ask. "We just got back on our own, then?"

"Maybe," said Cloud. "We can think about that later." He kneaded his eyes with the heels of his hands. "Too sharp..." he muttered to himself.

"Can't you just do what you did on the train?" asked Tifa. "If it got us into this, it can get us out. Or -- at least, we'd be back where they can't see us."

"I -- I can try," said Cloud uncertainly. Aeris watched him set his sword down on the ground next to him and close his eyes, curious to see what it actually looked like when he did it. For a split second, she could have sworn she heard something enormous breathing beneath them.

Cloud's head suddenly whipped up as he appeared to hear something, and he sprang to his feet as an instant later there was a loud bang, like an engine backfiring, and the sound of shattering glass. For a moment she thought perhaps he'd broken something in all this metaphysical space nonsense. Then she looked down and --

Gunshot wounds weren't anything like how they looked in movies. She hadn't gotten a good look at Cissnei in all the chaos, but Cloud was a few metres away from her. Close enough to see that, rather than there being a neat little hole, the bullet that had entered through his back had made an exit wound the size of a salad plate in his stomach on the way out, spraying the floor in front of him with blood and bits of viscera.

He toppled to the ground with a pained choking noise, curling in on himself as Tifa yanked Aeris even closer to the floor. Apparently they did know they were here after all.

Zack had frozen up again, staring at the large pool of blood forming beneath Cloud's body.

Tifa muttered a word to herself that Aeris assumed meant "sniper" since she'd already heard the one for "oh rats" and all its more dramatic variants, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that Cloud was presently bleeding out.

"H-he --" she began.

"He's okay," said Tifa, though her face was pale and drawn. Perhaps it had occurred to her as well that if he hadn't stood up when he did, it would have been his head. "He's okay, we have to go --"

The front door smashed open, and there wasn't any more room for conversation as a swarm of heavily-armed men flooded the room, immediately forcing Aeris sharply to the ground. Her face was smeared into some of Cloud's blood, and she immediately spat out the copper taste that filled her mouth, hoping it was her own. Her arms were wrenched behind her back and cuffed, and she was hauled to her feet in time to see another pair jabbing a gun into the back of Tifa's head, forcing her to her knees. The men all seemed to have specialised hazmat suits on, and she remembered that there was still a non-zero chance she'd just unleashed some sort of incurable space plague upon the general populace.

Her head spun. She pulled weakly against the cuffs to no avail. As she was escorted from the house past Cloud, still writhing in pain on the floor, she heard snippets of conversation in between barked orders and radio chatter.

"-- don't take any chances with the short guy --"

"-- can't believe they just went back to her house --"

"-- how'd we miss them going in?"

"-- need everything that was in that lab. Clothes, too. Avoid direct skin contact --"

There was some commotion in the distance as well -- curious onlookers intent on seeing whatever had summoned the MI6 to the middle of the suburbs.

She heard a pained grunt behind her and turned to see Zack being ushered out of the house as well at gunpoint, with one of the officers being rushed away from him by paramedics. She wasn't a medical doctor, but she was reasonably sure arms weren't meant to bend at that angle.

They seemed to be taking the sword, too, and the bag Tifa had brought over. Aeris watched some of her research papers disappear into a plastic bag before she could no longer crane her neck far enough to see them be carried off to another vehicle.

And then there was Cloud, thrashing against two of the men in hazmat suits, twisting his head far enough to sink his teeth into one of their shoulders. Aeris faintly heard a dull crack before the other one was thrown a good twenty feet.

"I am not going back," he snarled, his eyes wild with equal parts fear and rage, his own blood dribbling down his chin.

And then he did something rather odd, and knelt with his palm flat against the ground. Beside her, Tifa visibly paled.

"Cloud, don't --!" she began to scream, before he cut across her.

"Hey, Aeris, here's the other thing I said I owed you!"

Another gunshot, this time from a handgun, blew through his torso, and another glanced off his skull, leaving an ugly gash in its wake. Cloud barely seemed to register them, and in a matter of seconds the air felt alive with static and the scent of heated metal and burning ozone as the concrete surrounding him was suddenly covered in glowing, concentric rings, which then peeled off one by one and flew towards the sky. The clouds above had grown thicker, were swirling together in a darkened mass, which the rings pressed into, twisting the clouds faster than ever.

Then the sky exploded.

That was the closest Aeris thought she could come to what happened, anyway, as wisps of clouds and a mass of light twisted in on themselves and solidified into -- into --

"Holy shit," she heard Zack say. Aeris found herself agreeing.

There was a dragon, hovering over the city. It must have been about a hundred metres long, its body a brilliant silver and gold, plated scales looking like armour. It let out a roar loud enough to make Aeris's teeth buzz in her skull, and then dove directly for them, white-hot light beading in its mouth.

Zack took the opportunity to wrench himself free of his captors and snatch up the sword that had been unceremoniously dropped on the ground and brandishing it at them, forcing them back before ducking and weaving his way through the gunfire that was suddenly being trained on him. He shoulder-tackled the van Tifa was in with a yell and pulled Aeris behind it for cover. As she reached over to pull Tifa in as well a bullet grazed Aeris's shoulder, searing pain spreading throughout her whole torso. Tifa clamped a hand over it, easing the pain away even as she tried to crane her neck to look for Cloud, hoping to god the dragon was drawing most of their fire.

And it was, but only because it had suddenly gone limp and was now careening towards them like a stuffed toy.

Cloud was on the ground, eyes rolled back, jaw set, grunting intermittently, gurgling as his own blood continued to fill his throat, hands curled into fists, body jerking in spasms that had every muscle tensed. He'd been seizing the entire time.

Aeris scrambled away from the van, Tifa crouching behind the remains of a brick wall, Zack doubling back to grab an unresponsive Cloud before bolting in the other direction. The dragon crashed headlong through the street, cars and unfortunate guards crunching under its body. It lay there for a moment, equally unresponsive, before its mouth lazily opened and burning light exploded forth in an unfocused blast.

It was nowhere near as much as it had been preparing to fire before, but it was still enough to blot out every other sound as the street around them was reduced to rubble, the surrounding houses sprayed with burning debris.

And then another one ripped through the city. And then another, and another.

"He -- he won't stop," said Zack. "How long are these things supposed to last?"

Cloud stilled momentarily, eyes blank, before resuming his convulsing.

"Lazard said if it's more than five, then... I don't know. We weren't counting." Aeris looked up at Tifa. "Does he have any medication?"

"We can't even get him to go in for check-ups," she shouted over another explosion. "It's made him lose control of his summon -- that thing's gonna suck him dry if it doesn't blow us all up first."

"We need to get out of here." Zack fumbled with the sword and stuffed it -- none too gently, probably -- in Cloud's harness for easier carrying. "Where next?"

"I don't know, a -- a doctor that won't ask questions?"

"If we can make it out to the country, I can keep us alive until we have a real plan," said Tifa. She said something else, too, but it was drowned out by another explosion. Aeris's ears were ringing. The heat from the blasts was intense, and it felt as though the air around her was burning.

There was something else moving around her, too. She shivered.

Everything suddenly went silent.

Aeris slowly peeked out from behind the wall and saw the hole in the street surrounded by a bunch of onlookers. The remaining officers were attempting crowd control and failing as more and more people showed up, and they could only confiscate so many phones. The dragon was nowhere to be seen, the only trace of it a flurry of blue sparks gently blowing away and fading into nothing.

There were, at least, enough officers to surround them at gunpoint.

"Put your hands behind your head," said one. Aeris did slowly, looking around in disbelief.

"Tifa," she said quietly.

"I don't know," she said, her voice tense as the police closed in around them. "I don't know, they were just -- they just --"

Aeris's arms were forced roughly behind her back. Everything still sounded muddy from the blast. There were pipes leaking everywhere, and staring onlookers, and approaching news helicopters, and she hoped against hope that maybe she'd just missed it in all the chaos.

In the back of her mind, she knew she hadn't. Tifa knew she hadn't, too, closing her eyes tightly, trying to find where they were, getting more and more frustrated and fearful as the van drove further and further away. Aeris didn't need to guess what she was thinking.

Cloud and Zack had vanished.

Notes:

END OF PART TWO

Chapter 38: But nobody came.

Summary:

PART THREE
CONVERGE

Notes:

We're in the home stretch! And by home stretch I mean the next 20-25-ish chapters or so. That's still a damn sight further than I ever thought I'd get.

Thank you so much to revolutionarygirlkaasy and la_regina_scrive for proofreading this on short notice now that we're officially off hiatus (hopefully for good this time).

This chapter contains depictions of body horror and gore.

At precisely 6:00 am, Zack Fair’s alarm went off, rousing him from fitful dreams about glass and needles and Tifa watching him through the holes in the Box.

He should really get up. This was the last day of his visit -- the last day of staying in his old room, filled with accolades and mementos from one extracurricular activity or another. After this, he wouldn’t see his family -- his brother, his parents -- for several months. The Gainsborough Project turned out to not be a bunch of quack bullshit, meaning he’d be drowning in work for a while, zapping rat brains and seeing if they exploded.

Aaron was downstairs already. Junior year of college. He’d worked his ass off to get accepted into the University of Hawaii in the first place -- hadn’t coasted by on skipped grades and scholarships. Zack had watched him pull all-nighter after all-nighter, refusing help each time. Not that he could’ve helped much, anyway; Zack wasn’t even sure how to study. It was easier to just hear the material and know it, instantly. And he definitely didn’t know how to teach.

If he went downstairs, though, he’d have to have breakfast with everyone. That meant with his parents, as they fawned over his achievements. That meant Aaron’s cold stare, aimed at his eggs but meant entirely for Zack. That meant The Conversation -- the same one, every time -- “Your brother did this when he was half your age --” always met with a terse “I’m trying.” Zack, saying nothing as usual, because he had long since learned that there was no greater insult than to offer to help, and highlight Aaron’s inadequacies for everyone to see.

So instead, he rolled over and hit the snooze button. Outside his window, Cloud Strife beat his hands against the glass and screamed.

There was a man with black hair on the other side, lying in his bed that wasn't his bed -- that didn't look anything like his bed -- that... what was he doing here?

He was looking through a window, though. He'd spent a long time outside this particular window as a child, but now he was on the other end of it. Looking out, he could see an endless expanse of music, as bright and sharp as ever.

He opened the window and prepared to jump out, before someone caught his arm.

"Don't -- don't do that," said Zack uneasily. He guided Cloud away from the glass and sat down on the bed inside, offering the spot next to him.

The minute Cloud touched the bedspread, needles burst from under the quilt, weaving through his skin, stitching him into the pattern. And they kept sewing, because the pattern kept repeating, because that was what it was meant to do.

"Cloud?"

Zack's hands were gentle, but as he pulled them away Cloud saw they were made of needles all the same, a pattern of puncture wounds covering where his palm had been.

Cloud wanted to ask him for help, but then the needles wove their way up to his face and stitched his mouth shut. He regarded it with quiet fascination. It didn't hurt beyond a general ache in his jaw, but he could feel the stitches there, as firm as ever.

He couldn't move anymore, anyway. The stitches keeping him tied to the endless expanse of colour, all different shades of light, soft fabric smothering him, were too strong for him to pull away from. Zack had to pick him up and stand him on his feet instead.

"Come on, man, you're the only other person here. Don't..."

Someone wiped something off his chin. Without thinking, he flinched and tried to shove their arm away. His whole body felt full of pins and needles, and moving at all sent a flurry of sensation coursing through him that wasn't quite pain, but definitely didn't feel good.

He just focused on breathing for a while. He vaguely registered a door opening and closing, and then opening and closing again much later. His stomach ached -- actually ached, beyond just simple nausea.

Bullets, he remembered after a while. I was shot.

Why did someone shoot him? Was Aaron safe?

Something in him churned faster, and he choked on his own breath.

"You finally awake, or -- ah, shit."

He felt himself being lifted again, heard panicked muttering as he was carried somewhere in a hurry. The cool grass felt nice to lie in, but everything still hurt.

"Can you hear me?"

The window loomed above him. He hadn't remembered jumping. He could see someone else looking through, reflected in every sheet of glass.

"Cloud!"

Cloud gasped, then coughed, the taste of old blood making him gag. He immediately leaned to the side and threw up more partially digested blood and stared at it. His jaw still ached, and he felt strange -- hung-over? The blood loss probably hadn't helped. His face felt crusty and gross with what he quickly realised was a combination of dried blood and spittle. He swore as the evening sun poked him right in the eye, and he squeezed them shut, making his ears ring louder. This felt... solid, though. Sort of.

Zack let out a shaky sigh of relief. "Thank god."

"...What happened?"

Zack shrugged. "I don't know. You made a dragon out of thin air and had a fit, and I had to drag you out of the line of fire. And then we woke up here. Wherever 'here' is. Somewhere else in Reading, I guess?"

"Where's..." He braced himself against the outside wall of the house Zack had set him against and looked around. The air was thin and cold, the town abnormally silent, and the window --

"Tell me you can see that too," he said, pointing at Tifa's window.

"...Yeah, what about it?" said Zack uneasily, as Cloud attempted to push himself to his feet. His knees went out from under him, and he only barely managed to grab onto Zack before he went down. "Don't -- just give it a second, yeah? You lost a lot of blood. You were seizing for an awful long time, too," he added. "Almost twenty minutes or something. Just..."

"Nibelheim."

"What?"

"We're in Nibelheim," repeated Cloud. He swallowed around the foul taste in his mouth and tried to stand again. Failed to stand again. Was forced to lean heavily on Zack's shoulder, shaking from exertion. "We made it back."

"How?"

"No idea," said Cloud. "Maybe you did something?"

"Nah, that's all you," said Zack. "All I did was haul ass and black out."

"Where are the others?" said Cloud, trying to peer over Zack's arm to see. "Do we have anywhere to hide?"

"They're not here," said Zack. "I've only been here a few hours, waiting for you to wake up." He glanced nervously at the house across the street. "This whole town is empty. Something's --"

"It's supposed to be," said Cloud. "This isn't a real town. The real Nibelheim burned down years ago, and they remade all the buildings and covered the whole thing up. No one actually lives here anymore."

"So, we're stuck in an abandoned town, Aeris and Tifa are who the fuck knows where, and we've got no supplies." Zack scratched his neck. "Any more good news?"

"That was the good news," said Cloud. "We're in Nibel. Cid lives here too, we can get help. It's a little over a week away on foot. And..."

He took a deep breath, braced himself for another seizure, and reached for his magic.

It thrummed through the earth, omnipresent, just the way it was supposed to, instead of locked away in another universe. A small flame flickered to life inside his cupped fingers. Cloud let out a small laugh.

"God I've missed you," he said. He closed his hand on the flame. "And I can hunt for food until then."

"Guess we're actually on the Planet, then, if that's working," said Zack, staring slightly, likely unused to its presence. "And Cid's... he's gonna help us get back?"

"I don't know. But -- he was the one that figured out the number thing you guys did on the wall. He knows science stuff. And Tifa's infected, so it's not like we don't have a contact point. If anyone could help out, it'd be him. And he said..."

Although, that was well over a month ago. The invitation probably didn't stand anymore.

"...Never mind. Point is, he can help." He shakily pushed himself away from Zack, testing his legs. A loud groan tore through him along with the sudden spike of pain. He'd been shot more than once, he remembered. Point blank, too; the bullet was probably pretty deep in there. "C'mon, let's get going."

Zack blinked. "What?"

"We can loot what we need from the houses," said Cloud, blinking the stars out of his eyes. Just a little blood loss. He'd had worse. It would be fine. "But if we're going to make it there anytime soon, we need to get going now."

"You can barely stand," objected Zack. "How are you supposed to go all Burning Man if I gotta carry you the whole way? And the -- you were shot --"

"It'll be dealt with in a week or two on its own," said Cloud. "My body will keep trying to heal itself around foreign matter until it eventually works its way to the surface." Why Hojo hadn't been able to outfit him with a tracking chip, thankfully. Not for lack of trying. Another reason it was easier to just leave his earrings in.

And because he never, ever wanted to lose them again. That too.

"And we're... what? We just hang around here for a week or two until we get to the point where you're not on death's door? Or do we leave now anyway so I can let you go into shock in the middle of nowhere?"

"I can handle it," returned Cloud, removing one of the mid-sized swords from the full assembly and using it to walk himself over to the old general store. "Do you have any better ideas?"

"What about that?"

Cloud turned to see Zack gesturing to an old, broken-down pickup that had been abandoned beside the butcher shop. It was rusted and worn, and the inside was filled with cobwebs and dead leaves.

"...Maybe," said Cloud. "Depends on what it's running off. Looks old, but not too old. Shinra made. If it's a mako drive, that stuff gets really volatile if it sits for too long. Could blow up on us in a heartbeat." He walked closer and managed to pop open the hood with a grunt, and was greeted by the sight of a mangled engine. Judging by the way the innards seemed to have been savaged by claws, apparently some of the local wildlife had gotten into it from the undercarriage at one point. Probably the mutated kind, after anything that even remotely smelled like mako.

"M-33 drive for sure, then," he muttered to himself. One of the early ones, that would have leaked any time they turned the ignition. Shinra only barely bothered to fix that particular defect, since mako leaks meant people would have to buy refills more and more often. "Still intact, though. All the pieces are still here, they're just in... pieces."

"So... no?"

"Never said that," replied Cloud. "See if you can find something that's kinda wide. Sheet metal, maybe. And any smaller scraps. And any tools you can find, I'm not picky."

Cloud ran a hand over the split wires and twisted gears inside the truck as he began to mentally sift through everything that was here. The timing chain would need replacing if he couldn't repair it, simple enough, if not a little time consuming; a lot of the wiring would need to be re-soldered; and there was an entire panel of the heat sink torn clean off, he'd need to recreate that entirely.

A challenge. A challenge he could deal with. For fucking once.

It was funny, the way his work sucked him in. He was vaguely aware of Zack returning with materials at some point, and spared him a brief "thanks" before diving back into repairs.

"...You're really into that stuff, huh?" asked Zack, after several minutes of silence. Cloud looked up from the bolt he'd been tightening and frowned, unsure if it was a trick question.

"I -- yeah. I am," he said cautiously.

"I read the transcript," Zack continued. "How does... I mean, how do you wind up getting into it?"

"It's fun, and it's easy," said Cloud. A spare sheet of metal, curved into place with a firm push. "And it's... important, that someone knows how. And... to me. It's important to me, I mean."

"Important how?"

"Just important." He scanned the remains of the wiring board, flipping it over and taking mental note of the paths etched into the plastic, feeling himself settle into the same quiet focus he used for work.

"Care to clarify?" asked Zack. "Like... does it remind you of anyone?"

Cloud shook his head. "No. It's just... it's really satisfying, being a mechanic. Fixing things. Every single piece has a specific function within the whole. None of them will work on their own, but they're not supposed to. And if you do your job right, there aren't parts that are left over or don't do anything or don't belong anywhere. And... it's good to fix stuff when you can." He created a white-hot spark at the tip of his thumb -- something that required a phenomenal amount of control and understanding of the spell, to tamp it down to a concentrated point and maintain it, that Zack probably didn't have the knowledge necessary to appreciate -- and slowly ran it down the line of wires with a steady hand, soldering each one back to the board. "That you can fix broken stuff. Make it useful again, so nothing gets thrown out. It's just... nice. That I can do something like that."

He finished bolting the wiring board casing down with the wrench Zack had brought him in silence. It took him another few moments to realise that it wasn't the engine that was being stared at.

"...'Course, this is probably baby shit compared to your work, right?" he said, with a disinterested shrug. "Fixing sinks and bikes and cars." He placed two fingers on each of the terminal ports of the battery and channeled a good sharp shock into them, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

"Yeah, but I didn't physically build it myself," said Zack. "And no one needed that project but me."

"What about Aeris?"

"What about Aeris? Hasn't exactly done her a lot of good so far, either," he said heavily. "People actually need sinks and cars. Most I can manage is slapping some wood putty into a cracked door frame."

"...Well," said Cloud, "if you wanna help out, keep looking for stuff we can use. Sheets are good for shelter and first aid, but any painkillers or antibiotics would be even better. Something to boil water in would be good. A knife, maybe, but I can do without. Any non-perishable foods. Stuff like that."

"Why does a fake town need beds and food?"

"There used to be actors here, too. Just in case any undocumented survivors showed up and demanded to know why the fuck someone was living in their house, claiming they'd always been there. Or asking information-sensitive questions like whether or not they just dumped your mother's corpse in an unmarked grave somewhere." Cloud yanked on the heat sink a bit harder than he needed to, bending the metal. Now he'd need to fix that too. "Of course, after Shinra collapsed, they weren't getting paid to live in this shithole of a town anymore, so they all left in a hurry. Looted a lot of this stuff themselves, mind -- by the time they realised the paychecks had stopped coming, post-crash scarcity was starting to set in."

He tossed the sheet of metal into the air and swiped his sword through it, cleaving it neatly in two. "Just find what you can find. I'll handle the rest."

"I -- yeah, sure. But if you pass out again while I'm gone I'm gonna be pissed."

"I won't pass out," said Cloud, as his half-healed gunshot wounds complained from the sudden physical exertion and he nearly tipped over as his vision went fuzzy again.

"I'm at least getting you some water first," said Zack. "You just -- you lost a lot of blood. A lot. And you stopped breathing at one point during your seizure. I thought... I thought for sure..."

"I won't pass out," repeated Cloud, too tired to continue fishing through Zack's head for more English. Zack could make an effort to learn more Standard if he wanted to keep chatting.

He managed not to, for a while. With Zack gone, the utter lack of any other human activity for miles around had the muscles in his neck tensing up.

He was alone again.

He reached in through the broken window to unlock the driver's seat door and began scraping out dead leaves. He wasn't "alone" -- he could hear Zack rummaging through something breakable in the distance.

He just -- he didn't like it. That was all. He didn't like it.

Everything felt thin and grey.

How're you holding up?

Cloud blinked hard and wiped some cobwebs off on his pants. Zack was louder than Aeris was, somehow.

Just about done, replied Cloud, brushing a spider off his hand. Gonna clean her up and try to get her running. Found anything good?

Sheets weren't a problem. But... listen, I dunno if it's a smell thing or what -- how does that even work? How come I don't smell myself all the time? I mean, I can sometimes, but -- I guess it's like tasting the inside of your mouth, because it's what you always taste. I don't know, I've been trying to ignore most of it --

But?

Right. There's... this place feels weird. It's not just me, right?

What do you mean, it "feels weird"?

I mean it feels weird. The -- the way it feels.

Cloud blinked his way through another dizzy spell. I'm not really in a good position to judge. I'll take your word for it.

Well, whatever. Cloud jumped as he realised Zack had come up behind him. He was probably too out of it to have noticed. Couldn't find any actual water. Got this knock-off Gatorade, though. He held up a bottle of sports drink, covered in grime but still sealed. Electrolytes and shit, probably. And leached-in plastic. Everything a body needs.

Cloud grimaced, but took the bottle without further complaint and chugged half of it without coming up for air, and then winced as his stomach twinged sharply. It probably wasn't healed enough to handle him putting more things into it, but it'd be nice to be able to stand on his own.

Found any food? asked Cloud. This was a lot easier, given how much his head was pounding. A voice that wasn't a voice in the back of his head was way less painful to handle than actual sound right now.

Nothing you'd want to eat, replied Zack, hefting a wad of sheets and dumping it in the back of the truck.

Are you sure? Nibelheim gets pretty cold -- all that stuff has basically been refrigerated.

Says the guy that eats roadkill.

It was fresh. It’s not roadkill if it’s fresh.

I’d be willing to assume this was a cultural difference if I didn’t know your girlfriend called you out on it.

She’s not my girlfriend, snapped Cloud, not entirely fond of where this was going.

Do you live together?

I -- yeah, but --

Do you fuck?

This conversation’s over.

That wasn’t a no.

It’s complicated, said Cloud. ...We didn’t wanna put a label on it in case things… went bad. It’s been on and off. This is none of your business, by the way.

Is this an on-period, or an off-period?

Cloud laughed bitterly, the sound scraping through his aching torso. Hell if I know. I probably won’t ever get to see her again, so it doesn’t matter anyway.

That actually killed the conversation for real and had Zack depart to go scavenge for anything else useful. It also served to punctuate the utter silence they were surrounded by otherwise.

There was probably more ash and bone in the dirt than there was dirt.

Cloud hauled himself inside the driver’s seat, taking a moment to catch his breath. It had been a while since Jessie had taught him how to hotwire a car. If the engine blew up, it would also probably be hard to tell whether he’d done it wrong or if it was just that volatile.

He wondered, briefly, if she blamed him for what happened to Biggs and Wedge.

Forcing the thought from his mind, he set aside the ignition wires and looked for something to strip them with. Generally he’d use his teeth (regardless of what Cid had to say about him doing that), but he wasn’t all that eager to put a wire that was connected to what amounted to a bomb filled with acid in his mouth.

You find any tools or anything? asked Cloud.

Nope. No luck on the “or anything” front, either. This place has been picked clean.

That doesn't surprise me, I guess. This place has been abandoned since before the stigma.

...That's what's up with your arm, then? Plague scars?

Of a sort.

Can't you guys just heal that away?

Magic can't just automatically fix everything, you know.

I didn't think that, I was just wondering.

Can you maybe wonder a little less?

What the hell is your problem? Zack sounded less angry and more baffled than anything else. You know I didn't drag you into this on purpose.

You --

Cloud swallowed. Zack just made him... uncomfortable. That's all there was to it, really.

...I'm just -- just setting up some ground rules, so you don't commandeer this whole --

What the hell...?

Not directed at him this time. Cloud looked up from the dashboard, the hairs on the back of his neck prickling in anticipation.

What's wrong?

There's someone else here!

"What?" said Cloud, dragging himself out of the car, before remembering Zack probably couldn't really hear him that well.

What do you mean, someone else?

A woman. I didn't see her face -- maybe it's one of the others? She ran off, I'm following her.

There shouldn't... there can't be anyone else here. Cloud stumbled to his feet, replacing his swords in the harness and beginning a brisk jog towards where he could sense Zack heading. Don't go far, I'm coming after you.

Who the hell would be out here in... he was pretty sure it was the middle of autumn. And it was only going to get colder. A survivor from the stigma, maybe; hiding from the rest of civilisation, never getting the news that it had been cured.

He looked up and realised what path his feet were taking him on.

He thought -- after all these years, he thought he'd had time to process it. But four years later, and the sight of the Shinra Manor looming overhead clawed its way into his head, digging up the smell of antiseptic, the halogen light creating spots in his vision, the feel of a blade sliding across his chest in a v-shape before tearing its way down his gut -- he could feel it -- it hurt, it was hurting right now, they were --

Zack, I -- I can't go in there.

What? Why not?

I can't. I can't go back in there. Just... bring her back out here.

What if she's injured? I don't know how to heal anything. I don't even know if I can, I'm still not sure how the whole magic thing works.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I can't. It -- it’s not safe in there, and you... I mean, I can't fight well enough like this if something happens.

Did you see the part where I flipped a police van over with my bare hands? Actually I guess you didn’t, you were drooling on the ground at the time --

Just don’t. If you get into trouble, I’m gonna have to go in after you, and there’s… I don’t want to have to go back in there.

And what’s in there that I should be looking out for that I can’t just body-check into a wall?

Zack very obviously wanted him there, if the sudden compulsion to rush directly into the mansion and into the west wing was any indication. He stumbled forward a few steps before swallowing and fighting it down. There’s -- there’s some old experiments. Some of them got out, and some of them -- bred -- and besides that, I’m just… I’m not going back in there. I can’t. Not again.

“Experiments”?

Zack, please! She's probably not even real, you're imagining things, let's just leave --

...I know this hallway.

What?

It's... he paused for an uncomfortably long time.

I think this place is still running.

...Stay where you are, and don't touch anything.

It was easier to deal with if he just switched his brain off and let the Reunion instinct guide him to where he needed to be against his will. He didn't want to think about where he was going, or what would be there waiting for him when he did.

A survivor, though -- perhaps it was Tifa or Aeris, and they just showed up late, the way he had before. And they were still "running" the place? What was that supposed to mean?

Maybe it's Ma, and she's been alive all this time, he thought grimly to himself. Alive and hiding in the burnt husk of their town. Alone. Because he'd left her. Not that she'd even wanted to have him anyway --

Cloud walked a little faster. The sooner he got into that mansion, the sooner he could leave this place. This time, for good.

Zack was waiting for him in the stairwell to... to downstairs. His body wasn't up to swinging a sword around, apparently, but he had his fist clenched tightly, ready to blast it with Ultima at the first sign of movement. He considered putting a few holes in the wall anyway, just because he could.

She went this way, said Zack, silently gesturing for him to follow.

The halls of the lab were much shorter than he remembered. Before, they'd seemed to stretch for an eternity, limping his way to freedom, or being escorted somewhere and not knowing what to expect but more pain and fear. After all these years, the halls were still inured with the scent of blood and fear and death.

I'm sorry I had you come here, said Zack. If I'd known --

I'm here, so it doesn't matter now, cut in Cloud. Let's just take a look around and leave.

It would be so easy to disappear into this place. To walk in and never come back out again -- what if he never got back out? No one knew he was down here. No one even knew he existed --

Zack stopped in front of him.

Find her yet? said Cloud.

You're givin' me a headache, said Zack. I'm surprised I'm not hearing you out loud.

Cloud stepped around him to glare directly into his face, hoping he could pack enough hate into the look to make up for the fact that he would've had to stand on his toes to be at eye level. If you've got something to say, I suggest you say it.

...If something happens, we'll at least be down here together, said Zack evenly. I know you're here.

Cloud blinked, and tried not to think of Zack leaving him in the dark right after.

...Guess so.

Great. Now come on, she went into one of the smaller hallways and I lost track of her.

They passed several rooms as they made their way through the labs. An operating room, no longer immaculately clean after years of neglect; the room he was disciplined in when it was decided the Box or some sort of physical damage wasn't enough; the room with jets set into the walls to spray off whatever specimen was thrown into it without requiring any input from them; a room that was completely empty aside from one light fixture on the ceiling, that the guards had taken full advantage of; the sample-processing lab that Cloud had found himself being dragged off to less and less as the world had melted around him; one of said guards' break rooms, the padded office chairs a far cry from the floor he'd slept on for months on end; a second, smaller operating room, rarely if ever used for anything but Hojo working through a particularly bad mood...

The lights were on in every one.

Zack shook his head. "I swear, she was right here... shit, maybe I did imagine it."

"Great. So -- can we go?"

Cloud stopped dead towards the end of the hall. The cells were down this hallway.

"What -- come on, man. This is the only place we haven't checked yet so far."

"I don't... I don't want to look at it."

"Then don't," said Zack. "I'll look. Just keep up, alright?"

Cloud nodded stiffly and forced himself down the dimly-lit corridor, determinedly keeping his eyes on the floor.

Zack's voice came from around the corner of a cell he was presumably peeking into. "You know, there's actually a lot of stuff in here we could use. I guess no one wanted to loot the creepy hellmansion." He could hear Zack faintly rummaging for something, and every single shuffle or click coming from the drawers had him tensing up each time.

"There was a rumour it was haunted," admitted Cloud, hurrying past. "Encouraged by the company, no doubt. Couldn't have people poking around where they shouldn't be. Not that it always worked."

"But... you said that company -- you said they were out of business, right?"

Cloud snorted. "'Out of business' is one way to put it, yeah."

"So then why's this place still running?"

"Maybe that lady's been living here for a while," said Cloud. "Though... it beats me how it still has power. Even if someone had gotten it running again, the reactor here would've Gongaga'd ages ago with no one to maintain it."

"'Gongaga'd?'"

"Sorry -- this town, in the south," explained Cloud. "Used to be really pretty, or so I'm told. I've seen a few pictures. They grew sugar, mostly. Then about eight years ago, the reactor went critical out of nowhere. Leaked raw mako and chemical vapours over the entire region, then exploded, wiping out the population and a decent chunk of the jungle."

Zack reemerged from the room with a couple scraps of metal he must have ripped off the sink, before moving onto the next room. "We've got something like that on Earth. Chernobyl. They made it structurally weak on purpose to make it easier to ship weapons materials out of it -- because of course they did -- and then turned all their emergency safety systems off to run this test without the permission of the chief engineer, which went about as well as you’d think. Eventually they just buried the whole thing under a mountain of concrete, but the whole place is still irradiated to this day. A thousand miles of cities and forests and stuff, just abandoned."

"Gongaga's the same, then," said Cloud. "Maybe. Shinra visited a few days before the incident. It could be that they knew about the shoddy construction, and decided to cut their losses because the place didn't make them enough money to be worth investing in repairs. Or, maybe they were actually planning to fix it, but they just didn't get to it in time, or they fucked up the repairs, and they told everyone it was a freak accident to cover up their own incompetence, like with Fort Auram. Or maybe it was deliberate sabotage, like with Corel. No one really knows."

"Yeah, sounds about right," said Zack wearily. "Do I want to know about Corel?"

"...I'm not sure that's my story to tell," said Cloud. "Ask Barret about that one. If we ever see him again." Something twinged in his chest. Besides the bullets, anyway. "No one abandoned Gongaga, though. There are still people living there that are just too stubborn to leave. It helps to think maybe one day, you can rebuild. And maybe it won't be the exact way it used to, but it'll be home again."

"How bad is it?" asked Zack. "You think there's any chance of that happening?"

"What do you think Edge started out as?" replied Cloud. "People have a way of bouncing back."

"That they do," said Zack, gesturing over his shoulder.

Cloud turned around and realised he was at the end of the cellblock. Zack had talked him to the end of the hallway without him realising it.

He looked back at Zack, who appeared the tiniest bit smug. "C'mon. Think I hear something back this way."

"Maybe you should let me be in front," said Cloud, trailing after Zack, who had already sauntered off. His foot collided with a stone that skittered into a wall. The floor was littered with them.

Cloud looked up at the storage room and swallowed.

Zack rattled the door handle, then began working out the kinks in his neck. "Why's that? Thought you didn't wanna be here."

"Because I know the kind of stuff that's down here," objected Cloud. Zack took a few steps back in preparation.

"Yeah? Like what?" Zack rammed his shoulder into the door with a grunt, forcing it to open. He jerked back with a cry of revulsion a moment later.

There was a body on the ground -- a grotesque, twisted thing, two bodies melted and pressed together like plasticine, its skin mottled and rough like coral, its misshapen arms ending in talons, its jaw opening nearly all the way to its neck as its face twisted in anguish, outstretched arm reaching for the door. Its ribcages punched through its chests at its sides, ending in segmented, chitinous limbs that were ill-arranged to make locomotion practical and had long since become brittle enough to snap under its weight. Its human legs, if it had ever had any, had long since atrophied -- or had been amputated -- away. It was in an advanced state of decomposition, somewhat mummified by the cool, dry storage room air.

I'm sorry, Cloud thought at it briefly, as he stepped past Zack into the room. How many things like them had he carved his way through in the name of scientific progress? About a fourth of them hadn't even really put up a fight, their eyes already hollow, silently pleading for a blade through their throats.

"What the fuck is that?" breathed Zack, slowly, gingerly stepping around it behind him.

"Dunno," said Cloud. "Whatever it was, it obviously didn't really work." Another failed prototype, maybe? The company had manufactured a lot of things like this, whatever they were. A lot of them had been stored on the Gelnika when it went down, but every now and then they'd find more in defunct Shinra-owned properties. Dead, thankfully. None of them lived very long anyway.

Along the opposite wall was specimen storage -- a few wooden boxes, or coffins, for specimens that didn't require extensive life support, or had already been stuffed. And for the ones that did, glass cylinders. One of them, leading towards the corpse on the floor with a trail of drag marks, had been smashed open. Others had... things in them, luckily already dead, if the bits of rot floating around in the fluid were any indication. Three or four half-formed bodies he could have sworn looked like him, and that was all the thinking he wanted to do about that.

And one of the cylinders was empty.

"Another one got out," said Zack. "Maybe -- maybe that's who that woman is, she's..."

The words died in his throat as Cloud approached the empty cylinder as though in a trance, raising a hesitant hand before resting it on the tank. His tank.

"...It's strange," said Cloud softly, "being on this side of the glass. I-I -- I keep expecting to see myself in there. In all these rooms."

"...Well, I mean... it's not my call to make," said Zack. "But if we find a sledgehammer or something, have at it, man."

Cloud out a short huff of laughter. "I've thought about it. Didn't want to feel like I was finishing up his work." He shook his head. "Forget it. If there's supplies anywhere, they'd be here or the lab itself."

The storage room itself actually yielded quite a bit they could use. Spare clothes -- they were spare surgical scrubs, which had Cloud scowling in distaste, but it still wouldn't hurt to have them. An old tool bag with the only tool in it being a screwdriver. A first aid kit, including some antiseptic ointment, an epi pen, some gauze and surgical tape, a few ibuprofen, and a restorative materia.

"Later," Cloud had said immediately. Good intentions or not, he was not letting a single goddamn person poke around in his wounds in this place ever again.

There were several chemicals stored in a refrigerator set into the wall -- despite the fridge still being cold, nearly all of them looked off in some way or another. What were significantly more useful, though, were the bottles -- being able to purify water and take it with them would help out quite a bit. They'd found some MREs on a shelf in the back, but the bag was already fairly full at this point even with Cloud army rolling all the spare uniforms, and if they could get the truck working they'd cut their travel time in half to the point where they wouldn't be needed.

There was an old radio they'd found, too.

"Might be helpful," said Zack with a shrug. "We'd know what's going on, at least."

"We don't need it," said Cloud. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out the little red radio Ms. Suk had given him. "This one's lighter. We can still use some of it, though." He clipped the radio back onto one of his belt loops and picked up the screwdriver. "People underestimate how important it can be to have spare parts on you. Like, if your shitty camper van breaks down in the middle of the goddamn desert and you have to push the fucking thing down a hill into a tree in Cosmo Canyon because you didn't have the means to repair it."

"Do I just rip the guts out of anything electronic, then?" asked Zack. Cloud nodded.

"Even if we can't use it, it'll make me feel better to see it in pieces," he admitted.

"Can do," said Zack, and before Cloud had any chance to clarify, Zack had already picked up a loose brick and smashed open a blood pressure monitor. Not that Cloud minded terribly.

There was one last thing he needed to take care of before they moved on. He waited until Zack left the room, then knelt next to the corpse on the ground, creating a small flame in his hand.

"Whoever you were," he said, "you fought as hard as you could. I hope you found peace when you returned to the Planet."

He stayed to watch the body burn for a moment. The spellfire, burning far hotter than a true fire would with Cloud stoking the flame himself, left it a charred husk in a matter of seconds. It didn't take care of the bones, and it would have been better if he had stayed a little longer, but it was better than nothing.

It might not have been anyone in the first place -- could have easily been some non-sapient, genetically engineered nightmare. But if there was even the slightest chance that it had been people once, then Cloud was the only person that even knew they existed now. They didn't deserve to be forgotten.

They still needed pliers, and the tool bag had had almost no tools in it. He had a nasty feeling he knew where they'd been moved.

"What did she look like, anyway?" asked Cloud, as he approached the door at the end of the hallway he had hoped to never see again in his life. "The lady you saw."

"I didn't get a good look at her," Zack admitted. "Uh... average height, I guess. Brown hair. She was wearing white."

Cloud felt his heart claw its way into his mouth. The alley had been a hallucination, he was sure, but --

"Did -- did she speak? Did she feel the way Tifa feels?"

"I don't really know," said Zack. "I'm still new to all this stuff -- the smell and the voices and whatnot. It's all kind of confusing, so it's easier to try and ignore it. Seems to be working, I feel way better than yesterday."

"Was she -- was she holding anything? Was she wearing a dress, or a -- a coat, or --"

"You know this lady, then," said Zack.

"...I --"

Zack had already pushed the door to the lab open, and Cloud flinched in anticipation, not knowing what they'd find but knowing that somehow it would hurt.

The main lab was empty. Of -- of course it was. Why wouldn't it be?

The lights were on, though, washing through the motes of dust hanging in the air. The paper strewn about the second half of the room from when Sephiroth had last searched through them four years ago had taken on a yellowish tint. The examination table, stained with his blood no matter how hard they'd scrubbed at it, was stowed against the wall, draped in cobwebs. The mako tanks were, thankfully, still empty.

Zack made his way towards the rows of mould-eaten books while Cloud slowly forced himself over to the cupboards, reminding himself with every step that there was no one here that would grab him and force him back onto the table.

After all this time, he'd never actually seen the insides of the stainless steel cabinets and drawers lining the wall. The first one rustled slightly as he opened it, years of accumulated dead insects lining the bottom. Neatly stowed on the first shelf was a steel box, and inside the box was a set of surgical tools. Just sitting there, packaged in sterile cloth, the same way he'd open a drawer back home and find some forks and the pasta spoon he just crammed into whatever drawer seemed right to him.

Cloud closed the box again and hurled it across the room. It was bludgeoned open against the wall, forceps and scalpels and scissors and needles clattering to the floor like so much garbage. Cloud stood there for a moment, nodding dumbly in response to Zack's concerned inquiry, barely hearing what he said in the first place over the ringing in his ears.

Upon further reflection, he wrenched the door off the cabinet's hinges and threw that too.

The second shelf down contained more unorthodox medical tools. Like a C-clamp. And a power drill -- not the surgical ones, locked up in the operating rooms, just a regular drill, for nails. And a regular hammer. And a revolver with three shots left in it, since the other three had been used for "testing regenerative potential". And an unassuming pair of pliers.

Cloud ran his tongue along the inside of his gums self-consciously and nervously removed them from the shelf. Maybe he should have just stripped the wire with his teeth. He swiped the gun too, just in case.

"Cloud... come have a look at this."

There was an edge in Zack's voice that had the muscles in Cloud's neck tensing even further, something he hadn't thought was possible.

Cloud pocketed the pliers and half-jogged over to Zack, not particularly caring what papers he trampled. A journal was thrust into his hands immediately.

"I'll admit I'm not a biologist, but this doesn't seem like the best way to take notes," he said. Cloud stared at the journal, frowning.

1 2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 97 101 103 107 109 113 127 131 137 139 149 151 157 163 167 173 179 181 191 193 197 199 211 223 227 229 233 239 241 251 257 263 269 271 277 281 283 293 307 311 313 317 331 337 347 349 353 359 367 373 379 383 389 397 401 409

They continued on like that for the entire page. Cloud flipped to the next one and found even more.

Cloud swallowed and found his mouth suddenly dry. "It --"

"There's more," said Zack, before Cloud had a chance to speak. He picked up another text -- this one a heavy leather-bound doorstopper of a book -- and let it fall open.

838589 838597 838601 838609 838613 838631 838633 838657 838667 838687 838693 838711 838751 838757 838769 838771 838777 838781 838807 838813 838837 838853 838889 838897 838909 838913 838919 838927 838931 838939 838949 838951 838963 838969 838991 838993

Cloud looked down at one of the papers below his feet.

065615050631693070240583253511042538964820237117926048520228405883831915694501900580724804720995174958174763481195938313248911260084195618326514416106350288978071382335176598111567758656370860843583061993336206662138150320515523368089261160498957816344168984468010199370392002079347090234224499303529305348303644616313599998572218352942505208253217227722501529837773373519210027795936506232416148253063675485256908519578159072211720648401340361382688143421515148956696143186771434282348650954464939551

"What...?"

"They're all like that," said Zack. "You were here before -- they weren't all like that, right?"

Cloud shook his head. "No -- no, most of this was documenting the Jenova Project. There would be test results, or commentaries, or lists of catalogued Cetra artifacts or something, or --"

"So then why's it -- Cloud?"

He had stopped listening to Zack entirely. He was a bit more distracted by the woman standing behind him.

Zack looked at where Cloud had been staring and jerked away from her. She gave absolutely no sign that she had noticed.

It wasn't the Director. And it wasn't Aeris or Tifa, either. She had brown hair and was a bit on the pale side, which could be said for a million other people. Cloud had never seen this woman before in his life, but it was suddenly very, very hard to breathe.

He didn't need to, though. He could just let Mother take care of that, just as she soothed away the pain in his torso.

The walls seemed to grow a hundred feet tall and close in at the same time, a scratching noise emanating from inside them. The air was rich with the smell of blood and fear. Somewhere far away, there was a baby crying.

The woman's mouth opened, the rest of her face remaining completely expressionless, and when she spoke, her voice -- and it couldn't have possibly been her voice, because human voices weren't that sharp and silvery and didn't claw wetly at his ears -- came from her mouth, and the walls, and the floors, and the blood rushing in his head.

"Let me in."

Cloud wanted to reply, to let her, but it was very hard with all the things he could feel moving around under his skin. And then he blinked and Zack was dragging Cloud down the hallway as he struggled to sift through the cotton surrounding his thoughts.

"It's Her," he managed to choke out. "It's --"

"Yeah, I figured!" replied Zack, scrambling to round a corner. Cloud didn't dare turn around to see if She was actually following them. "You said it was a virus!"

"I said that was the closest we could get to classifying Her!" said Cloud. "She can look like anyone, that's part of how She hunts before it has anyone infected."

They tore past the cellblock. The sound of a young man weeping mingled with the noises already echoing through the corridor, a thousand nails scratching from behind the walls like radio static. Cloud refused to look.

He stumbled, the pain in his chest making it harder and harder to run. They were in the upper floors, now, streaking through broken furniture. His lungs burned. Zack didn't even bother going for the front door, smashing a window open with a broken chair, allowing them to hobble out of Shinra Manor into daylight again.

"Should have just done this from the beginning," said Cloud bitterly. He backed up a few steps and raised a hand. The magic came to him easily, the way it was supposed to, collecting at his fingertips as naturally as breathing, and with it came heat.

"You missed a spot, asshole," Cloud spat, knowing there was no way for his intended audience to hear him.

He swiped his arm sharply through the air, as though forcefully ripping open a curtain, and the mansion burst into flames.

This... wasn't really making him feel all that better like he thought it would. But it sure as hell wasn't making him feel worse, either.

Cloud turned around after a moment to see Zack staring at him, clearly at a loss for words in the face of all this arson. It occurred to him that this was the third time he'd ever seen magic used, and the first time he'd ever seen it used properly, with all its destructive potential in the hand of an experienced wielder on full display.

"We've got pliers and supplies," said Cloud shortly, between pants. "Let's get going."

Zack nodded. "Yeah, let's -- this place gives me the creeps. Even without the..." He gestured vaguely towards the burning mansion.

He had Zack make one last lap through the deserted houses while Cloud caught his breath, snagging whatever bedding they could fit. This far up north would have bitterly cold nights, and with the passenger window of the truck broken it wouldn't do much for them in terms of shelter.

He stared at the pliers he was using for longer than he should have before stripping the wire with them. It was beyond strange, being the one to hold them for a change.

Moment of truth, said Cloud. If this thing starts, we're ready to go.

On my way, said Zack. Listen... that lady --

M -- Jenova, you mean?

No, I mean the lady. Does she look familiar to you?

What do you mean?

I don't know. I just got the sense that I should... I should know who she is. Like I know her already.

Cloud blinked. Now that you mention it...

There was something eerily familiar about her. But then, he was biologically programmed to instinctively find Mother's presence comforting. She was probably just fucking with his head.

Do you know who she is? he replied instead.

Nah, said Zack. Kinda hoped you would.

It was strange, too, that She'd just taken this seemingly unassuming form. Mother didn't consciously "choose" to blend in, the way he would choose to. She would adapt Herself as the situation called for it, not actually decide to "lay low" by coming up with a persona for Herself.

Zack returned then, dumping the bag at his feet and shoving the mass of blankets behind the seats. Cloud dumped his sword on top of them and crouched under the steering column, bracing himself for the sensation of being lit on fire and doused in semi-corroded mako at the same time. He swallowed and mentally apologised to the Planet. Though, it wasn't as though he could un-process the mako. Might as well use it.

He tapped the two wires together, and the engine hummed to life with only a brief clunking noise. Cloud grinned.

"And this thing will get us all the way to your friend's house?" asked Zack, frowning.

"Well... probably not all the way," he admitted. "The mako drive's still in really bad shape, and you can't exactly get refills anymore. But if it holds up for even one day, that's a huge amount of time we've scraped off the ETA."

He hauled himself up onto the seat and adjusted the mirror. In the distance, at the fork in the road by the water tower, someone stared back.

Zack found his voice first, tight with urgency. "Go. Now --"

Cloud floored the accelerator, the woman's eyes in his rear view mirror burning a hole into his own as she disappeared behind the curve of a hill.

Chapter 39: Tifa Complains About Having To Answer The Phone

Notes:

haha i bet you all thought it died again

well it didn't, what's up

God conspired against me writing this chapter in the form of several wasps invading my kitchen and being entirely too close to my computer for comfort. I found the hole I think they're coming in from literally two hours ago. Also I decided at the last minute that this chapter and what will now be chapter 40 should be switched, meaning I had to finish two chapters plus the mandatory half extra and radically rewrite this one. As a result, thank you to la-regina-scrive and revolutionarygirlkaasy for rush-beta'ing this on extremely short notice.

This chapter contains brief reference to suicidal ideation.

EDIT: PFFFFT WHAT I WOULDN'T ACCIDENTALLY PUBLISH THE UN-PROOFREAD VERSION OF THE CHAPTER THAT'S CRAZY YOU'RE CRAZY YOU SAW NOTHING

Tifa had about five seconds to realise that Cloud and Zack were just gone. Not dead like the others, or lost track of like Angeal -- he wasn't there anymore, period. One minute she'd been watching Cloud convulse, the next Zack's eyes had rolled back into his head as he went limp. And then they simply weren't there anymore. The area around her exploded into a whirlwind of activity, demands to search the area, requests to curious onlookers that they please remain in their homes, the flash of cameras everywhere --

Before she could get a better look she'd been forced into one of the armoured vans with two accompanying guards, as well as Aeris. The two of them were made to sit on the benches lining the side of each wall as a steel mesh cage was pulled shut in front of the actual van doors. Tifa was forced against the plexiglass wall separating their compartment from the driver, catching another string of numbers over the radios that was likely useless to her. Aeris was busy glaring daggers at the guard next to her, who either didn't notice or was ignoring it entirely.

Cloud?

No response. Not even somewhere to reach to -- he was simply gone. Zack, who had at least seemed coherent enough to communicate, was completely absent as well, the pull of Reunion finally deadened to a dull whisper.

He's not dead, she told herself. He can't be. There wasn't a body. There wasn't a body last time, either. Or the time before that. He's fine.

The voices had never been so quiet.

"...Hear anything?" Aeris muttered to her in Standard.

"No talking," ordered one of the guards. Aeris glowered at him before falling silent once more.

She didn't dare break out yet, even if she could have easily smashed her way through the side of the van. The fact that they hadn't bothered interacting with her with hazmat suits, coupled with the fact that they hadn't shot her as a precaution meant they didn't know she was infected yet, and right now that bit of information was the only ace in the hole they had. At some point another coughing fit crept up on her, and she had been forced to swallow whatever it was that she had just hacked up; if it was more blood and it made it out of her mouth, that'd be a dead giveaway.

They still might shoot them both, of course. With what they likely still intended to do to Zack, being unceremoniously gunned down still seemed to be on the table. Tifa didn't feel like gambling with how many guards she could dispatch before one of them decided to blow Aeris's head off.

The van rumbled on in silence. The speed they were moving slowed somewhat, and she could hear other vehicles around her, the noise drilling into her skull along with the stress headache. The stops they made became more and more frequent and regular. They were in the city, then -- perhaps Aeris would know which one. She wasn't sure which direction they'd gone in, or how long they'd been driving. It felt like an eternity, every second stretched taut as it was filled with unanswered questions and the image of viscera spraying over the rug.

The vehicle slowed to a stop once more, and did not move again, even as one minute became five. Stuck in traffic, judging from all the honking.

There were a lot of cars around, and a lot of people, but given the last time Cloud had attempted magic... it was a gamble. If things didn't tip the right way, or the vehicle could fly or something, the whole plan would be dead in the water. But if they didn't know she was infected, then they probably didn't know she wasn't from Earth, either. Meaning they wouldn't necessarily know if any magic had come from her, as long as she was subtle about it.

So Tifa closed her eyes, and prayed that they weren't on an overpass.

And luckily, they weren't, if the earth she managed to pull upwards with her spell was any indication. The vehicle lurched, followed by the sound of wheels skidding and steel crunching and --

Something huge and metal and car-sounding slammed into the front of the van, knocking Aeris from the bench and sending the guards with them to their feet. That was all the opening Tifa needed, bringing her legs through the cuffs to move her arms to the front in one swift motion, before body slamming one of the guards, before anyone had time to process what had happened. The other trained the gun on her far too late as she spun around, delivering a sharp kick to the man's arm, snapping the bone with a dull crack before following up with another one to the side of his head. The van lurched again as something else presumably collided with the car that had already collided with them, and Tifa and the remaining guard were thrown to their feet again, Tifa's head colliding against the cage in front of the doors to the van, the guard bracing himself against the other bench to avoid falling on top of her as he raised his gun again. Tifa kicked out again, wrapping her legs around his neck and pulling his arm forward through her own cuffed hands, compressing his neck into a triangle choke. He struggled for a moment, trying to pull his head away from the pressure of his own arm and Tifa's leg pressing into his throat, before going limp.

The whole thing was over in a matter of seconds. Aeris had stopped halfway through trying to bend far enough to bring her arms under her legs, stunned.

The van lurched slightly again as something collided with the car that had collided with them, or even the car that had collided with the car that had collided with them. Tifa quickly rolled one of the guards over and retrieved the keys from his belt, opening Aeris's cuffs before offering her own wrists and the key to Aeris.

"Couldn't you just rip these off?" asked Aeris, removing her cuffs and stuffing them into her pocket, unsure of what else to do with them.

"It wouldn't look right," said Tifa. "They don't know I'm sick, or they wouldn't have me go with you."

"Plausible deniability?"

Tifa shrugged and nodded uncertainly. Cloud and Zack weren't around to act as a translation filter, leaving her to guess the meanings of a lot of words from context alone.

Upon further consideration, she took one of the guard's sidearms and presented it to Aeris, still in the holster. She stared at it nervously.

"Just in case we get separated," said Tifa, knowing that was an awfully optimistic use case. Aeris took the handgun gingerly, her face grim.

Tifa took a deep breath, looked to Aeris to make sure they were both ready, and kicked open the cage and van doors with one blow.

They were met with abandoned cars clogging the street, police working their way around them, trying to direct the complete shambles that was traffic right now. Aeris hopped out of the van after Tifa, shimmying in between the empty vehicles to move around to the front. The driver of their van seemed to have taken the brunt of the impact, and was slumped motionless in the driver's seat.

He was just unconscious. Probably. Maybe.

The important thing was that her bag was in the seat next to him, and Tifa ripped open the door and fished it out, shaking off the glass.

An alarmed shout as they were spotted made her tear her eyes away from the wreckage she'd caused, and she pulled a dazed Aeris around the corner.

"Where to next?" she asked. "You live here, right? Where can we go to hide?"

"I don't live in London, I live in Reading," said Aeris. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"I thought Reading was a -- a district," said Tifa, hoping that word was close enough to the one she wanted. "It's not?"

"No, it's more -- look, there's the City of London, which is in London, which is --"

"Why do you need two Londons?" said Tifa indignantly. "At least Midgar had clearly numbered --"

Tifa froze at the sound of approaching voices and pressed herself to the wall, dragging Aeris with her. Her chest ached with the effort of breathing silently, her pulse knifing its way into her throat as they got louder and closer. Next to her, Aeris was staring at the ground as though even looking up would somehow alert the police to her presence. Tifa squeezed her eyes shut, knowing that the pillar they'd ducked behind wouldn't hold up to much scrutiny, tensing for the minute she'd have to run.

The seconds ticked by, and the voices continued to grow louder, as well as more indistinct. Then they stopped altogether.

"...Tifa?"

Aeris slipped her arm out of Tifa's grasp, and she opened her eyes to see an empty street in front of them. The city was dead silent.

"What did you do?" Aeris stared out across the street, where the traffic lights switched from red to green with no traffic to regulate.

"I didn't..." Tifa stammered. "...Well -- maybe Cloud moved us again. Maybe he's here."

"Can you -- can you tell? With Jenova, I mean."

"...We should look for the others," said Tifa, looking away. "Gotta keep going. Come on."

Every footstep sounded a hundred times louder with the noise echoing off buildings lining silent streets.

"...That crash," said Aeris after a while. "That was you, wasn't it?"

Tifa nodded.

"With -- you used magic?"

She nodded again. "Why do you ask?"

"What... what kind?"

"Sorry?"

"What kind of magic?"

"Oh -- Black." She spared a nervous glance at Aeris, who seemed to have taken the lead. "Why's...?"

"I'm just curious," said Aeris. "We don't -- well, I'm sure you know. And I have questions."

"Like what?" The glass in the windows around them seemed to shimmer like water in the early noon sun.

"Well... are you better at Black, or White? And how can you tell? What sort of magic do you suppose I'd be good at?"

The forced calm in her voice was palpable, but it was still better than Tifa was managing, who felt as though the buildings around her were hunkering down over her, the way a child with a magnifying glass might over an ant.

"I've always been better at Black," said Tifa, trying to match her tone. "Not half bad at White, either, but then I've had more practice than most. Yuffie, Nanaki, and I are the only ones that actually had formal training as kids."

"Magic training, you mean?"

"Using materia, yeah. No one's really expected to master anything. It's not every day you find someone that's mastered more than one," said Tifa. The air felt stale, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. "But then, it's not every day that the world almost ends, either. We got a lot of use out of ours. Ah..." Tifa cleared her throat self-consciously. "Where are you going?"

"Absolutely no idea," said Aeris firmly. "Out of the Square Mile, at least. I don't know where everyone went, but I don't want to be standing in the middle of a police barricade when they come back."

"...What if they don't?" asked Tifa. "I don't know what this is. I was hoping you would."

Aeris shrugged. "All I know is you just about broke my arm, I couldn't look at anything correctly, and then the streets were empty. And..."

"And what?"

"...It's nothing. Everything just went sort of blurry, that's all." A pause. "Are you certain that wasn't magic?"

"I'm certain. Magic can't do anything like this. Maybe some -- some Time spell that's big enough to... do whatever this is. I don't know."

"There are Time spells?" said Aeris, stopping in her tracks. "Can you go back? I know it's impossible with the laws of physics here, but maybe if it works in your world we could --"

"No, we can't go back," said TIfa. "They don't work that way outside of science fiction and fantasy stories. Probably a good thing, too, I can't imagine it going very well."

"You have science fiction?" asked Aeris incredulously.

"Yes," said Tifa, blinking in confusion. "Don't you?"

"Obviously, or I wouldn't have brought it up. How do Time spells work, then, if they don't do something like this, and you can't use them to time travel?"

"You're still moving through time at the same rate," said Tifa. "They just sort of pinch or stretch the rate you experience it at. And obviously, there's a big debate over whether or not they count as Black magic or White, but they're wrong and it's obviously White --"

"Wait -- I thought..."

Tifa groaned. "Did he tell you it was Black? What else did he tell you?"

Before Aeris could reply, the air was filled with a noise that reminded Tifa of a badly-tuned radio, until suddenly there were people all around them again. A lot, in fact. It was like standing in the middle of the Sector 5 plaza, where you couldn’t move an inch without breathing in air someone had just breathed out. No one seemed to have noticed their sudden appearance, and the sirens were well into the distance.

"...You see? That worked out nicely," said Aeris.

"Maybe," said Tifa. She was looking around at the sea of faces, frowning. Some of them were distinctively... off. Something wasn't right with their eyes.

Scratch that, something wasn't right with their everything. They were moving too smoothly -- curving perfectly around one another without anyone being jostled or pushed against. Their gaze was fixed firmly in front of them, and they seemed not to notice anyone else around them, nor did the people who appeared more or less normal notice them.

Something invisible rushed past them, stirring up wind in its wake and leaving behind the smell of gasoline.

"Aeris..."

"I know. Just keep walking."

Tifa nodded, and moved as far away from the street as the sidewalk would allow. Was that what killed Reno? It hadn't sounded and smelled and moved like a car, though. Actually, apart from the fact that it wasn't there, it felt rather physical.

"Was that Jenova?" asked Aeris.

Tifa shook her head. "I'd know if it was."

"Are you certain?" she replied. "I'm only asking because we shouldn't be at the Thames for at least another half hour."

Tifa turned around and stared out across the crowd at the river they had been walking along for the last few moments.

"...I'm sure," she said, at a loss for words.

"Well, at least they'll have a harder time following us," said Aeris with a shrug, before pulling her in another direction.

"Do you at least have an idea of where we're going?" she objected.

"I'm looking for a hotel. A cheap one. We still have some of that money we took, right?"

Tifa nodded, removing the bag from her shoulder and propping it up on her knee to dig through it, hopefully looking enough like a tourist to avoid suspicion. The clothes were still here, and the wallet they'd consolidated their money into was wedged behind a pair of pants next to a second wallet and a little red radio.

"Idiot," she muttered to herself, even as she felt her throat tighten up. He'd never actually taken any of his things. She handed the stolen wallet to Aeris for safekeeping.

"You're the one that knows the money," said Tifa. "I don't think anyone here takes gil."

Aeris nodded, quickly stuffing the wallet into her pocket in case someone recognised it. "We won't be staying long. London's a big city. We just need time to plan."

They walked alongside the river in silence for another few minutes. Tifa was certain even Aeris could smell the raw sewage lurking in the water, but no one here was wearing breathing filters, so the fumes must not have been too toxic. It wasn't as far along as Junon, it seemed. Yet.

"...What was she like?" Tifa asked.

Aeris gave her a look of confusion.

"Ifalna," she clarified. "What was she like?"

"...Well, she was a lot like me, I suppose," said Aeris. "She spearheaded the entire project herself against a million people telling her she was full of it. So... stubborn. Good at science. Her paper on --"

"You 'suppose'?" Tifa said incredulously. "She's your mother, isn't she?"

"She used to take me to the zoo until I was eight," she said hesitantly. "I'd always go straight to the ostriches, and she'd always have to convince me to go somewhere else. Usually the deep sea exhibit, that was close by. Sometimes she'd manage to convince me to go to the snakes, since it was by the food court. And once she convinced me to visit the gift shop. She never tried that again, because that led to me begging her to buy me something."

"Did she?"

"This." Aeris tapped the ribbon currently holding her braid against her head in an uneven bun. "Well -- what she actually bought me was a flamingo, because I was five and thought it was a kind of pink ostrich. The ribbon was just holding the tag on. No idea where the toy went, probably got left in a restaurant years ago..."

"...So, why did you stop going?" asked Tifa.

"Mum and Dad decided I was getting a bit old for that sort of thing, and Year 3 was already starting so I needed to start taking my work seriously."

"You were eight. What work?"

"Never too early to start looking at different universities," said Aeris. "That's what they said, anyway. STEM is a growing field and all, I had to get a head start on my career... I don't even have anything to show for it. At least the zoo got me a damn ribbon."

She looked up at Tifa contemplatively. "Cloud said he had to find a new dream, after -- after Soldier, or something like that." A wry smile settled on her face. "I don't think I'd make a very good mechanic. I'll have to work on the friend bit..."

"...When did he say that?"

"After he escaped. I visited him a lot then. At that hospital, too. Seemed to appreciate the company."

"And he told you about Soldier," said Tifa. She could feel her ears ringing. "Unprompted."

"...Yes?"

"Great," she deadpanned. Of course. Of fucking course he would. "That's good. It's really good that you're both so close now. And he did that -- what, three weeks out from you putting him in a coma? Two?"

Aeris stared at her. "Is this -- are you still mad about -- is this a jealousy thing?"

"What?" Tifa blinked, realising how it sounded. "No, I'm not a child. It's not you." Her expression hardened further. "I wish it was you."

"What does that mean?" Aeris said indignantly. "I wouldn't blame you for being mad about the coma bit, but --"

"No, that's not what this is about." The hostility in her voice had drained out by the time she spoke next, and she sounded as tired as she felt. "It's just... he'd die for you. I know he would. And you're not special. You could have been anyone."

Now it was Aeris's turn to stare at her, bewildered.

"I mean it," said Tifa. "You could have been absolutely anyone, and he would still die for you, and all you had to do was keep him company. You could have been one of your friends. Or you could have been someone from the military. Or --" she paused, trying to calm herself, "-- or you could have spent years beating him within an inch of his life and starving him half to death and god knows what else, and he would still die for you."

"I -- I wouldn't take advantage --"

"But you could have," said Tifa. "Anyone could have. It would have been easy. Even if he knew he was being taken advantage of, he'd let you. You have no idea the kind of power you have over him -- we all have over him. If you'd been someone else, and they kept him company, and he latched onto them, what then?"

Aeris didn't reply. Tifa felt her fists balling up, and made herself relax them.

"...And maybe I am still a little mad about the coma thing," she admitted. "You didn't have to deal with the phone call. He --"

He'd been terrified. And so had she after he hung up, not knowing if he'd gone and done something to himself because he'd gotten it into his head that they’d rejected him; all too aware of what had happened the last time that had happened, watching him sit there and let the rubble claim him with his eyes somehow even emptier than when she’d found him in the landfill.

And that wasn't even mentioning the other call, the one with the initial news and over her legal authority to potentially pull the plug if he didn't wake up.

"...I don't know how much he thinks of us as his friends," Tifa said slowly, "and how much he thinks of us as his new owners."

"...You've said he has lapses," began Aeris, "but he isn't -- he's still lucid, mostly, he knows who we are."

"I don't think he realises he's doing it," said Tifa. "He's -- he barely remembers anything before Hojo, and almost nothing at all from before the military. It's all he knows. Every time I think he's finally started to -- not get over it, but maybe understand that I'm not gonna throw him out on the street just because it annoys me a little that he doesn't know how to use a dishwasher..." She sighed. "He's afraid of us, and he has no regard for his own wellbeing, and -- and I don't know what I'm doing wrong! I thought he was getting better, I really did..."

"Maybe it's something he has to work through on his own," said Aeris gently. "You can't fix every problem yourself, you know."

"I know that!" Tifa snapped. "And I thought he was working through it on his own, but now it's like -- it's like he figured out a whole new thing to be afraid of -- ever since we got him those stupid earrings for his birthday he's been like this. And what am I supposed to do, just let him live like that? He won't even see a therapist, and it's not like he talks to anyone else. Should I just let him wake up screaming every other night, or pick his arm raw, or have panic attacks around everything from needles to fucking dog crates for some reason, or run off to die along with half of Edge -- !"

Tifa suddenly realised there were an awful lot of people who could hear their very loud adult discussion in Standard and were looking their way. She hoped to every god there was that none of them were cops.

"Hahaaaaaa... she's Welsh!" laughed Aeris nervously, before grabbing Tifa's arm and pulling her off again.

Neither one of them spoke for a while, outside of occasionally pointing out one building or another as potential roosting spots. Tifa's hands still shook with pent up anger, even when Aeris eventually broke the silence.

"He made it all the way out of Edge by himself," she said. "Maybe he can handle this, too."

"I know," said Tifa wearily. "I know. He's done it before, even if he needed a push or two. I don't think he's stupid. And if it's something that fixes itself, then that's great. But... if it wasn't, and things don't work out, then I as good as did it myself. I could have helped, and I didn't."

"Mm. Well, I can see why you're fond of one another. You're both very much alike," said Aeris delicately. Before Tifa had time to ask her what the hell that was supposed to mean, she added, "Look, that one looks cheap."

Tifa looked up at the hotel Aeris was pointing to and shrugged. At least, it was probably a hotel. She was still a bit shaky on the written part of things. "Sure. Fine."

Aeris set about trying to secure a room, leaving Tifa to look around the ground floor. The lobby was empty, thankfully, because that allowed Tifa to watch television for all of two minutes, long enough to see Aeris's face plastered on the screen along with something about an "unknown accomplice", and to swiftly change the channel without anyone noticing.

She turned back around, wondering how close Aeris was to being done with grabbing a room, and flinched as Aeris backed into her.

"Do you have a reservation?" asked the clerk sunnily. She smiled politely, oblivious to the fact that she seemed to be melting into her desk, like two clay figures hastily mashed together, her arm sticking straight up from the counter, one eye fixed directly on Aeris, the other frozen in place as it took on the texture of the stained wood.

"Do you have a reservation?" she asked again, the pleasant smile not fading from her face.

Aeris made a strangled noise in the back of her throat. Tifa grabbed one of the decorative pokers from beside the fireplace and raised it in warning.

"Do you have a reservation?" she asked again.

"Go," said Tifa. "Just pick one that’s unlocked and go, I'll follow you --"

Aeris bolted for the stairs. The woman in front of/inside the desk did not move to follow her.

"Do you have a reservation?" she asked.

Tifa turned and ran after her as well, just in time to catch an identical woman emerging from the back room to begin tidying her workspace, oblivious to whatever was going on next to her.

"Do you have a reservation?" she heard it call after her.

She found Aeris waiting in the hall, frantically trying to pull a door open as a hand slowly sagged from the taupe ceiling, leisurely groping its way towards her.

"Do you have a reservation?" said a cheery voice that no longer sounded remotely human.

Tifa wasn't really sure what had happened. She'd bolted for the door Aeris was trying to force open, ready to brace her shoulder against it, and the next thing she knew a wave of cold washed over her and she was falling flat on her face onto the carpet.

She sat up, looking around in disbelief at the hotel room she found herself in, and the undamaged door above her that she'd somehow gone through. The door that Aeris was now pounding on even more aggressively.

Tifa threw open the door and pulled Aeris inside, slamming it shut and pushing an armchair in front of the door.

"Do you have a reservation?" came a muffled voice from outside. There was a brief scratching noise, and then silence.

"...How did you do that?" asked Aeris, still staring at the door.

Tifa merely shook her head. "You -- you couldn't?"

"No." Aeris got up to gingerly prod at the wood of the door. It remained firmly in place. "Was that Jenova?"

"Yes," said Tifa firmly, as she realised she'd seen it before. Once or twice, four years ago. "It's... it's something people that are infected can do. In theory. But, I didn't..."

"Why didn't you do that in the van?"

"I don't know how," objected Tifa. "I don't know how to do any of this. I don't even think Cloud does. The only person who could was Sephiroth."

"Well, perhaps you're learning."

Tifa didn't reply, dumping their bag next to the bed and prodding the nightstand. It remained solid.

"Now what?" she asked.

"...If you're right," said Aeris, "and my mother made Jenova, then... maybe there's something about it in the original project. Something we missed. We know we're missing information. We need to fill in the blanks somehow."

"So... what, is there a public archive of the files?"

"No. I was thinking we could find a computer somewhere. A library, maybe, or an internet cafe."

"What's an internet cafe?"

"Do you not have them in your world? It's just a coffee shop or something that has computers in it, and a decent wifi signal."

"What's -- what's wifi?"

"It -- it's wireless internet, sort of."

Tifa stared blankly at her.

"The internet. You know?"

Tifa blinked.

"The -- do you not have internet?"

"No. Should we?"

"No." Aeris all but threw her shoes across the room as Tifa sank onto the bed with a sigh. "I suppose not. We'll lay low for now, and then tomorrow we'll see if we can't get access to a computer. I'd steal a phone, but they're much more easy to track..." The skin on her arm was still faintly stained with dried blood. "I think -- I think I'd like to wash up before we continue this conversation."

Tifa nodded. "I'll keep an eye out in case the... staff notices we're here."

"Right." And she departed for the bathroom without another word.

Tifa leaned back against the bed, turning the television on and squinting as the afternoon sun reflected off the screen. More news -- this time featuring Zack's face, as well as a blurry photo of Cloud presumably taken through the window before he was sniped. The reporter continued to mention that no attempt should be made to apprehend them because they were considered armed and dangerous, and to contact authorities immediately upon sighting them.

Meaning they didn't know where they were. Meaning they didn't have them in custody.

Maybe, at least. It was just as likely a fake story leaked to bait her and Aeris into doing something stupid to try and meet up with them, believing they were still at large. But still, maybe.

What it could also mean was that they were dead and their bodies were never found. She forced herself not to think about that. She wouldn't make the same mistake again.

She wasn't even sure if she was making the same mistake right now, anyway.

Chapter 40: Cloud Uses A Phone

Notes:

Not much clever to say here other than god this story is too fucking long. Oh well.

Thank you to la_regina_scrive and revolutionarygirlkaasy for proofreading, and also for drawing this sick Eva-inspired fanart.

This chapter contains minor depictions of gore.

Cloud hadn't been kidding about the Nibel region getting cold. Zack wasn't really used to cold weather as it was, and even with the truck parked caddy-corner to the cliff they'd taken shelter below protecting them from the worst of it, the windchill had his face burning and his eyes watering every time it blew.

Zack didn't care. It was worth every second to get to look at the sky.

Cloud hadn't slowed to a speed below sixty (sixty what, he wasn't sure, but that's where the needle had been pointing) for the first half hour. Every muscle in Zack's body was so tense he felt they'd snap if he tried to speak, much less move, his eyes riveted to the dashboard clock blinking 00:00 at him insistently. Soon, though, they were tearing down an ill-maintained dirt path that gradually gave way to dry, cracked, untamed tundra grassland.

Eventually, he'd pulled over.

"Dizzy again," he'd said shortly. A couple bottles of expired, plastic-laden energy drinks probably weren't the best thing he could be using to replenish fluids with. "You should drive."

He was still in remarkable shape, considering. The two hours he'd spent after finally going limp, bleeding all over the both of them, growing colder each second, eyes empty... if Zack hadn't been able to feel his pulse he'd have assumed he'd died already. And a couple times he wasn't even sure about that.

But their bloodstained clothes were beginning to stiffen as they dried, and the smell got worse and worse the longer it sat there in contact with warm, tacky skin -- and in Cloud's case, a possible infection.

So, Zack had put his foot down and refused to take the wheel until Cloud actually used the antiseptic ointment he'd gone to the trouble of finding and both of them had changed. Cloud was in the process of going first, with Zack sitting on top of the truck with his back turned, keeping watch. The plains sprawled out before him for miles, and in the distance he was certain he could make out fog rising from the water in some bay. And then there was the sky.

As far as skies went, it wasn't terribly remarkable. There weren't two suns or flashy orbiting space stations, and the Planet didn't have any rings, and it was the same colour as Earth's: a deep blue just a hair away from it being black.

The stars, though, were -- different. He was looking up at different stars -- at a different universe that he'd never seen before. Millions of planets, billions of suns, a collection of comets and moons and pulsars splattered like sea foam across some vast velvet firmament that felt almost close enough to touch. The line of stars across the edge of the Milky Way was absent, and instead a greenish, bluish golden oblong splotch could be faintly seen. A particularly dense cluster of stars? A cloud of gas and debris, lit from behind, distorted by gravitational lensing? The centre of their galaxy, a black hole shrouded in a veil of suns and stardust? Another galaxy entirely, millions of lightyears away?

The moon, too, was different. Noticeably a bit bigger, or perhaps it just had a lower orbit. The face wasn't one he recognised either, an unfamiliar pattern of craters and canyons etched into its surface. And the silvery-grey light spilling out across the plain, sapping the colour from the world in a wash of night and rolling across Zack's face almost like a physical weight, was reflected from a sun that no one on Earth but him had ever directly felt the warmth from.

Not all of the tears were from the wind. He blinked them away and went back to staring.

"She should've been here to see this," Zack said. "She deserves to."

"...She got a kick out of chocobos," said Cloud after a moment. "How much did she tell you about them?"

"A third of the transcript for that visit's worth. And another third was about magic." Apart from the wind rustling through the sparse vegetation, the landscape was eerily still. "To be honest... a part of me still didn't really believe it until the thing with the dragon."

Cloud reappeared from behind the truck wearing one of the spare sets of medical scrubs, and threw his pants into the back of the truck as the remains of his shirt burst into flames on the ground. "Your turn," he said noncommittally, eyeing him warily. Another flick of his wrist, and a chunk of dirt violently ejected itself from the ground to form a hole, which he nudged the shirt into with his foot before hastily filling it in again.

Zack shimmied off the roof of the truck and took out a spare set of scrubs for himself. "Does the moon have a -- a Lifestream?"

"Of a sort," said Cloud. "No one knows if it's one that's sustaining anything else, though."

"What about suns?" asked Zack, the wind burning into him more sharply than ever the second he took his shirt off. "Are they alive?" He knew it wouldn't be possible for a star to be without ongoing fusion fueling it, but that was before he knew that planets had cores made of the collective consciousnesses of the dead merged into the will of the world itself instead of compressed metals and gasses.

"I -- I don't know," said Cloud. "I didn't do a whole lot of school. You should ask Cid when we find him."

"And he's -- he's an astrophysicist too?"

"I guess so. He was head of aeronautics, back when we were dead set on going to space. Palmer might've been running the show on paper, but it was Cid's project."

"What project?"

"The Shinra Number 26," said Cloud, getting back into the truck cabin. "They wanted to fly a rocket into space to put someone in orbit. The first launch had -- technical problems, though." There was a hint of discomfort in his voice with the second part. "Took him a while to get over that."

"What about the second launch?" asked Zack, finally pulling his trainers back on and hauling himself into the driver's seat.

"...He made it," said Cloud. "It was only for a few minutes, but... I don't know. There's... there are times when... it's like, you weren't really you before that moment. All that time, you weren't finished becoming you, and when it happens, you're... it's not the same afterwards, and it's like... whoever you were before -- you can't even really imagine that they were ever real. Maybe they never were." He shook his head. "That's the best way I can think of to describe it. He'd waited his whole life for that twenty minutes. Longer than he even realised, before he knew he wanted to at all."

"...I know the feeling," said Zack after a moment. He felt the engine give an unsettling lurch as he took off the parking brake and shifted gears. "Just wish mine wasn't so shit."

They continued to drive in silence for the next few hours. Cloud had somehow managed to fall asleep despite Zack hitting every single bump in the non-existent road no matter where he turned, and Zack resisted the urge to wake him. The voices needling into his head were growing louder and louder, and he found himself gripping the steering wheel tight enough to dent it, trying to "pull away" to anywhere but himself.

An overwhelming wave of loneliness suddenly came over him, and he blinked hard to keep the vehicle from swerving. His mind was swarmed with images of people he'd never met, their faces cold and unfriendly, disgusted at the audacity he had to come crawling back for help when he'd never done a damn thing for them before in his life --

He wasn't -- he didn't even know these people, why would... he glanced over at Cloud. He was still out cold, though an unhappy groan went through him in his sleep, his brows knitting together briefly.

He's dreaming, Zack realised with a jolt.

Right -- the hive mind thing, with Jenova. Though the last time he'd experienced anything this "intimate" was when Cloud had physically been part of his body. He grit his teeth and tried to ignore the tide of foreign emotion washing over him. It was still better than the voices.

His thoughts inevitably turned back towards his own family again. Was Aaron doing okay? His parents? He wondered if they'd held a funeral for him yet. His parents insisting on being his pallbearers. Or maybe they were too upset to, and it would be some of his friends from uni. And Aaron was there, and he...

Zack didn't even want to begin thinking about what Aaron would do at his funeral. Each scenario was worse than the last.

And he'd earned every last one of them, too.

The images behind his eyes continued playing out a funeral, but there was no one there but Zack, looming over... himself? Or it was Cloud's perspective. So it was him, nudging the body of an unidentifiable blonde woman that didn't seem to have a face into the grave with him, wrapping his arms around it, not letting go even as it painlessly buried a blade further and further into his gut, whispering --

Zack forced himself to drive over to the nearest rock formation he could find before parking and nudging Cloud awake.

Cloud was slow to rouse, blinking owlishly at him, as though not quite sure who Zack was or what was going on.

"I'm beat," said Zack. "And so are you. Let's turn in for the night, the sun's already rising."

Cloud stared at him for a moment too long before slowly nodding. "That -- yeah. Sleep sounds good."

They unpacked the bedding they'd taken with little fanfare. Cloud insisted they put a decent amount of it under themselves, rather than over.

"The ground gets cold too," he said. "You'll lose more heat from that than anything else."

"You do a lot of camping?" asked Zack.

"Sort of," said Cloud. "Thought you said you read the transcript."

"Aeris left a lot of stuff out that I don't think she should've," he said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice.

"Well... then yeah, I guess so. Back when we were in Avalanche, we didn't always get to stay in the cities, or use public transportation to get between them. Spent a lot of time on the road. I've been pretty much all over the Planet." Cloud disassembled his sword into six different blades (Zack found himself half-hoping, half-dreading those swords splitting into even smaller swords) and drove them into the earth, tying them and the sheets into an impromptu tent. "Plus, Ma and I didn't have a whole lot of money. Anything we couldn't buy or steal, we had to scavenge ourselves. Finding game, cleaning it, knowing which plants to eat... sewing up holes in clothes..."

"That's what you were doing when I -- found you?" asked Zack. Cloud managed a short, uncomfortable nod.

"You get used to it. It's not so bad if you've got company, either." He pulled down one of the blankets in the front, blocking out the light that was beginning to creep over the horizon anyway. "We'll try and get going by midday."

"Should I wake you up, or...?" Zack didn't get a reply. Cloud had crashed again in a matter of seconds.

He should be tired, too. True, he hadn't nearly died, but he hadn't slept for nearly a full day now. He was far too keyed up with everything that had happened.

He closed his eyes again, letting his mind wander through Cloud's. Zack was disappointed to find he didn't seem to be dreaming right now -- which was probably for the best, because he had no desire to add to the existential dread he was already experiencing himself. Still, he would have liked to have studied the sensation a little closer.

With everything this quiet, however, there was nothing left to drown out the steady whispering in the back of his head. He winced, digging deeper into Cloud, trying to shut it all out.

Another thought came over him, then -- one that was a terrible idea, and that would do more harm than good if he acknowledged. But then again, he'd never known how to leave well enough alone anyway.

Magic. It tempted him like nothing else.

Aeris said -- assuming she'd actually written everything down -- that magic here was based off memories. Apparently, the process was so alien to humans that it had to be remembered, rather than taught, but that this could be accomplished via something called materia -- those memories given physical form. And Cloud had mastered several spells, apparently, which meant that those borrowed memories had been accessed so many times they effectively were his memories now.

Which meant... would it be all that much of a stretch for Zack to then "remember" them from Cloud? It was the same sort of principle, right?

The problem was finding out what a memory of magic would feel like. It wasn't as though he could look for something specific -- Cloud seemed to have a much better handle on rummaging through someone's brain than he did, and he had no idea what it would feel like to voluntarily try to recall something that wasn't his. He needed a frame of reference.

Zack silently eased himself over to the bag they'd set at the entrance of the makeshift tent and dug through it for the first aid kit. He removed the plastic-covered foam bag and felt around in it for the little green ball.

The instant his fingers brushed against it, he dropped the bag with a sharp gasp at the sensation of having knowledge violently crammed into his head that had never been there before. And then he was sixteen and screaming as he was held still and his clothes were forcibly ripped from his battered body by the rough hands of the guards, too scared to be humiliated, even more afraid than when he'd been told he would not be returning to Midgar once he'd recovered; Aaron back from his first day of third grade, eyeing Zack with a wary look he'd never seen before, refusing his offer to go down to the beach in favour of spending more time on his homework, the tension in the air as he walked past his parents nigh unbearable; his roommates laughing at a joke he'd told, even as the dying ceiling fan in the dingy ice cream shop didn't do much but languidly push the muggy air about the room; boreal ocean wind snatching at his hair as he gazed out across a city made of crystalline white spires and pearlescent shell and salt-bleached bone filigreed with snow and glass, sloping and curving gently as though grown into shape from the very earth, the voices of a thousand thousand lifetimes murmuring beneath his feet; another sweat-slicked body feverishly pressed against his own and his mouth against someone's jaw as their work-worn fingers dug into his hips, racing thoughts threatening to tear him out of the moment after all the trouble he'd gone through to get there, the most prominent ones being am I doing this right? Am I doing this right? Oh god I'm not doing this right. Shit fuck chair's tipping chair's tipping chair's tipping --

He found himself gulping down air as though he'd run a marathon, barely managed to smother the yell building up in his throat in the present day.

Behind him, Cloud shifted uneasily in his sleep.

Zack put away the first aid kit and went to bed.

 

---

 

 

"So, do you have any good memories?" asked Zack. He had a feeling Cloud was probably gonna knock his teeth out any minute from all the questions he'd been bombarding him with. He seemed to tense up further and further with every one, and if he didn't know better he'd think the feeling seeping through from him into the back of his mind was fear. There was no mistaking the expression on his face for anything but annoyance, though. Zack didn't care.

"I swear, every time something bleeds through it's always guns or knives or whatever."

Cloud spared him a short glance up from the fire pit he was assembling. "If it bothers you that much, maybe stop digging through my head," he said tersely.

"I'm not..." ...doing it on purpose, he thought, although there was the incident last night. Best not to bring that up entirely. He wasn't sure what was going on in the first one and never wanted to find out, the one with the city was more baffling than anything else, and if the last one turned out to not be Zack's (although in all honesty it could've been his and he'd just been too drunk from whatever party he'd been at to remember), he was pretty sure Cloud would eviscerate him on the spot.

"...What does doing magic feel like?" he asked. Cloud blinked at the apparent sudden change in subject, then shrugged.

"That depends," said Cloud. "For me, it's like... a buzz, almost. Just the buzzing, though, without the vibration. You can kinda feel it rolling around your head like it's pouring in from somewhere, until it tries to push its way out. Anyone can do it, but not everyone can get into the right state of mind long enough to do it well. Not to mention, being in contact with too many materia at once starts to mess with you. Most people can't even handle one."

No kidding. "Why's that?" he said aloud.

"The knowledge isn't yours at first," said Cloud. "Sure, it gives you the know-how to do it perfectly, but how do you go about consciously remembering something that isn't yours? Hold this for me," he added, thrusting a handful of dead leaves and downy tree fibre into Zack's hands. "How would you even know what to look for if the memory was already there? And even after that, you still have to get used to casting it. There's a reason most people don't bother mastering spells. When you instinctively want to reject those memories in the first place, people find it easier to keep it easily removable. Go ahead and put it there." He backed away from the fire pit, leaving Zack to set down the kindling where he was pointing.

"You said... materia was other people's memories or something," probed Zack. "So, you can just pick up a materia and learn someone's life story?"

"No," said Cloud, giving him a confused look. "It's the memory of knowing how to cast the spell and casting it. You might get four thousand year-old snippets, but it's not like they record things." He wiped his hands off on his pants, frowning. "You're getting at something. Cut to the chase."

"...I was just wondering," said Zack. "It's... it's a lot to take in. Magic. Souls, and everything. I mean... on Earth, so far as I know, nobody's got anything like that. And when you die, that's just it. You're just a product of the electricity running around in your brain. Here, there's this --" Zack suddenly paled. "Is there a god?"

Cloud shrugged, and Zack felt the tension visibly drain from his body. "Depends who you ask," he said. "I gotta go grab us something to eat, unless you wanna do the hunting."

"...Can I watch?" he asked, in spite of himself. He wasn't in a rush to see something die, but it'd be good to know. From what Zack could tell, his usefulness was rapidly running its course as Cloud continued to recover.

"...Might be good to have you learn," he admitted. "Keep quiet."

And Zack did. To the letter of the request, at least. He was still absolutely intent on pestering Cloud as he moved through waist-high grass in a crouch, sniffing occasionally. It was actually pretty spooky, how quiet he was, in contrast to Zack struggling not to snap every stem in his path. Although he himself was still doing much better than he had any right to be. His body still felt... strange. The strain he was expecting to eventually set into his legs from keeping them alternately locked in uncomfortable positions or forcing all his weight on his calves was completely absent, the sounds around him magnified a hundredfold making him acutely aware of every errant twitch in his muscles, or the way his foot would brush against the ground, sending a wave of vibrations through it that could potentially alarm prey. Every motion was smooth and effortless, perfectly controlled and precise, any mistake realised and calculated and corrected faster than it could have time to look like a mistake to begin with. He recalled the strange, inhuman, almost insect-like quality of movement Cloud, and later Tifa, had displayed -- alternately surreally flowing and graceful and agile, and disquietingly stiff and mechanically stilted -- inherently wrong -- and realised with a jolt of unease that he had most likely looked the same way this entire time. Did it creep everyone else out as badly as it did him, and they were just too polite to mention it?

So, about gods, right? he continued, forcing himself not to think about that for the time being. Sometimes you say gods, like there's a bunch of them, but then sometimes you say "god", like there's just the one. Is it both?

That depends on who you ask, too, replied Cloud. Most people think there's a bunch -- twelve, sometimes fourteen depending on the region. And... I guess I used to think there were a bunch, too. Don't really remember. There was an uncomfortable pause, before he pressed onwards. But Tifa says it was a different set of gods -- there were thirty or so, and they were different from the ones most people in places like Midgar worship. The ones that sleep in the mountain and stoke the Hearth.

So, why only one sometimes?

Spite, replied Cloud, a wry smile settling on his face. In Wutai, they only have the one -- Da-chao. Most people know him as Leviathan, though. Water's got a big role in their whole creation mythos, which... y'know, island. Makes sense. You got anything like that where you're from?

...Not in the way you're thinking, said Zack, tensing as he heard something rustle faintly in the distance.

Huh. Well, anyway, Shinra went to a lot of trouble to stamp it out, like they did with Nibel's culture, but that was the one they never managed to quash. Between that and Yuffie using it all the time... we kinda just picked it up, and then kept using it on purpose. Rolls off the tongue nicely, so eventually it just stuck.

Why'd they have so much trouble with it? Zack watched as Cloud went still and apparently zeroed in on whatever it was further up ahead. He couldn't see it from his angle, but it seemed vaguely mammal-esque. Possibly. He didn't have a great reference base for scents, either, but he could hear its heart beating a mile a minute in what was practically a buzz, and again was forced to block out the disquieting realisations it brought forth.

Maybe it stuck out. It's really the only surviving religion these days with only one god. Would've been a lot harder to integrate more into the pantheon they way they do with the others. And Wutai put up the biggest fight, I think. It was part of why Soldier was developed in the first place. Seriously, quiet for a minute. We don't have the time or the means to set snares so we gotta do this the messy way.

Cloud raised a hand, and little slivers of razor-sharp ice condensed beneath his fingers out of nowhere. They hovered there for a moment, bobbing gently as though floating in water, then stilled and pivoted in towards the something in the distance in a manner just as insect-like as their caster. Then his hand tensed, and one of them shot forward and lodged into something that sounded uncomfortably like meat. Cloud frowned and tensed again, then sent another two whistling through the air. There was a noise as whatever it was choked on something, and then silence.

Cloud stood and brushed off his hands. "Breakfast," he said, popping a couple of the remaining ice crystals in his mouth to chew on, then jogging forth to retrieve their game.

An enormous rabbit, perhaps the size of a cat, lay in the grass. There was a thin spear of ice through one of its eyes, and another two in its neck. It was very still.

"You alright?" asked Cloud suddenly, and Zack wouldn't have been surprised if he'd looked a little green. "Want one?" He held out his hand to offer one of the tiny spears, already starting to melt from the heat of his hand. Zack shook his head.

"I'm good," he said, doing his best to sound nonchalant. It would've been so much easier if there wasn't a presence nestled in the back of his head that could tell otherwise.

"Through the eye to the brain renders it unconscious if it doesn't kill it outright," said Cloud shortly. "Then you sever the spinal column and the jugular. Nice and clean."

"And the messy part?"

"It's a hell of a lot more painful and slow if you don't aim right," he said, in the same dry, clinical tone. "Makes the meat toughen up."

By the time the rabbit was cleaned up and tied to a spit above a fire (that Cloud had lit by causing the tinder to burst into flames with no more than a casual wave), Zack had gone from being curious about the hunting process to never wanting to look at another rabbit ever again. He was pretty sure the tipping point was around the time he'd watched someone rip its skin open and pull it off like it was a pair of little furry pyjamas with their bare hands, and he'd resolved to not look at it again until it was cooked and no longer recognisable as a dead animal.

It wasn't even the death that bothered him. Not entirely, at any rate. He knew where meat came from obviously. He'd seen plenty of live seafood die at a couple of the local markets. But there was something about watching the entire process play out with something he'd consider a "pet" under normal circumstances, by someone that had just torched a building with his mind, that was uncomfortably visceral. He thought back to Remy and sighed.

He's former military, he reminded himself. And not even human military at that. He kills things all the time. He's probably barely even Aeris's friend, so like hell he'd want anything to do with you.

And that was the end of it. Regardless of whether his intentions towards Zack were good, no amount of social grace was going to get a living weapon to connect with anything.

How the hell had Aeris done it? And what did he even see in her? What did she see in him?

What did she see in Zack, for that matter?

The meat, when it was ready, was dry but did enough to soothe the hunger pangs that were starting to set in. And it really did taste a little like chicken. If it weren't for the fact that they were eating in complete silence and no one was laughing, it was almost as though he was camping. There was enough of it for leftovers, and Cloud wound up using one of the sheets he'd already ripped up to wrap it up for later in case he couldn't catch anything else.

Zack drove. They'd stored as much boiled water from the stagnant pond they'd found as they could, even if it still wasn't the best thing he could be drinking, and Cloud had been working his way through it over the next few hours -- apparently condensing masses of vapour from the air into ice didn’t exactly result in clean water. His condition was still rapidly improving, but he'd still lost a lot of fluids either way.

A lot of fluids. A lot a lot of fluids. He'd been pretty bad off even before the seizure that didn't let up for way, way longer than five minutes, and Zack hadn't been able to do much else besides elevate his legs and watch him slowly bleed out.

He wasn't sure if it made him feel better or worse, that the same sort of technology that had carried Cloud through the worst of it was running through his veins as well. Apparently the guy should’ve been braindead, too -- part of what had started this whole mess.

"What... exactly did they do to you?" asked Zack after several moments in silence. It was a given that asking about the experiment stuff wouldn’t exactly improve Cloud’s opinion of him, but the unspoken question hopefully hung in the air as well: What exactly has been done to me?

"Performance enhancers," said Cloud briefly. "A few of 'em were steroids, but others... I dunno. Chemicals." Zack could feel Cloud's eyes on him, and kept his gaze focused on the road. "I don't know how much of it you've got of it, besides just Jenova. I guess we're -- sharing mako, or something. Which is weird, because I don't think I feel any different. I don't know much more about this than you do. I've never actually completed Reunion before, and I definitely didn’t think I’d survive it."

"Guess. Lazard didn't have a whole lot of time to check me out, before..." He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. "Anyway."

"...I had some surgeries in general," said Cloud. "They almost never told me what they were doing, I had to find out from the notes years later, and I still don't really understand. They..."

He paused, and apparently he either lacked the terminology or was too sore to talk, the presence from before probing a bit deeper before beginning to speak.

They took my appendix out preemptively, he said. There were other operations to improve bone structure -- they either filed them down or artificially built them up, but whatever they're made of it's mostly not bone anymore. And... the gene splicing, obviously. Cloud shifted in the passenger seat next to him. There was an odd squirm of guilt in the back of Zack's mind to match that seemed to indicate that wasn't all there was to it, but he continued onward anyway. Most of it from Jenova.

"Most of it"? Am I gonna start growing -- what, a tail, or something?

Not with the mako stabilising you, which you already have. There was something wary in his tone. He was probably still staring.

So... just the chemical things, then? If all his parts were still more or less the same, maybe it wouldn't be too bad.

No. But... you had to have at least some of the surgeries too. You've got at least as much mako in you as I do, which -- I don't know how, that's obviously impossible, but...

"How do you know?" he blurted, the words coming out more angrily than he'd meant them too.

You didn't think it was weird how fast you picked up a whole extra language?

Zack paused and spared a glance at Cloud then. Sure enough, he was looking at Zack with an expression he couldn't quite place -- something unhappy, definitely. Cloud looked away just as quickly.

"I'm smart," he said with a shrug. "Not to brag or anything, it's a fact. I'm used to picking things up fast. And I had a lot of time to learn it."

But you didn't, replied Cloud. Think about it. You've heard me speaking Standard for... what, five or six days? And two days ago you were already speaking way more Standard than Aeris, and she’s definitely smarter than you are.

"Gee, thanks. I think that's the first nice thing you've ever said to me," deadpanned Zack, before the words sunk in. It hadn't been that long, now that he thought about it. Sure, he might've had some experience acquiring languages. Spanish, as well as English, at an age so young he couldn't even remember when it had happened. Even a little Hawaiian Creole that he'd picked up. But... it really did feel as though he'd had much longer to learn it than he actually did, given how naturally it had already been committed to memory. And all insults aside, Aeris was smart, the whole team had been. How had he outstripped them -- including Cissnei, of all people -- on the language front this quickly?

"...Explain."

Mako is life, explained Cloud. Dead life, I guess. Distilled into physical, chemical form and infused into tissue. The most potent performance enhancer there is, if you don't die of cancer first. You've seen what I can do. Not bragging or anything, he echoed, a hint of smugness lacing his words. Shit, you've seen a little of what you can do.

Zack nodded. Focus on the road. That was all he needed to do.

Jenova helps, obviously, but even on its own, mako enhances your strength, your speed, your senses, your reflexes... but those reflexes aren't gonna do you a lot of good if you can't consciously think fast enough to put them to use.

"...So what you're saying is it made me smarter," said Zack dully.

No, but yes. Technically. If a bullet's coming at you really fast, you'd need to be able to process what you were going to do about it with nerve impulses going at least that quick, if not quicker. You think fast. A hint of amusement at his own little joke. And you process things faster, and can commit them to memory faster. A lot of people thought Soldiers had photographic memories. The reality's just that they can do a whole lot more thinking in one second than anyone else -- could, I mean.

Zack hadn't had time to put much thought into the bullet dodging thing he'd seen -- much less that awful moment outside the facility when he'd seen the shot streak past him, giving him just enough time to realise there was nothing he could do. That would've been a thousand metres a second, more than triple the speed of sound. And now he had neurons firing even faster than that.

He grimaced. More unfair advantages.

"So, the mako?"

I've got enough of it soaked into me to power Kalm for a whole day, apparently. Way, way, way more than the lethal dose, unless you're Sephiroth. And Tifa... she only had a little. Whatever managed to leak back into my bloodstream, I guess. So she got a little boost. She was still having some trouble, but she was doing pretty well too.

Zack nodded. The English she'd mixed in had been halting and uncertain, true, but she'd also managed to keep up with the conversation just fine -- already in the awkward stage where she could understand much more than she could speak.

And she's infected too -- so she'd have been trying to sift whatever she could from you, same as me. But you -- you already know as much Standard as I do English. In five days, which you've managed to convince yourself was a lot longer. However much mako you've got, it's a lot more than half of what I have. Somehow, it -- it made more of itself.

"And... mako doesn't do that?"

No. If it did, we wouldn't have to deal with that.

The engine had started to make an ominous clicking sound, like a turn signal but slower. And louder.

"Shit."

We've got maybe another hour until she either shuts down or blows, and we might as well let her. Not like we'll still be using it later anyway, and we're almost there.

"How can you tell?"

Cid lives in Rocket Town, and it's called that for a reason. Look around.

On top of them having eventually found a road again -- albeit an ill-maintained one -- they were driving through more and more vegetation. Stout looking trees competed for sunlight with masses of tangled bushes, and plants Zack didn't recognise at all wove their way between them. Mostly. As he looked, he could see wide stretches of the forest where the trees had been either completely flattened, burned to ash, or both.

If the Planet used the same technology, which they admittedly might not, and if it was about the same size as Earth, it would mean every time they'd tried to send something up into space (the failed launch mentioned in the transcript included) they'd be burning thousands of gallons of kerosene and liquid hydrogen and oxygen fighting against the curve of gravity as Newton's Third Law laid waste to whatever the surroundings were. In this case, the vegetation. It was fairly obvious what was natural growth and what was mile-long swaths of devastation slowly being retaken by the forest. Did they really have nowhere else to launch these things? Or did they just not care?

The further Zack drove, the more new growth there was, until all that remained of what was apparently an old-growth forest were a few sickly trees, scattered about the field.

He thought again of the way Tifa had stared just a little too long at everything they passed, clearly itching to stick her hands in one of the planters, and the reverence in Cloud's voice, looking out across the trash-filled streets of Southampton: "It's beautiful."

Because it had trees and flowers, and the sky wasn't completely choked with smog.

Yet, he thought. Give it another ten years or so.

A loud crunch emanated from the engine. Zack winced as Cloud snapped to attention.

"Time to go," he said abruptly. "That was the heat sink, out out out out out --"

Zack slammed his foot on the brakes, dragging the stick into "park" before the car even had time to stop, earning him another crunching noise. Cloud had already snatched up his sword and jumped from the moving vehicle, leaving Zack to pop the e-brake and snag their supplies before sprinting in the opposite direction.

"We're close, anyway," rasped Cloud, once they'd gotten far enough to slow to a walk without worrying about being incinerated. "Maybe an hour's walk."

"And you can walk that far?" said Zack incredulously.

"I just ran, didn't I?"

"Yeah, for like a minute."

"I'll be fine."

"You stopped talking on the way here," Zack pointed out.

"So it hurts to breathe a little," said Cloud. "I'll live. I've had worse."

"'What are you gonna do, bleed on me?'" he grumbled to himself, but kept walking anyway, hoping Cloud wouldn't notice he was slowing up a little.

And then almost an hour in, something felt... wrong.

Cloud --

It's not just me, then? he replied immediately. Just keep walking. We're nearly there.

This place still feels weird, said Zack. Like... it's a little too fuzzy out of the corner of my eye. Is there some kind of gas in your atmosphere you didn't mention?

...Thought that was just me, too. Been dizzy since I got here -- it's been hard to tell.

Either way, we're still being watched. Zack wasn't sure how he knew it, but he could feel it nonetheless -- a steady niggling of something else raising the hairs on the back of his neck, slowing the air to an unnatural stillness --

The voices suddenly peaked again, and he stopped dead, the noise overwhelming him to the point where he couldn't even focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

He could feel Cloud's hand on his shoulder, even as he knelt there on the ground, curled over himself, fingers digging into the back of his head.

It hurt. The noise -- the awful, beautiful, painful, wonderful, wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong noise seared through every thought, and he wanted to dig his fingers into his own skin and tug, like ripping the skin off a freshly-hunted rabbit. Sitting here was nigh unbearable -- so was moving, so was listening to the voices, so was trying to shut them out --

Whatever reprieve he'd been briefly granted from yesterday morning was over now, and everything was -- was wrong again, because there was something missing, a piece of him, and yet even trying to reach for it sent another wave of mental anguish through him, and another lance of pain through his head.

The first noise that cut through everything else was Cloud, telling him firmly to breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth. He shakily complied, choking down another cry through gritted teeth. How long had he been screaming?

His fingers had gone numb with how tightly he'd been digging them into his scalp, and he forced his hands to relax, little pinpricks of pain flaring up once again from the motion of him removing his nails from the tiny gouges he'd made in his skin.

The sound of a saxophone pierced through the haze more decisively than before, and he looked up to see Cloud pocketing the little red radio he'd brought with him before turning his attention back to Zack.

"Can you walk?" he asked, and there was that barely smug tone again. Zack managed a stiff nod.

"You said we were close, right?" he managed.

"Yeah." A pause. "Do you know how to use a gun?"

Zack shook his head. Nothing would shut up, but the silence was even worse.

"Then -- here." Cloud drew the massive rotary wing of a sword he carried, and with a couple deft movements had popped loose a couple of the segments. Replacing the rest of the sword in his harness, he hit some sort of catch on one and then the other, causing the handles to flick outward and lock into place like a pocket knife. He flipped it around and offered the handle to Zack.

Zack stared at it for a moment before nervously accepting, quashing the irrational fear that he would somehow accidentally stab himself with this actual, real weapon he was being handed. Just as the full assembly had, it felt lighter than air.

"Better than nothing," said Cloud. "Besides, I don't wanna risk getting jumped by monsters. There's less these days, but..."

"What -- what the fuck do you mean, 'monsters'?" stammered Zack. "You've got dragons, what even counts as a monster here?"

"Depends," was the unhelpful reply. "Can I trust you not to lose that or jam it into the back of my head?"

"Yes, Mom."

Cloud shot him a look but went quiet again, allowing the radio to grate against the racket in his head. It helped. A little. As did the explosion in the distance some minutes later, which gave his mind something else to focus on. He was mulling over whether or not to ask Cloud how he handled it at first, which would require more probing into a part of his life he seemed resentful that Zack knew about in the first place, when he began to see the first buildings in the distance.

This seemed wrong, too, but now he at least could put his finger on why. The town was awfully quiet, given it was late afternoon already.

“...Cloud --” he began.

“Just a little further,” said Cloud, managing a note of false cheer. “He’s on the east side of town.”

He sounded exhausted again -- probably in worse condition than he let on. As they pressed onwards, he gave no indication that he noticed anything wrong, and his eyes had a feverish look to them.

Maybe that meant he was also writing off the shadows Zack kept seeing. They were only visible for a moment, reflected in window glass out of the corner of his eye, too often to be his imagination. He tightened his grip on the sword, clenching his teeth hard enough to make his jaw ache because nothing would shut up.

Perhaps it was just because he'd gotten used to Nibelheim, but it took him longer than it should have for him to notice what was wrong.

The town was empty. As empty as the last one, without the disrepair, and not a single soul present besides the two of them. The lights were on in every building, lengthening their shadows as the sun set.

"No one's here."

"We don't know that," said Cloud brusquely. "It's -- it's probably just quiet. We can ask Cid about it when we find him."

Cloud led him to one of the smaller houses in the town, a mass of scrap metal and mechanical works-in-progress scattered in the backyard and looming over the roof like a vulture, along with the remains of a launch pad sans space shuttle.

"Cid?" Cloud shouted. "I need a favour..."

No one responded. Zack couldn't hear anything moving inside.

"Look, Cloud --"

But Cloud had already let himself inside, as the door seemed to be unlocked.

"Cid?" he asked the empty kitchen.

"He's not here," said Zack, sitting in one of the chairs and resting his forehead against the table, his arms once again curled over himself. "No one's here."

"He's... he's probably out looking for me," said Cloud. "We can wait here for him to get back --"

"This whole place is fucked, Cloud," Zack snapped, squeezing his eyes shut. "You had to have seen at least one of them."

"No, I didn't," said Cloud, his voice firm, which did nothing to hide the stress pouring through into Zack's head. "Because there's nothing to see. Maybe they'll -- maybe the town was evacuated. Maybe they're fine."

"Evacuated to where?" A million smells, too many to distinguish from one another, fought for his attention, piling on top of the chorus of whispers loud enough to blot out thought. Behind his eyes swam ink in water. "Nothing's -- nothing's messed up -- I mean... it doesn't look like anyone left in a hurry. All the cars are still here."

"I don't know. Maybe -- I'll call him, hold on."

Zack looked up to see Cloud remove a phone -- an honest to god wall-mounted home phone with a cord -- from its cradle and dial a number, pressing a button above the receiver to put it on speaker. It rang once, twice, three times...

"He'll answer," said Cloud. "He's always getting on me about how I should remember to call more often, he'll answer."

...four, five, six...

"Cid Highwind. If it's over thirty seconds I ain't listening to it."

A soft beep issued from the speaker.

"Hey, it's me. Cloud, I mean," began Cloud. "I'm at your house with one of Aeris's friends. I don't have my cell on me, so just call your house or something. See you soon."

Zack flinched as the second beep of Cloud hanging up became one more sound currently burning itself into his ears. "Now what?"

"Let me try Yuffie. She's always got her phone on her."

As Cloud dialed, something shifted outside the window. Zack pushed himself upright, even though the last thing he wanted in the world was to have to look at things, and turned around. The phone rang once, and then twice -- and then the third time, it just kept ringing in one long unbroken tone.

"...the hell?" he heard Cloud breathe behind him. Slowly growing louder, playing alongside the dial tone, was a young woman's voice also holding one long note of speech without stopping for air, heavily digitised; the world's flattest scream.

The radio in Cloud's pocket began to emit static, indistinct voices overlapping with the scratching noise drowning out the music. Zack didn't dare turn around to look, though, his eyes locked with the woman from before that was now standing at the head of the table.

"Let me out," said Jenova. The plastic thunk of the phone swinging against the wall as Cloud dropped it resonated throughout the room, as though they were standing in a vast cavern.

Zack snatched up the sword he'd been given and... stared. Jenova stared back.

She melted you. She fucked with your head, said the rational part of his brain. She's the reason this is happening. She's not even human. Run her the fuck through and book it.

The other part of his brain pictured how it would look if he were to pick up a sword and slit this woman's throat. People had so much blood in them --

Cloud did not hesitate, and the sword he'd thrown with a roar flew past Zack's head towards the spot between Jenova's eyes.

It flew straight through and embedded itself up to the hilt in the wall. Jenova gave no indication She noticed. Zack took a step back, the intense discomfort he was feeling alternately fading away and spiking dramatically one second to the next, like his body couldn't decide which was appropriate and just decided to do both. He felt ill.

Jenova continued to stand there, staring at them, calm as anything. He backed up far enough to see that Cloud's eyes had glazed over, and he caught a glimpse of his own face reflected in a window, his eyes a poisonous green. Other things swam in the windows, and he could hear the sound of fingernails scratching insistently against glass. The seconds continued to tick by, and still Jenova did not move, and more and more Zack wanted to knock himself out on something just for one second of respite from it all.

Instead, he swallowed and slowly approached Her.

"Let me in," She said this time. Zack took a deep breath, braced himself for pain, and reached out to touch Her.

He jerked his hand away immediately on reflex, but it had ghosted through Her just as the sword had. Did that mean...?

He wrenched the sword Cloud had thrown from the wall and attempted to prod Her with it. Her eyes followed his motion around Her, but She didn't even react to him swiping the sword through Her chest a couple times.

He turned around to speak to Cloud as the noise in his head peaked, and he was forced to his knees again as he screamed at the top of his lungs just to drown it out, knowing that this was never ever going to stop, for the rest of his life. He screamed until his voice came out in a croak. He screamed until stars swam in front of his eyes from lack of breath. The windows around him shattered, and then the world seemed to bend the floor up around him, the cool tile suddenly resting against his head making it too hard to scream in the first place.

He awoke to the sound of a dial tone.

"You have reached the voicemail box of -- Nanaki. Hello! Has it recorded correc --! At the tone, please record your voice message. When you are finished recording, you may hang up, or press zero for more --"

Another soft beep as the call disconnected. Followed by the sound of another number being dialed.

He ached too much to move just yet, and instead kept his eyes closed and let the rhythmic buzzing of the dial tone and the sound of static wash over him, until it cut off again.

"You've reached Tifa Lockhart. I'm sorry I missed your call, but if you leave a message I can call you back as soon as possible. Thanks!"

And the call was disconnected again, followed by shaky breathing as another number was dialed. And again the phone rang six times.

"You've reached the residence of Barret Wallace" -- a quiet shuffling noise on the other end of the speaker, before a second voice chimed in with an excited giggle -- "and Marlene!" Another quiet shuffle as the phone was passed back. "We're not home right now, so leave your name and number and we'll get back to you soon as we can."

Disconnected. And another.

"Cid Highwind. If it's over thirty seconds I ain't listening to it."

Disconnected. And another.

"You are attempting to contact a secure line belonging to the Wutaian Imperial Family. Please stand by, and an agent will be available to authorise your call transfer."

Disconnected. And another.

"You have reached the voicemail box of -- Nanaki. Hello! Has it recorded correc --! At the tone, please record your voice message. When you are finished recording --"

Disconnected. And another.

"Thank you for calling Seventh Heaven Bar and Grill! No one's available to answer your call right now. Our hours are from 11:00 am to 2:00 am. Please be sure to leave a message with --"

Disconnected.

Zack chanced sitting up as another number was being dialed, and saw Cloud sitting at the foot of the bed he was lying on, phone cord stretched across the room from where it rested on a nearby desk, tears silently streaming down his face. The bags under his eyes were pronounced, and he looked one stiff breeze away from passing out himself.

"Hello, this is Reeve Tuesti. I’m either on the phone right now or not in my office, so please leave your name and number along with a --"

Cloud gasped sharply upon noticing Zack was awake, and immediately jabbed his thumb into the switch hook before getting up and putting the phone back, passing Jenova on the way.

She was still staring.

"She stayed out there for a while," said Cloud in explanation, trying to discreetly wipe his eyes on the back of his sleeve. "Then I left for a second to get some water, and when I came back She was here. Hasn't done anything yet."

"She say anything else?"

Cloud shrugged. "She wants in. Or out, maybe. Dunno why we're still alive."

"She's not... solid," said Zack, slowly sliding towards the edge of the bed. "Something -- something weird's going on. Besides just Her."

"Yeah. Everyone's... everyone's gone." He glanced at Jenova again. "I thought maybe we might be in... in the kind of place we were at Aeris's house, or Nibelheim or something, but... I don't know. Everything's too... big," he finished, for lack of a better word.

"That might not be too far off, though," said Zack. "No one's here. Doesn't sound like anyone's around to answer those phonecalls, either."

Cloud looked away. "...How long were you awake?"

"Just a couple minutes," said Zack. "Had any luck with voicemails?"

"I left a couple about seven hours ago," said Cloud. "No one's picked up."

Zack stared at him incredulously. "You've been calling for seven hours?"

"Not the whole seven hours," he said defensively, glowering at Zack. "I just..."

He went quiet.

"Just what?" Maybe there was some special line that ran off magic or something, that --

"...I wanted to hear their voices," he mumbled, so quietly it was barely intelligible.

Jenova continued to burn a hole into Zack's eyes every time he looked up. He peered at himself in a mirror above the dresser, and saw the same yawning void he'd seen in his cell staring back, gently wafting itself into the room as though blown by an unseen draft even as a look behind him confirmed once again that there was nothing there.

But at least his eyes were blue again, his own haggard face immediately sagging with relief. Even though the pupils were still messed up, and they were still glowing, and would keep doing so until he died.

"And... and besides that..."

Cloud spared a glance out the window, then. Zack's eyes followed where he was looking, slowly tracing the way something seemed to be draped across the telephone poles, between houses and trees. He could almost pretend they were vines, if they weren't so long and heavy and wet, subtly shifting in response to some stimuli he couldn't see, the way an insect would blindly curl itself away from something prodding it.

"You can see it, too, then?" said Cloud, as Zack edged himself away from the window.

Zack nodded. "Hard to miss," he said, barely daring to breathe, afraid of what would have happened if he looked away from Jenova -- from the window --

"Don't mind the eyes," said Cloud. "They're not actually watching -- I don't really think they can see us. It's fine."

Zack looked out the window again and saw nothing but the meaty strands strung through the trees like so many cobwebs and decided that that was probably the least fine thing Cloud had said yet.

"S -- sure," said Zack weakly. "Yeah. Okay."

"Didn't wanna sleep while you were out," continued Cloud. "...Can you keep watch? Sword's on the other side of the bed, gun's still in the bag."

Zack nodded, prompting Cloud to start peeling off his shoes -- realising he'd removed Zack's at some point, before making whatever phonecalls he'd made.

Steeling himself against the voices, Zack stood and removed the phone from the wall. Cloud stared at him as he began dialing.

"What are you...?"

It was a long-shot. It shouldn't work, Aaron was an entire universe away, but maybe-- maybe. Even if it went to voicemail, maybe the call would go through. He held his breath.

And before it even had a chance to ring --

"I'm sorry," began a polite voice in the same refined-sounding Standard as before, "the number: Eight. Zero. Eight. Five. Six. Nine. Six. Three. Three. Nine. Is not in service at this time, or has been temporarily disconnected. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again."

Zack replaced the phone in the cradle. He closed his eyes and wished the earth would swallow him up.

"...It'll be okay," said Cloud, for once without a hint of derision or hostility or smugness. "You'll see them again soon."

Zack nodded. "Yeah."

"Wake me up if She tries anything, alright?"

"Alright."

Zack heard another shuffle of fabric, and then silence.

"...Another thing," said Cloud. "I should probably... I was thinking, I should probably teach you how to defend yourself. Just until I can fight again."

"...Yeah?"

"Yeah. If Aeris can... I dunno. We'll figure that out tomorrow."

"Sure."

The room went quiet again, and within minutes Cloud's raspy breathing slowed to a steady rhythm.

Zack dialed the number again.

When it didn't go through, he dialed it again.

And then again. Maybe this time.

Maybe.

Notes:

300k. That's not encouraging.

Chapter 41: Grant Us Eyes, Grant Us Eyes

Notes:

Another chapter I fussed over for entirely too long because it was another one of those "I've been looking forward to this scene since day one and I want it to be as good as it is in my head" chapters. Don't want a repeat of 30.

Thanks as usual to la-regina-scrive and revolutionarygirlkaasy for betaing.

This chapter contains multiple references to body horror and gore, and frank and extended discussion of both, as well as some allusions to torture and abuse of various kinds.

"Maybe" was a dangerous fucking word.

Because maybe Cid really did see what he thought he saw, and maybe it did mean that Cloud was alive somewhere -- because who else did they know that talked about hearing Jenova? -- and maybe it meant, somehow, Tifa had survived too.

Barret hadn't gone back to bed after he'd hung up. He'd sat there by the phone, trying not to entertain other possibilities -- that this was completely unrelated, that Cloud had an episode out in the wilderness and starved to death, that, somehow, for some reason, Cid had pushed Tifa out of the airship (why? It didn't matter why, what if he had), that he'd have to explain to Marlene. Biggs and Wedge had been hard enough -- at the time she'd known them longer than Tifa. But that had been years ago, and she'd had time to get attached to two of the stupidest people Barret had ever had the displeasure of meeting, and she'd already seen way too much death for someone her age.

Then again, so had pretty much all kids these days. The ones that had survived, at least.

What would happen to her if something should happen to him? As much as it killed him to admit it, Reeve was probably the only one he actually trusted to raise his daughter now that Tifa was out of the picture. Their family was woefully lacking in responsible adults as it was. There was Cid too, but he wasn't sure he wanted Marlene growing up in the rocky environment that was his relationship with Shera. Whether they were going to try to reconcile or move away, they all just wanted it over with. Reeve wasn't some high-strung kid, could hold a steady job, didn't smoke, wasn't in a volatile domestic situation, and given the fact that he'd kidnapped his goddamn daughter to use as leverage at one point, obviously knew how to handle kids.

The WRO was still paying people to repopulate. Maybe he should find a wife, settle down. Maybe Marlene would enjoy having a younger sibling. Maybe that would take some of the sting out of her losing Tifa --

Maybe he shouldn't get remarried as part of some bizarre proxy grieving. That seemed like a good plan.

Barret sighed and stood up. He'd only had a couple drinks, but they seemed to be messing with him regardless. He couldn't afford to fall to pieces now. Marlene had burned through way too many stable adult figures -- Biggs, Wedge, Tifa, Cloud, Eleanor... Dyne...

He snorted. "Stable". About the only stable person in that group had been Eleanor. And maybe Biggs, if he was being generous.

He'd tried his best to give Marlene as close to a normal life as possible, but apparently she was already having behavioural issues in school. Difficulty making friends, for one. She generally kept to herself, and seemed almost annoyed by the other children, in stark contrast to how she was with every adult she'd met and felt the need to personally greet. This was exactly what he'd been afraid of. She had Avalanche, but she had no idea how to interact with anyone her age, and she seemed to have no interest in learning either. He'd tried briefly to get her to interact with some of the local children in Corel. Then the 'stigma had happened, and she'd been forbidden from coming within a hundred metres of any of them. And by the time it was over, most of them were dead anyway.

The world was always falling apart in one way or another, it seemed.

He thought about going to bed, but a look out the window told him that the sun was already rising. Already regretting not getting any sleep, he began making breakfast. A fancy one this time, with chopped fruit and toast cooked in eggs and cinnamon and his own sad attempt at omelettes. They might not have been in that perfect half-moon shape Tifa always seemed to manage the first try, but they'd still taste the same at least.

The sound of running water from the bathroom informed him Marlene was awake, and he braced himself over the next few minutes for when she'd finish getting ready, walk through the doorway, and ask him --

"Did they find them yet?" inquired Marlene, first thing in the morning, as she had every morning ever since Cloud had escaped custody.

He paused, biting back his default reply of, "Not yet, but they will soon." Mulling over Cid's phone call. Considering the evidence. Sighing resignedly.

"Maybe," said Barret. He could feel Marlene's gaze boring a hole right through the back of his neck. "Cid thinks he might'a -- heard him." He wasn't sure what to call it, let alone what it actually was.

"Where?" she asked immediately.

"Downriver," said Barret. "Past Carwen, on the way to Rocket Town. They're still looking."

"We could go look too," said Marlene. "I can use materia now too. I can help."

Barret sighed heavily. If some tentative, low-risk beginner lessons in sleeping spells counted as "using materia", then sure, she could use materia.

"We don't want too many people out there, in case someone else goes missing," said Barret. "They got room for another one, I'll let you know."

Marlene didn't really look like she was buying it, but she sat down at the table without further comment. He opened his mouth to scold her -- she'd brought her tonberry plush, "Stabs", to the table, which was just asking for it to get covered in apple juice and jam.

Then he realised she hadn't brought Stabs -- she'd brought that stuffed moogle she'd gotten at Seventh Heaven during one of Barret's weeks there. He was pretty sure it had been a subtle ploy from Tifa and Cloud to replace Stabs with something a little more wholesome, and it had worked for all of two days before she'd gravitated back towards her stuffed tonberry anyway.

Now, though, she had it stuffed down the front of her pyjama shirt, hugging it to her, her chin resting on its head as she slouched on the table.

"You best not get that thing dirty," was all he said before returning to making eggs.

Marlene simply hugged the toy tighter.

 

---

 

"Shoo."

"Screeeeeeeeeech."

"Yeah, I mean you. Git, ugly."

"Tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk-tk!"

"Last warning before I --"

The sound of a digitised camera shutter cut Cid off mid rant. Yuffie looked up from her cell phone and smiled.

"Hey, don't mind me," she said. "Just seeing which one of you blows more hot air first."

Cid simply glowered at her as the minor dragon he'd been arguing with inflated its throat sack further, determined to win its territorial display despite barely coming up to Cid's waist. It was a shame her phone wasn't fancy enough for video recording -- the pictures weren't doing it justice at all.

"I'm gonna Ultima that thing into next week," grumbled Cid.

"Just -- give it a warning shot," said Yuffie. "Look -- I'll do it."

A quick flick of her hand sent a streak of fire over its shoulder, and it screeched at them again before waddling off, looking surly about having to abandon the half-eaten mu carcass that had attracted it in the first place -- and at last leaving them to examine the bundle of ripped, bloodstained cloth that it had apparently dug up.

Just a shirt, from the looks of things. It looked as though it had been hastily "sterilised" with fire, parts of it charred, before being buried. The wildlife must've smelled the blood anyway like Nanaki had, and dug it up.

"Women's medium," said Nanaki. "And it smells like her."

There were only a few spots towards the shoulders to suggest that the shirt had been grey at one point, and not a rusty reddish brown. The thing was positively drenched.

There also wasn't a whole lot of it left.

"...She can heal, she'll be okay," said Yuffie, snapping a picture of the shirt as well for evidence. "And she was okay enough to bury it, wasn't he?"

"Unless someone buried it for her," said Cid. "Not to mention, that's an awful lotta real estate for infection." He turned the shirt over in his hands and frowned. Through the breast pocket on the right side was a smaller, elliptical hole, the edges of it ringed with metallic residue.

Suddenly the ragged front of the shirt took on a whole new meaning.

"Lemme see that," said Yuffie, snatching the shirt from Cid and flipping it over. It was badly burned enough towards the hem and midsection that it could have been nothing, but -- there. Another hole, more perfectly circular, the edges of it too frayed to be from the fire.

"How'd she get this from a fall?" asked Yuffie, already knowing the answer.

"Someone went to the trouble of shooting her," said Cid. "More'n once. Whoever it was wanted to make sure."

"Why, though?" asked Nanaki, sniffing at the shirt with distaste. "No one has a reason to... would they?"

"The WRO, maybe?" suggested Cid. "Or there's some derelict sweeper bot running around, or..."

"What if it's not hers?"

The others turned to her as she offered the shirt to Nanaki. "Can you check? What if it's Cloud's?"

"I -- I'm not sure." He sniffed it again, wrinkling his nose in distaste of the smell. "It -- I couldn't say. It smells like both of them. And Her."

"But it's Tifa's shirt, right?" said Yuffie.

"That doesn't mean anything," said Cid. "They steal clothes all the damn time."

"The blood's not that old," said Nanaki. "And there's quite a substantial amount of it."

"Yeah, he's a real nifty bullet sponge. That's not news," said Yuffie, more flippantly than she actually felt. She knew he'd taken at least a few hits for her when they were on the road, and even rationally knowing it wasn't a mortal wound for him didn't keep it from being absolutely terrifying. Doubly so after they'd been told the thing with the truck very nearly killed him. "What's your point?"

"So," said Nanaki. "Perhaps there's enough to get it tested."

"Tested for what?" said Yuffie. "They're both infected. Jenova wouldn't be enough to identify it."

"No," said Nanaki. "But a sample to compare it against might."

"That -- that's on another fucking continent," said Cid, as the realisation of what Nanaki was suggesting sunk in. "You want us to fly all the way back to -- what, see who it is we're even chasing?"

"If it's Cloud we'd at least know who we're looking for, which means we'll be able to figure out who shot him," said Yuffie."Which means we'll have a lead."

"And you want us to just waltz right into the WRO, bat our eyelashes, and suck their --"

Thump.

The three of them turned to look at the source of the noise -- the minor dragon still slinking off into the distance. Only it wasn't anymore. It had fallen over and was very, very still.

Yuffie's gaze slowly wandered over to the half-eaten rodent that they'd found next to where the shirt had been dug up. And the dead grass surrounding the hole for a metre in each direction.

Yuffie stared at the bloodied shirt, and held it between two fingers at arm's length.

"Wanna get this thing tested now?"

"You ain't carrying that on my airship," said Cid in an alarmed voice.

"'You ain't carrying that on my airship' -- all that White and you can't even handle a little blood," she mocked. "We'll wrap in a bag or..."

Cid was staring at something behind her, a high pitched noise echoing loudly enough to make her teeth hurt as he began to cast Ultima.

"...or s... something..." she trailed off, reaching behind her back for her shuriken as Nanaki let out a snarl.

It was Cloud. Or -- it looked like Cloud, or at least a ghastly parody of him. Where his eyes and mouth should have been were dark, sunken splotches, as though someone had crudely scribbled them out with charcoal. It was tall and gangly -- Cloud had absolutely no business at all being that tall -- and the fingers tipping each knife-like hand looked incredibly sharp. It was unnaturally still, except when its head twitched and jerked and pivoted to face them. Its throat had been slit, and though the wound no longer seemed to be open its neck was stained with grey.

When it spoke, its jaw didn't open and close, and the voice didn't seem to be coming from its mouth.

"Need more pieces," it said. "Soon. Mother's close."

Nanaki lunged, and it dipped around him, its weight shifting in a way that something that had seen humans once and knew vaguely where their limbs bent but not specifically how they bent. It dug its claws into the earth and lunged in return, rushing toward Yuffie with spider-like movement.

Then it stopped dead, its face as indifferent as ever, its body language still completely inscrutable.

"Too far in," it said. "Too soon. Too far in. Reunion isn't here." And then its head slowly tipped itself towards Cid, locking "eyes" with him.

"There was a reason I didn't get up," it said.

Then it vanished.

The heaviness in the air hadn't vanished with it, however -- Nanaki was growling louder than ever, backing up towards Yuffie, and she could have sworn she kept seeing something moving out of the corner of her eye. Then suddenly she was forced to squint, until she wasn't -- until she was, the sun flickering like a lightbulb as though caught in some rapidfire solar eclipse. She looked up, then, and as it finished flickering she wordlessly handed the shirt to Cid, who nodded, staring right along with her, before shaking her head to clear it and beginning her hasty trip back to the airship. It was probably just some atmospheric thing this far north. Probably. It was fine.

The sky was burning, the ugly red colour of an open wound.

 

---

 

They left the shirt on the other side of the bridge, keeping it under an upturned trash bin, just to be safe. Yuffie lay face down on the floor next to a heated pipe, which she had discovered was strategically the best way to ride an airship without throwing up over the side. Not that she could get up, because Nanaki had taken the opportunity to avenge the months she'd spent using him as a pillow and lay down on top of her back. Yuffie wheezed -- he was easily five or six times her own weight, and he didn't seem intent on getting up anytime soon.

"It seems you've taken ill," he said daintily, "and I've heard it on good authority that this helps."

Yuffie gave a noncommittal grunt in reply and scooted herself forward enough for her to breathe comfortably without getting up.

If it weren't for literally everything else about it, she'd be tempted to infect herself and let whatever had fixed Cloud's motion sickness do its job.

She missed him.

Even before all this she'd missed him. As much as they'd bickered when they were on the road, there was something about him that was just... she wasn't sure. Easy to approach. That something was one of the few constants she had between the fights and the running and the end of the world, and he'd been there for all of it. Getting irritated when she needled him, but bantering right back all the same. Becoming absolutely furious when she'd robbed them blind, because he'd trusted her. Sure, he'd trusted everyone -- still trusted Reeve, somehow, but then he was stupid like that. And then quite literally nearly crushing her ribs with a hug when they'd gotten her back from Don Corneo anyway... and then immediately chewing her out for the next three hours for good measure on the way back to the capitol.

He and Nanaki were really the only ones she'd gotten along with for the first few weeks. And after they'd learned what they'd learned, it made sense -- like Nanaki, he was mentally basically her age. Maybe even younger, though it was hard to check the dates for sure given how badly he was hallucinating through a lot of it. And he was different, certainly -- a little quieter. A little less likely to look people in the eye when he talked to them, as though he were practically spitting in someone's face for daring to address someone directly. A lot more likely to flinch violently at unexpected touch, meaning she'd have to shelve those particular pranks because suddenly they were a whole lot less funny.

But she didn't really care, because the something had made it through, was real all along, and he still laughed when they'd found a sleeping Nanaki and flipped his ears backwards. And he still couldn't use chopsticks for all the progress he'd made with her teaching him Wutaian. And he still rolled his eyes when she snorted with laughter at him for stabbing his food with them, even though she was pretty sure he wasn't learning on purpose by now to give her something to poke at him for. And that was all that mattered.

And then things had settled down. Not gently, but... still. Settled. And he'd shacked up with Tifa, and she'd rented a flat in Junon to stay in while she was visiting, which she did as often as she could manage. Sometimes Tifa would come along, sometimes she thankfully wouldn't. Not that she disliked her, but Tifa probably wouldn't approve of a lot of the things they got up to. They did things like go to restaurants or watch street performers with Tifa, because they didn't even want to imagine how she'd react to finding out they'd rigged a bunch of scrap metal into an impromptu catapult and used it fling huge chunks of rubble off into the distance just to see how far they'd go and what they'd look like when they smashed.

...So maybe it was a little tasteless, dicking around in a mass grave. But they were already picking the place clean for useable rubble anyway, so they might as well make things less depressing while they were at it.

At the very least, he still had the good grace to not bring up that awful stupid decision she'd made to ask him out on a date, where he'd had to very gently, albeit a bit awkwardly, let her down due to his tendencies to Not Be Attracted To/Date Minors. Yuffie herself had only brought it up once, when he'd proudly showed her the swords he'd made and then immediately lost her when he'd informed her he'd actually named them all.

"I can't believe I wanted to have sex with you," she'd said flatly, and Cid howling with laughter so hard he choked on his cigarette over a flustered Cloud's indignant sputtering, his face bright red, had echoed in her head for days.

And sometimes it was harder, too, because he certainly never used to tear up when she brought him and Tifa red bean buns and parfaits on the way over to Seventh Heaven, and there were times when it got a bit hard to watch, as much as he tried to hide it.

But that was okay, because it was still him.

Then he'd withdrawn.

At first she thought it was the age gap -- where, if he'd been mentally sixteen, he'd managed to "catch up" to all those lost years, and he was just an adult now and was much too old to get any enjoyment out of hanging out with someone like her (which she shouldn't begrudge him for because that was good, wasn't it? That meant he was getting better). Or maybe she had changed too much, since she was an adult now too, and she'd turned into her dad at some point without even realising it. Or maybe they were just both old and boring now. But even if they had grown up, there had to have been something to their interactions that he'd liked beyond stupid destructive garbage, right? She'd even blamed Tifa once for "hogging him", and that had lasted all of six hours when she'd come home fuming on one of her Cloud-watching shifts and found that Tifa had made her hot chocolate that was at least 50% whipped cream the way she liked it, completely unprompted. It was really hard to stay mad at Tifa.

In all likelihood, as she found out later, it was just the stigma making him tired and weary and a giant ball of nerves. It must have been, because after that birthday party that they'd thrown him shortly before he ran away to die alone (without any of them, he left them behind he left her behind how dare him), when all was said and done and the stigma had been cured, he changed again.

He went even quieter. And he'd gone back to visiting with her frequently, but he hadn't wanted to do much but sit next to her, a quiet desperation in every second, eyes flitting between her and the window as though afraid to be caught looking at either. Jessie had it easier -- their joint hobby involved them sitting close to each other anyway, and Barret had them looking after Marlene from the couch. And Tifa lived with him full time and had (probably? God they were being so weird about this) slept with him at least once, ever since he'd officially moved in in the form of Tifa buying him an actual chair for his desk.

Yuffie almost wanted to say he was afraid of her, but that didn't seem quite right.

She might actually be a little afraid of him now. Whatever that something was, it had gradually disappeared a little while ago without either of them noticing.

She stared out the flight deck window across miles and miles of dry grass and trees slowly shedding their leaves, and imagined them landing the airship to set up camp where it wouldn't fit, where they'd all be stuck in the same tent or two anyway. And how Barret was always one of the first ones up and actually knew how to cook on top of that and was more or less just put in charge of breakfast overall. And how they couldn't really get Tifa to cook all that often because she was nearly impossible to wake at any time before ten or eleven, but when they did and they had the funds for it she'd go all out, never making the same thing twice. And how Nanaki had actually decided to stay and try out cooked eggs for once instead of catching his own meals like always, and how quickly they'd become a favourite of his, and it had taken them another three weeks to actually get him to admit it. And how Cloud had been Silenced yesterday, but no one knew the countercurse and they didn't have any medicine for it, so he'd been stuck aggressively pointing at everything until it wore off on its own a week later, and Yuffie had received the finger in response to a lot of her snide comments she knew he couldn't reply to so often it that was pretty much a morning greeting between the two of them at this point. And how Jessie and Cid had tried to drag some old robot back for salvage until it blew up on them, leaving a blackened --

Wait. That didn't happen. Why was she actually looking at it?

She scrambled out from under Nanaki, who was already moving to get a good look himself. "Cid -- Cid, get over here quick."

There was a circle of scorched earth, visible even from this high up, some of it still smoking.

"The hell did he set on fire this time?" growled Cid, even as his face grew tense.

"...At least we know we're on the right track," said Nanaki. Yuffie really hoped "follow the explosions" wasn't their new metric for finding Cloud, but then again it was a really safe bet either way.

They dipped low momentarily to take a closer look, but it didn't look like there was anything living caught in the blast. Not even any sign of wreckage. Whatever had gone off here, it had gone off violently.

Fire didn't necessarily "explode", and Ultima didn't burn, it just destroyed. A summon, maybe. She knew he'd mastered a decent amount, and even she'd bothered with mastering a few. Reeve, Jessie, and Barret weren't hugely magically inclined and they needed as big of a leg up as they could get.

(Plus, she'd admitted to herself, there was a huge financial opportunity in selling summon materia if she could learn it well enough to make more than one. Not to mention what it would do for Wutai if they had summons and whatever other rare materia they'd acquired throughout their journey widely available to its people. That her little side project had also been perceived as preparedness by everyone else didn't hurt at all.)

But if it had been a summon -- and certainly one of the summons that Cloud had mastered -- the damage certainly wouldn't be that small and localised. Knowing that many spells was one thing -- technically anyone could master a summon with several years of study, instead of a few months of high-pressure do-or-die combat experience -- but what was the point in blowing potentially lethal amounts of energy for a spot maybe thirty metres across at most?

Well, maybe he would do something like that. This was the price you paid for giving that much power to someone that unbelieveably dumb.

She thought something like that would've made her feel better, but all it did was contribute to the growing unease building up in her chest.

And nausea. That too.

She looked at the sky again. It was slowly darkening to a deep blue as they crossed from one continent to the next, but the red tinge was still present and unmistakable.

She could have sworn she saw something enormous ripple through it. Something moving.

After they touched down in Edge, it was a matter of actually getting somewhere that could test the blood with the whole place on high alert. Coupled with what had just happened to the sky, apparently a salvager had found Reno's remains, and the fact that he'd been working at the WRO guarding a high-profile patient wasn't lost on the authorities.

So, the WRO was definitely out. The preferred alternative was Edge Medical Centre, who would have almost certainly drawn blood. Not that they were being much more cooperative.

"I'm sorry," said the receptionist, "but we have a strict policy of not sharing patient records without their permission."

"We're his immediate family," said Cid through gritted teeth. "You ain't got an exception for that?"

"I'd have to check and see if your names are on the list of relatives, and if he's signed paperwork allowing his information to be released to them."

Which, they absolutely wouldn't be, and he almost certainly hadn't, and if she went and told someone else who they were after and found his records in the WRO's database they'd be screwed.

Yuffie elbowed her way to the front and leaned on the counter.

"What if I told you this was a matter of international security?" she said. And before she had time to ask what Yuffie meant, she'd opened her wallet and flashed a card. An official ID for the Golden Kingdom of Wutai, with a few differences -- namely, with a pair of massive sea serpents encircling a carnation, plated in gold leaf: the coat of arms of the Wutaian Imperial Family.

The receptionist looked between Yuffie, and the ID, and then Yuffie again, before the realisation of who she was hit her. She swallowed, glancing between her and the ID again. Yuffie wasn't sure if there was a specific procedure or protocols involved with Lady Kisaragi and some old guy showing up at your workplace demanding sensitive documents, but thankfully it seemed like the receptionist didn't know either.

"...I'll get the head nurse," she said, her voice still uncertain.

"Let's keep this under wraps too, yeah?" she said. The receptionist nodded shakily and bid them to follow her behind the desk and into an office.

Cid scowled at her. "You're welcome," she said, smirking.

"For what, doing shit that's gonna start a fucking war?"

"Whatever, grandpa. What's the point of having political power if you can't abuse it for personal gain every now and then?" And before he could cut her off, "This is the only real lead we have. Unless you want me to go poking through some rubble until something rips me in half, or something invisible tears up Edge too."

"This is gonna be a fuckin' disaster," said Cid matter-of-factly. He began to reach for his cigarettes, and Yuffie quickly shook her head as the head nurse appeared from behind a counter.

"I was told there were some concerns with -- oh." The head nurse looked at Yuffie then, her mouth hanging open.

"...I kinda thought Talia was joking..." she mumbled in a daze.

"We need any information you've got on Cloud Strife," said Cid, not bothering with a greeting. “And then we need you to run whatever tests you people run on this.” He held up a plastic shopping bag with Tifa’s bloodied shirt in it. “Figure out whose blood this is, and if there’s anything funny in it.”

The head nurse frowned. "I -- sorry?" And then swallowed under the icy glare Yuffie was giving her. "I'm sorry, I-I really don't know who that is. There -- there isn't -- there's no file here with that name."

"Would've been a couple months ago," said Yuffie. "Hit by a truck, wound up in a coma."

"I don't know," she replied slowly. She began going through the files, this time intent on finding something specific. "We get a lot of vehicular -- wait... maybe this one?" She pulled open a drawer in the marked date range and began digging through files. "Apparently he didn't have any ID when he was brought in, and he wasn't exactly in any condition to give his name, so..." She sifted through the papers before stopping at a neatly printed label that read JOHN DOE, covering a small stack of papers stapled together, with an addendum someone appeared to have written hastily and stapled on after the fact, complementing the almost entirely empty initial paperwork -- CLOUD STRIFE 24-25 HISTORY OF EPILEPSY UNMEDICATED. "And then afterwards, we didn't have anything official to confirm his identity with, so I guess they just kept it under that name in the system anyway. No birth certificate, no driver's license, not even a library card. It was a pain in the ass filing him, let me tell you. Had to delegate half of it to Records."

Yuffie read over her shoulder as she began to flip through them. "No relatives -- man, a lot of rushed paperwork here... surrogacy ladder mentions a Tifa Lockhart... financial responsibility claimed by Barret Wallace... no next of kin, no real medical history, no citizenship status, no date of birth..." She looked up at Yuffie and Cid again, more spooked than before. "Who is this guy and why do you want to know about him?"

"Keep reading," growled Cid.

"Treated by Dr. Patricia Laughton," she continued quickly. "Here -- transferred immediately to intensive care... reattachment surgery scheduled for the right arm above the elbow." She frowned. "Complications during surgery due to accelerated... oh." A shadow passed over her face, and her mouth thinned in distaste. "Yeah, I remember that guy. The Soldier --"

"Just answer the questions," said Yuffie. "Me and Barret picked him up. Was there anything wrong with him you didn't mention?"

"A lot, actually," said the head nurse, showing them the medical writeup. "Multiple basilar skull fractures and a collapsed orbital cavity, both on the left side, epidural haematoma, open comminuted fracture of the humerus resulted in severe muscle lacerations -- though I'm sure you noticed that one -- and he was missing a few molars that we couldn't find, but they grew back by the next day so..."

"And you didn't mention this, why?"

"We were in a bit of a hurry to get him to leave," the head nurse said icily. "It's a little hard to keep a patient for observation when he keeps punching people and threatening to maim the orderlies. He was very clearly ready to be discharged, anyway."

"Was there anything else?" asked Cid, cutting across her. "Anything unusual?"

She stared at him as though she wasn't sure if Cid was joking or not.

"Is that a yes?" asked Yuffie. "Use your words, lady."

"What do you think? We were trained in human biology, and it's a Soldier," said the head nurse. "I couldn't tell you the first thing about what counts as unusual for them." She held up her hand and began to tick off fingers. "None of his organs should be holding together with the amount of scarring on them, and half his bones aren't even shaped right near the joints. It was almost impossible to put the pieces back together because they kept breaking our drill bits, and the surgeon deserves a gods-damned medal for doing as much as he did. There's something very wrong with his endocrine system. His internal temperature's apparently 39 degrees by default, which made it even harder to tell if he was running a fever from infection or not. He's walking and talking despite the fact that he's medically near brain death. There's some kind of gland behind his optic nerve and we can't even start to guess what it does. We found no less than three half-formed eyes growing along his spinal column." She gestured with the file, as though she half-expected it to start sprouting eyes too. "Soldier medical files weren't exactly public knowledge and now they're all destroyed; for all we know that means he's horribly sick because he's supposed to have three more or something. Maybe he's supposed to have another gland behind the other eye, or maybe it's supposed to be in his mouth. Or maybe he's just riddled with tumours. And the only information his caretaker provided is that apparently he had pedal syndactyly before the Soldier treatments. Your guess is as good as mine. Don't know if any of that counts, hope it helped," she added, like she didn't much care and very much doubted it did. She was right.

"You at least told him this, right?" asked Yuffie.

"No. He made it exceedingly clear he didn't want us in the room."

"You're his doctors!"

"Yes, we are," said the head nurse. "And we spent hours in surgery saving his life and he tries to kill us anyway. And meanwhile, what's he done? Set civilians on fire. Stab protesters, maybe. Make sure all us dirty slum poors don't overstay our welcome on the plate and breathe too much clean air we didn't pay for. You're Wutaian! You're -- you're Lady Kisaragi!" she said suddenly. "You're defending him?"

"He isn’t like that," spat Yuffie. "He's from Nibelheim and he --"

"That's even worse!" she returned. "He's in the same damn boat as we are and he still threw his lot in with the people that spent the last forty years wiping out his --"

"Both of you shut your fuckin' mouths!" shouted Cid over both of them. In the moment when they were both stunned into silence, they could hear footsteps down the halls. One of the guards passed by the counter, eyeing them curiously, but at least didn't stop. For now.

"...You did get clearance to be here, right?" said the head nurse slowly.

"We ain't got time for this soap opera bullshit," said Cid. "Look -- was there or was there not anything unusual -- I mean, not -- fuck --"

"That infection," said Yuffie suddenly. "The one in that cut on his chest, where they put the -- where they operated once," she covered. "You kept asking if he, like... ate sewage or whatever." Among other things -- they'd wanted to know a lot of specifics about what exactly Hojo had been doing to him, and anything Cloud ever shared about that period of his life had been limited to one mumbled, embarrassed, indirect comment about him being afraid of the dark so could she please not shut him in the closet as a joke, thank you.

"...I suppose that would count as unusual," said the head nurse slowly, "even for a Soldier."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Cid. "How d'you make that kind of distinction?"

"Infections usually aren't natural," said the head nurse. "One of the only things that looked the way we expected it to look. Whatever tissue wasn't inflamed, it was already dead. His healing rate probably kept him from noticing it any more than any other wound with shrapnel in it, but it also kinda made the area worse. His body kept trying to heal itself around it and just kinda pushed it around, tearing up the surrounding tissue over the years. But..."

"Shrapnel?" repeated Yuffie. "From the crash, you mean?"

"Not from the crash. It wasn't exactly shrapnel either. I --" she glanced around nervously. "...We probably would've told you about this before he started punching people. During surgery, we removed -- it's easier to show you. Leave the shirt, I’ll… see what we can do about it later, I suppose."

She left the office then and prompted them to follow to what looked like some sort of medical lab. On the far wall there was a row of shelves, and on one of them, with JOHN DOE written above it in dry erase marker, was a sealed box.

"Might as well give it to you," she said. "Not like we can do a whole lot with it, and he was -- discharged -- before we had time to return it."

She handed Cid the box, and he spent a moment fumbling with the seal before popping it open.

"From the looks of it, it was in there for a long time," said the head nurse. "Even for a Soldier -- I mean, unless it's some tradition I wasn't told about --"

Yuffie stood on tiptoe to look over his shoulder, and Cid finally voiced what they were both thinking.

"What the fuck...?"

Chapter 42: Cloud Has A Snack 2: Electric Boogaloo

Summary:

HEY RIGHT OFF THE BAT: This chapter contains depictions of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, military hazing, brief allusions to instances of non-consensual sexual behaviour, and graphic depictions of violence and gore.

Okay? Okay. Cool.

This is another chapter that was split into two chapters for pacing reasons. You'll thank me later.

Thank you to revolutionarygirlkaasy, la-regina-scrive, and deathrebirthsenshi for beta reading this disasterpiece.

Neither of them could see Jenova by the time he woke, but She hadn't left. They could feel Her there, like the air before a storm, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Maybe She'd never "caught up" to them in the first place, either.

Cloud wished She was standing there staring at them. If She was nowhere, She could be anywhere.

It didn't take them long to get packed up, all things considered. Cid's house had running water, and Cloud was forced to go over his allotted five minutes of shower time from having to avoid the mass of half-healed scar tissue that was his torso right now. But then, Zack took fifteen whole minutes, so at least one of them was trying to be responsible about how much time they were wasting.

"...I thought there'd be more glass everywhere," said Zack.

"Is there usually more glass on the floor at your house?" asked Cloud. He was only half-joking -- after learning about the whole soul thing, all bets were off.

The kitchen was a little disheveled from when Cloud had thrown a sword into the wall, but aside from that nothing seemed that out of place.

"Forget it," he mumbled in reply, and went back to digging through the fridge, and reemerged with some cold cuts and condiments. Apparently sandwiches were a thing on Earth, too. The thought was absurd enough in its mundanity that he almost wanted to laugh. "...So now what?"

"Now...?" Cloud looked up at Zack from the gun he'd been cleaning -- really really cleaning, because it had been sitting there for years and there was some sort of sticky grease covering just about every inch of it. The less Cloud thought about what it was, the better.

"I don't know," said Cloud. "There's no one here. I don't... I don't think there's anyone, anywhere."

"How's that even possible?"

Cloud shook his head. "No idea."

"...We're not getting help, then," said Zack.

Cloud shook his head again.

"And we don't know how to get back."

Cloud nodded and began reassembling the gun.

"So we stay in the house for a little while," said Zack, finally assembling his sandwich and pouring himself a drink. "Then... I don't know. Keep looking for people. Have Jenova keep following us until we go nuts."

"Mmhm."

Zack sighed.

Cloud looked down at the gun he was reassembling.

"Three bullets," he said quietly. "Enough for us both."

Zack visibly paled and swallowed. "I --"

"We'll never see them again," said Cloud. "We're never going to see them again. I'm stuck here with --"

"Maybe you shouldn't be putting that thing back together," said Zack quietly.

Cloud paused, adjusting his shirt. The medical scrubs might've fit better, but he'd opted just this once to steal clothes from Cid, and as with anything he borrowed they were just a bit too big on him. Not meant for him to wear.

"We'll need something for you," said Cloud. "If something happens to me, or if we get separated..."

"You can just hand me a sword or something. I don't even know how to use that thing, so --"

"We should keep it just in case," argued Cloud, and Zack made a noise of derision and rolled his eyes. They both knew damn well what the just in case actually was.

"Yeah, always good to leave yourself options," he said flatly.

"Don't tell me you have any better ideas," said Cloud.

"Don't tell me you don't have any better ideas," Zack returned without missing a beat. "We got here somehow, right? Without a gateway or anything. You just started twitching and we were here. So that means we can get out, right?"

"Get out of what? Where even is 'here'? Where... I don't know what's happening anymore, I --"

I just want to go home, he said. He couldn't bring himself to speak the words out loud. I just want to go home.

After a long pause, Zack spoke up again. "Maybe we should."

"Huh?"

"I designed everything that let us make the gateway," said Zack. "And that -- that facility you were stuck in. It's empty now, and they scanned your brain, right?"

"Are you actually -- how many years do you think it'd take you to build whatever it is that let you come here?" said Cloud.

"Look, it's better than shooting yourself," said Zack. "We can't -- we can't get ourselves into a spiral like that. No one else is around to pull us out."

"...Do you think maybe they're here," said Cloud, "but we just can't see them? The way your -- the way the others couldn't see me?"

"Maybe," said Zack. "Maybe last time it was because you weren't -- finished coming through yet, I guess. Maybe we're not finished coming through right now. Like... the gateways aren't -- it's easier to think of them like that, but they're not really 'holes'. I mean they are, but -- look."

He chugged the remains of his orange juice in one go and poured some water into it --along with whatever other condiments they'd dragged out of various cupboards and shelves while raiding Cid's kitchen.

"You did this before at a science fair or something, right?" he asked. "Where they taught you about liquid density?"

"...Not really," said Cloud. He couldn't actually remember, but he had the vague impression that he skipped school a lot anyway even before he dropped out in the spring before his fourteenth birthday to join the Midgar Police and Armed Forces. If it hadn't been done in 7th grade or prior, there was a good chance he'd never gone over it at all.

"I -- I know how density works, though," he added quickly. "Just -- in general."

Zack nodded as Cloud watched the various layers of water, soy sauce, ketchup, cooking oil, honey, and a bit of dish soap he threw in for good measure separate themselves out into neat little bands.

"So -- the regular, not messed up world is down here," said Zack, pointing to the honey. "And nothing -- that's all the way up here." He pointed the air above the cooking oil. "As you go out, the world -- it gets less -- dense. Like, maybe there's less of it, until eventually you get to nothing, right? And... and maybe Jenova, She's from one of these other bits. Maybe the air or the peanut oil, maybe another -- glass entirely, like Tifa thinks. But not this one."

"Guess so," said Cloud. "It'd explain how She shouldn't be able to exist or do any of what She does."

"Right," said Zack. "So... maybe, we're still in the liquid, but -- whatever pulled us here didn't pull us all the way down. Though, it's not really down, I guess, this is just a visual aid -- uh, anyway. We didn't make it all the way to the bottom."

"But when I was in that cell -- I mean, in that room with you, you could see me."

"Maybe I wasn't all the way back either."

"What even got us here anyway?"

Zack shrugged. "Last thing I remember, you were seizing pretty bad. Something to do with that?"

"It was the magic," said Cloud. "It was -- the Lifestream was too far away. I kept having to push through something." He paused frowning. "Or, push through nothing. Guess I snagged."

"What about Tifa, then?"

Cloud just shook his head. "No idea. What matters is how we get to the bottom. Or -- the top, I guess. Which direction actually is it?"

"None of those," said Zack. "I -- ana and kata, technically." He looked away in response to Cloud's blank stare. "Forget it. Though... even if everyone was gone, why are there animals? You and me -- this house. We're all made of the same atoms, right?"

"Not anymore," said Cloud, though he admittedly didn't have a response for the rest. "...So, if we were too far away from everything 'real', and we shouldn't exist... if we didn't have a physical world to move around in, or -- or bodies, even..."

Then it would feel like -- but then, how could someone be somewhere without being anywhere? What were they even interacting with right now?

"Point is, we should keep going," said Zack. "If we got out here without a gateway, maybe we can go back without one, too."

"The nearest civilisation past this point is either Corel or Wutai. One's across a dangerous mountain range, the other's across the ocean."

"So... we're fucked?"

"Never said that. I grew up in the mountains, and I've sailed before. They're both about three weeks out, though." He paused. "I guess if we just kept going in a straight line we'd hit Edge from the back, through the ruins. The WRO might not be expecting it."

"...It's worth a shot," said Zack eventually. "Just... if that gun's for me, you might as well give it here."

"...Wait here," said Cloud suddenly. If the problem was ammunition...

Ignoring Zack's protests, he let himself into Cid's garage and removed one of the hunting rifles from his wall. A bit of rummaging turned up a couple boxes of .30 cartridges. Nibeli wildlife was nothing to be sneezed at, and dragons sponged bullets like nothing else, if you could manage to get through the plated scales at all. And when you ran out of ammo, then what?

Still, better than nothing.

Zack leaned into the door, having apparently finished eating.

"Cloud, what are you WHOA hey thaaaat's -- that's a pretty big gun," he said, and laughed nervously.

"We should get moving," said Cloud, stuffing it into his harness along with his sword, "but later on when we've made camp, you're learning to use this thing."

"...Right."

The air had started to get chilly. Cloud shot a look at the eyes peering at him from every conceivable surface, even though he knew by now that they didn't react. Zack seemed like he was having an easier time ignoring them than Cloud was.

That wasn't fair. He was green, that wasn't fair --

"Let's go," said Cloud, more firmly than he meant to.

Zack dumped out his glass of sludge in the sink, and Cloud could still feel his eyes on the rifle on his back along with everything else staring at him.

You'll come back for them, he told himself firmly. You promised. 

 

---

 

They'd been walking for about three hours before they saw the first one.

Cloud had taken it for his breath steaming up in the brisk autumn air. Then he'd wondered if perhaps it was a floater. A low pitched noise, so deafeningly loud it made the air buzz around them, informed them otherwise.

In the distance, something was moving -- it had at least four legs, though probably not more than eight, and it towered over the skyline, the slight fog settled over the horizon just enough to obscure the details of what it looked like. It moved slowly and deliberately, and Cloud couldn't seem to make out a head.

It was also directly in the path towards the river they wanted to follow, so that was less than ideal too.

"What the hell is that?"

"...Something that's hopefully not hungry," Cloud replied, drawing his sword all the same.

"No, seriously," pressed Zack, "what is that --"

"I don't know."

"It's your world, how do you not know what it is?"

"Whatever that thing is," said Cloud, as the thing let out a low, reverberating howl that made every hair on his neck stand on end, "it's sure as hell not from 'my' world."

"So then where's it from?"

Cloud said nothing, though Zack knew very well that they could both hear Mother's voice, now high and thin but unmistakably echoing through the air itself.

The world had the same unnatural quiet to it that would accompany a thick snow. Things continued to move in the distance, but as long as they stayed put it wasn't an issue. They still hadn't encountered a single person aside from themselves.

The third town they encountered was pretty small, as far as towns went. Just a bunch of little houses lined up along a single road leading to the coast. Further off in the distance they could make out a few islands, chained together by ill-maintained bridges.

More importantly, this one was populated. By fairly normal-looking people, no less. He couldn't really place where they were from, but if he had to guess he'd say they looked a little like him -- northern, with maybe a Wutaian or two somewhere along the family tree that no one wanted to ask about.

"Keep your eyes down," hissed Cloud. Neither one of them had glasses anymore. He hoped the sword itself wouldn't be that big of a giveaway.

Surprisingly, no one paid them any mind. They received what were certainly glances in their direction from time to time, but no more than usual. Maybe they were used to Shinra presence -- they were fairly close to Wutai, it seemed. Perhaps there was a port nearby that they could use.

Avalanche (and by extension, Cloud) was pretty well travelled. He didn't recognise any of these people, though.

He turned around to ask Zack to keep an eye out for anything that looked like an inn and found him staring directly ahead, his face pale.

How the fuck are you so calm about this?!

About what? This is the first normal thing that's happened to us in weeks.

Normal.

Yeah?

This is normal for you.

...What --

Give me the gun.

What? No.

Cloud, look at them.

Cloud took a look around. Just a bunch of people. Nothing to see.

I don't really --

Look at them!

He paused and followed Zack's eyes towards one in particular. Now that he thought about it, his eyes seemed to naturally slide from one of them to another, as though they didn't quite want to focus on --

Not a one of them had a face.

None of them even had features -- just a bunch of flesh-coloured silhouettes, like mannequins or wooden figures -- the rough idea of people, a suggestion of what should be there but wasn't.

As soon as he registered that, he realised every last one of them were staring at Zack and himself.

How long --

The entire fucking time, how did you not --

Cloud removed the gun from his back and flipped it around to Zack without looking as they all stood there, gibbering and choking and gagging in a rough approximation of speech.

"So, shooting practice," said Cloud in a voice a lot calmer than they both knew he felt, drawing his sword. "Normally I'd have you lie down, but we don't have room for that here. Just make sure you don't shoot yourself in the head with the recoil, and you'll be fine. Finger off the trigger unless you're ready to take a shot, don't point it at anything you aren't prepared to completely destroy, remember that they're loud as hell, treat it like it's loaded even if you know it's not, and remember that bullets can and will shatter and don't care how close you're standing. Got all that?"

"No!"

"Great. Have at it," said Cloud, and tensed up for the first hit.

It never came. They continued to “stare”. Beneath him something shifted, and he looked down to see an ocean of hands supporting each footstep he took, each one made of the same ink-in-water as everything else.

"Hello?” offered Zack.

Don’t talk to them!

Why not? I talked to you.

Yeah, remember how that worked out?

Their heads suddenly stilled, and tipped in one direction, as though listening, and then they all began to walk away from Zack in the same direction.

Cloud could hear it too. He began to follow.

He lost track of how long they walked. It felt like a while. The sky faded to orange, and then deep purple, and then orange again. The sea roared around them, ahead of them, above their heads, deep and old and no longer empty, now that they were here.

He blinked again. Found Zack shaking him and saying something. He tried to listen over the millions of voices around him.

"...where we're going?" asked Zack. He seemed a little dazed, too. Around them, the water continued to rush about lazily, the sky somewhere off to their left. The figures continued to pour into a hole in the ocean, which already seemed to be underwater.

Cloud realised he had no idea where they were anymore.

He shook his head. "Just felt like I should."

He watched as a tree began to grow and spread through the air around like a slime mould, as though it were sped up footage. Far, far above them they could see Wutai. The hole was now behind them.

The things around them continued marching into it, and this time one or two even looked familiar, but...

They kept moving. There were bodies pressed in around him, jostling him further and further away from Zack, and for an instant he'd just wanted them away, that's all he'd wanted, but the guards kept getting closer and louder and he'd wanted touch, prayed for it, and now he just wanted them away --

He shoved back against the tide, but a thousand hands dragged at him and Zack, fingers tugging at his arms, brushing against his face, snatching at his clothing --

"Zack!" he shouted. Zack had gone very still, face drawn, eyes darting rapidly around at the sea of motion around him. He'd frozen up again.

"God dammit -- Zack!"

It was no use. The current pulled harder than ever, and he kicked against it, the water -- hadn't it always been water? It must have been -- far above his head, pitch black and smokey white, the world losing colour.

He began to feel strange as he was carried further and further away. His head spun, his body shook as though he'd run a thousand miles, and now he could feel something dragging its way through him. He looked down and found himself transparent, a mere suggestion of where he was, ink in water gradually washing away.

And then he landed on his hands and knees in the sand.

The world had darkened around him, and the water didn't rush in and out so much as it did lazily push itself around as though it had a will of its own. Zack was nowhere to be found.

There was no one around for miles. No scents but his own. Something was moving, but it certainly wasn't anything human.

"...Zack?" he asked, knowing he'd be met with silence.

He didn't know where he was. And he didn't know how to get back. He still felt dizzy and weak.

Cloud could still sense Zack, though, which meant Zack could still sense him. It'd be easier if he just stayed put, and let Reunion do what it did.

He sat down in the sand to collect his thoughts, and something shoved into his leg as he did so. The little red radio he'd clipped onto his belt loop was slightly warm to the touch as he unclipped it, a splash of colour in the otherwise dead landscape.

Out of curiosity, he switched it on, and was met with the same staticky mess as before. Mother whispered faintly beneath all of it.

If Zack hadn't frozen up -- Cloud hated him, hated the look on his face as soon as he was confronted with danger, eyes wide, chest still as he barely dared to breathe, huddled against a tree root praying no one heard him, pleading for it to stop as Hojo set his very first monster on him --

He shook his head. He hated Zack.

The radio continued playing a mix of static and jazz and Mother, but the sound no longer came from its speaker. The numbers indicating what frequency it was tuned to peeled themselves off bit by bit and drifted lazily in the air like motes of dust, along with splotches of light and shadow.

He was alone.

He longed for the hands back, needed it, alone and forgotten in the cell --

No. He wasn't -- someone would come back for him one day. They would.

Curled up in the corner, screaming through his tears for help, minute after minute, knowing no one could hear him, hoping maybe someone would anyway, even if Ma was gone maybe someone -- someone in the infantry that had liked him and he just hadn't noticed, maybe a different guard would take pity on him, maybe Director Crescent would feel bad and make Hojo stop, anyone --

He sat there for a long time. Long enough to fall asleep, anyway. He dreamt about a dark place where he couldn't move, something immense peering in around him, that wouldn't let him go no matter how hard he begged. He could see Tifa in the distance, or maybe she was right in front of him, and he called out to her.

She merely smiled. "I don't know you," she said. "You're not my Cloud."

He awoke then. Closed his eyes and allowed himself to cry, because no one was around to watch. Waited some more. Zack didn't feel any closer.

He got up, then, and began to walk, trying not to think about going to die here -- one of the guards had seemed nice, he was so sure -- of course he wasn't nice, none of them were, not unless Cloud had something to offer, and Cloud had never had anything worthwhile to offer anyone. He wandered, first in one direction, then the other, trying to see if he felt compelled towards a particular location, but nothing came. For all he knew, he was imagining Zack's presence. At the very least if it was growing further away he'd know something was there to be moving away in the first place.

He kept walking. At one point the tide rushed in over his head, but he didn't seem to need to breathe anymore. That was good -- made it easier to fight down the scream building up in his throat.

The scratching around him was audible again. He turned the radio up a bit louder.

Mother was closer now.

The red of the radio seemed to curl around him the way the music would, and suddenly the numbers were red, one and the same. No matter how hard he blinked, he couldn't seem to separate the two ideas in his head or in front of him. Red was numbers was music. Numbers was music was nothing was everything was Mother.

The air howled around him. He stared down at his tattoo, which was music -- part of the same music that was Mother. It, too, peeled itself off his skin, and he was his number was the music, and then he was part of the music again --

It was all Mother, he realised. Every number was.

He began to cry again, and this time he couldn't stop. She was right there, and he was alone. No one was coming for him. He fumbled for his belt, where the revolver was, knowing what he'd do if he didn't take care of things here and now --

A hand burst through the water that was already somehow underwater (though they couldn't be, because he wasn't damp, and he was breathing again), and pulled Cloud through, and suddenly he was lying on the side of an old burnt-out convenience store, the sky yawning beneath them. Zack shook him gently, and then stopped as Cloud's eyes fluttered open and stayed that way. Everything felt distant again.

"I don't think we're going the right way," said Zack. Cloud couldn't help but nod. The trees kept spreading themselves out, and little wisps of ink-in-water wove themselves through the air around them. The gentle rushing sound may or may not have been the ocean.

“...None of this seems real,” he said.

“Probably isn’t, then,” said Zack. “Reminds me a little of that -- that dream. Back at the facility.”

“It does?” Cloud blinked. He could remember the whole thing vividly -- torture resistance training, only it never ever stopped, and it went on for days and days, only this time someone had come for him, and carried him to a sun-filled park full of ostriches.

“Yeah, a little. Colours weren’t as weird, though,” added Zack, gesturing around them. He watched as Zack kicked a pebble off the side of the building experimentally and watched as it skittered across what Cloud had assumed was an endless void. He hopped off onto the foggy white ground and began to walk, the ocean gently rushing as the ink-in-water in water twisted and untwisted itself in the far distance.

“...We've gotta teach you magic or something," said Cloud. "Soon."

Zack couldn't hide the thrill of excitement that went through him, and Cloud resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Yeah. Sounds good," he said.

"You really don't have it at all on Earth?"

"No." A shrug as he followed him over to -- some sort of structure. Something that might've been a large bush once, but the leaves were as hard as wood, and the whole thing smelled like the fruit it was no longer bearing. "There are people that claim there is, but that's more of a spiritual belief than a quantifiable fact."

"Mm. Well... we're not going anywhere else until you know at least one way to defend yourself that isn't relying on brute strength." Cloud dropped his bag on the ground, head still foggy. "Let's stop for the day."

"Here?"

"You see anywhere better?"

"...I mean, no, but --"

"Then yeah, here. You'll wanna get some rest, if it's your first time it'll tire you out."

"First time for -- for magic?"

Cloud nodded. "It'll be faster than actually teaching you to use a sword. All the memories are right there in the materia. Though..." he frowned, "I guess you wouldn't really know how to use one. So most of it'll just be that."

"...Thanks."

Cloud turned and stared at Zack, who seemed to realise he was being gawked at and looked up from the sheet he'd been unpacking.

"For the whole magic thing," he explained. "Just -- y'know. Thanks."

"...Don't mention it," said Cloud, shaking his head. He still couldn't quite wrap his head around the idea of being completely unfamiliar with it.

No rabbits out... wherever they were. Cloud caught a glimpse of some long, sliding, chittering fur-covered thing winding its way through the trees like a vine snake and made a judgement call on whether or not it was venomous to boot. They wound up working their way through what they'd taken from Cid's kitchen.

"This isn't so bad," said Zack. "Been years since I did anything like this."

"...Get stranded?"

"What? No, like... camping. Hiking. Spelunking. That kinda thing. Not since Aaron --" he stopped himself, then shrugged. "Anyway. It's a little exciting. I don't even have to worry about getting tired, y'know?" He frowned. "Can we get tired?"

"Yes," said Cloud with a grimace. "We can go about a week without sleep before we start hallucinating. And anyone gets exhausted after a while, no matter how in shape they are. Ever since what?"

"Nothing."

"I answered your questions."

"Not since Aaron stopped talking to me."

Cloud glanced up at Zack from his sandwich. "Aaron's... your brother, right?"

"Yeah, something like that." Zack shrugged. "We don't have a whole lot in common. I got all the brains and the brawn and the looks to boot, and everyone got tired of pretending I didn't." The words were as smug as ever, but the tone was undeniably bitter. "Mom and Dad kept thinking any second now he'd bust out some hidden talent too, but after I showed him up on his tenth birthday we all realised it wasn't happening."

"What did you do?"

"Same shit I do with you and Aeris. Shot off my mouth at the worst possible time. Asked him why he hadn't been jumped a grade yet, and told him it was probably never going to happen at all." He sighed. "Do we have to talk about this?"

"...What are birthdays like on Earth?"

"I dunno," said Zack, visibly relaxing. "What are birthdays like on the Planet?"

"Depends," said Cloud. "I don't really remember -- I mean, there were a couple I remember. Fourteen and fifteen, I think, in the Midgar Police and Armed Forces."

"Yeah? What was that like?"

"Broke three fingers the first time, lost a couple teeth the second time."

"What the hell?"

"Birthday beatings," said Cloud, remembering too late that civilians didn't exactly have an encyclopaedic knowledge of unofficial military customs. "If it's your birthday, they find you and they kick the shit out of you. It's just what you do."

"...What the hell?"

"You don't do birthday beatings?"

"No! What?"

"It was nice of them, though..." he mused, mostly to himself.

"Are you -- are you feeling okay?"

"Yeah," said Cloud. Everything did feel a little odd, now that he mentioned it. Like he was still half-asleep and hadn't realised he was still in bed. "It was, though. Think about it -- they still took the time to find me and do that."

"Is that what you do with Tifa and everyone?" asked Zack faintly.

"No," said Cloud quickly. "No. They bought me presents." He paused to consider it. "...I think I like presents better. It's... I mean, I knew it was something people did on birthdays. But I'd never... I'd always heard about -- about getting birthday presents..."

He realised Zack was staring, and shrugged. "Like I said, they were a present. The earrings, I mean. Definitely beats broken fingers."

“Is that how you got that scar?" said Zack, tapping his own chin in reference. "Or did you just cut yourself shaving or something?”

“...No,” said Cloud shortly, not bothering to elaborate. “Good night.” 

 

---

 

He didn't sleep that night.

There was a good chance, Cloud knew, that he would never see Tifa again. Or Barret. Or Yuffie, or Cid, or Nanaki, or Reeve, or Jessie, or anyone. All he'd have was Jenova.

...And Zack. He had Zack now. Obnoxious, condescending Zack, who was taller than him, and stronger, and better-looking, and had more friends, and hadn't been turned into a gibbering wreck by Mother, and -- and had come back for Cloud, hadn't he?

Because he didn't have a choice. Mutual need, and all.

Would Zack want to --

He pushed the thought from his mind immediately. Of course Zack wouldn't want to. He didn't even want Zack to want to. Just looking at the guy made his blood boil.

But he was alone. He was almost alone for good, and he didn't know what else to do. He thought about the gun burning a hole in his bag next to the radio.

Cloud moved closer to Zack as noiselessly as he possibly could, and pressed himself up against his chest. He closed his eyes and pretended he was with Nanaki, and that they were on the road again. And it had been the week after he'd... died? And Nanaki had had a bad dream about losing him, which meant that he wanted Cloud around in the first place.

Zack didn't want Cloud around, but he could pretend.

He didn't even want to imagine how badly it would go if Zack were to wake up. This was just for a few minutes, he told himself. Just to feel better. And he'd move away in a little bit and learn to deal with the fact that no one would ever -- would ever --

He would learn to deal with things. But in a little bit. Not now.

 

---

 

Zack dreamt.

They found him kneeling in his cell in the morning, hunched over and shivering under a coating of long-since-dried viscera. The shattered remains of the ceiling lights littered the floor around him and the crushed, mangled bodies of the four guards he had killed. His eyes were fixed firmly on the floor, and though the door was open -- had been blasted off its hinges, warped beyond repair -- he didn't dare step through it.

He hadn't meant to do it. They were there -- taller than him, and louder, and his body ached, from the surgeries, from the burn of mako through his veins, from the cold of his cell after they had taken his clothes. The Professor wouldn't be back for another two days. They could have done anything they wanted, and no one would mourn him, not even the Professor. He couldn't touch them -- he'd learned by now, to never, ever lay a finger on the guards outside combat exercises, had that lesson carved into his back -- they just kept getting closer, and louder -- he wanted them away, he couldn't bring himself to raise a hand against them it wasn't allowed but he just wanted them away --

Where would he have even gone? He had to show them he could be good. He knew they'd punish him for the guards -- he had to stay here, so they knew he wanted to be good. That he hadn't tried to escape. And now, now that he had killed guards, broken his cell, after he'd tried so hard for so long to be good -- he couldn't escape. That was bad. He didn't dare move, didn't dare stand from where he'd been huddled in a vain attempt to escape them, didn't dare reach up to wipe the blood from his face as part of one of the guards that he wasn't supposed to touch inevitably trickled into his mouth. It wasn't allowed. It wasn't allowed and he'd done it, it wasn't allowed, he couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't....

If the Professor found out -- if the Director found out -- she would make him go away, and Cloud had nothing and no one anymore. Tears leaked from his eyes, clearing trails through the red on his face. The air still hummed faintly, as though stirred by an unseen wind, the same one that had howled in his ears as he'd screamed, lights shattering, bodies pressed against the walls harder and harder until things started to break, and then crunch, and then smear. Blood continued to drip into his mouth. Mother sang along with whatever was stirring around him.

Mother would never, never, never leave him. But -- but he didn't want to go. He didn't... he had to hide it. He had to make sure the Professor never saw, had to show how strong and good he was. The metallic heat trickling onto his tongue, full of things that were -- things that could be used. Things that could be more of Mother. And no one would have to see if there wasn't anything left to see. He hadn't even realised what he was doing until he'd already sunk his teeth into the warm handful of entrails he'd scooped off the floor, tearing off a chunk, hungrily chewing the first meal he'd had in a year -- in two thousand --

He was too hungry to stop. His mouth was already filling with salt and copper, his jaw aching as he bit through gristle, grunting from the effort of tearing off chunks that he barely bothered to chew. The tissue was rich on his tongue, the initial bitterness giving way to a savoury warmth he’d only barely been able to remember until now. This -- this was what eating was like, the way the taste remained in his mouth even after he’d swallowed and before he’d torn off another chunk. And parts of it were soft -- almost buttery with fat surrounded by iron-rich protein -- and full of living cells for Mother. And She was far too hungry to stop, too, even as he began to choke and gag with the exertion of forcing down all the evidence.

So, that was how they found him. Huddled on the floor, painted rusty brown along with the rest of the room, shaking hands clutching cold rotting flesh he'd failed to hide, his stomach in agony, unable to digest the raw meat he'd wolfed down after so long on being fed intravenously or via a tube down his throat filled with some chalky liquid. He wanted to vomit, but Mother wanted it inside. There was too much. There was too much of it. It was too much.

He did not fight when they sprayed him with ice water and took him back to the Box. The song from earlier was leaking out of his eyes, dripping from his jaws, the pattern beating itself into the back of his skull, and it was all he could do to curl up inside the tiny metal crate to keep it from bursting out of him altogether.

Perhaps he should have fought. It would have been simpler if they'd just decided to punish him.

Torture resistance had been middling-priority as far as the Professor was concerned. From what he'd been able to learn from reading between the lines, it was something he and the Director were more or less under orders to do, since there wasn't much point in having a sentient bioweapon that could also leak information under stress. He was somewhat familiar with the methods they'd covered by now, and the patterns associated with it. He'd be given a list of words to memorise, with a third party called in -- anyone from another lab assistant to a guard or two, depending on the method -- that didn't know the contents, but was tasked to finding out. Successfully holding out for however long they wanted meant they'd stop, and the Professor would tell him he was managing to meet expectations. Failure meant -- meant other things. Followed by them starting again until he didn't fail.

This time was -- was different, though.

The Professor came by to visit him every day, at least. They'd been keeping him awake for days (sleep was a privilege and not a right) before then, and the guards certainly seemed plenty hostile, a thought that had him dreading being led back to his cell again even after this was over. The lab assistants, however, didn't have the same rough contempt in their actions that they normally did during any given punishment. They seemed curious -- expectant, their actions calm and methodical, waiting for something specific. He thought so at first, anyway. It was harder and harder to maintain any train of thought for longer than seconds at a time, the bright lights and cold water assaulting him from outside the Box growing more and more unbearable with each burst. Even after he'd cracked and given the keywords, they hadn't stopped. He didn't know how long he had been awake, and he didn't know how to make it end.

The Professor seemed curious, too.

"Can you tell me why you felt the need to kill those men?" he asked from the bottom of a well a thousand miles away.

Cloud curled in on himself further in shame. He hadn't meant to. He just wanted them away. No one believed him, though. No one ever believed him here when he said he was trying his best, or hadn't meant to do something, or that he really did want to be good.

But he didn't know what answers they did want. That's why he was still awake.

He was being good now though, wasn't he? They didn't want him to fall asleep, so he wasn't asleep yet. So... but things were bad... why were things bad if he was following orders?

"Did I do good?" asked Cloud, before he realised he'd been asked a question, didn't remember the question he'd been asked, and shouldn't be asking questions himself. Before he had a chance to apologise and do better, something slammed into the Box, knocking his head against its side. He tried to curl up even more, making himself a smaller target, trying to hide in the three inches of space he had to move. It was just a metal pole -- no one was in the room with him, save for a couple rats they'd let loose inside the chambre. Everyone else was watching from behind a sheet of protective glass.

"Tell us why you killed those men," came the question again.

Every word seemed like it went on for minutes at a time, making it harder for him to string them together in any kind of sentence.

"It was an accident," he said. "I didn't mean to. I can be good."

More mistakes. "I". It wasn't his place to have opinions about himself. The Box was bashed to the side again, and this time the door came off. He tumbled out onto the floor and lay there. He could already feel himself falling asleep until a pressurised jet of icy water pounded into his back, raising another welt.

"Please stop," he begged, ears ringing too loud to hear his own voice. "I can be good -- I can be good like you wanted -- "

Someone said something else to him, and he was sprayed with water again. He began to cry.

"...found another one," said someone else. "He's better than you, so we're going to use him instead. We'll just dump you out back."

"No --"

"You made everything difficult. Does it feel good, knowing the only person you have to blame for this is yourself?"

"No -- I can be good -- please --"

"Maybe we'll give you to the guards again, so we can find out what they wanted to do. Maybe you did something to catch their attention in the first place."

"No, no, no, no --"

He couldn't really understand what anyone was saying anymore, but they were all angry at him, and the yelling was only made worse by the speaker it was blasting out of, and the way it echoed off the walls of the room like a thousand people berating him at once. He flinched as another jet of water struck him, and he tried to crawl back into the Box to escape the worst of it. Tried to rest against the walls. Was sprayed with more water almost immediately. His own sobs were joining the echoes from the loudspeaker, and he clawed at his ears, even as he coughed and choked under the stream. Mother hissed in his head just as loudly as the water.

Without thinking, he pushed it away again.

At first he was only aware of the fact that the water had stopped, was collecting in a shimmering sheet in front of him. The jet turned up even higher, and he could feel it pressing against -- something, and another panicked scream caught in his throat as he shoved harder this time, as hard as he could.

The metal walls of the Box creaked, and groaned, and exploded. The rats were smeared into the floor in an instant. Shrapnel flew off in all directions, embedding themselves in the walls, and glass rained from the ceiling as the lights shattered, the pipes cracked, and speakers along the ceiling buzzed loudly before going dead.The walls cracked, and crumbled, and the observation window disintegrated into silvery shards that dusted the inch of water along the floor.

Mother was louder, though. So loud that, at long last, She finally burst through for everyone else to hear.

His limbs twisted and bent, carrying him up the wall on all fours to perch there, locking eyes with the Director, listening to the way Mother sang to her, too.

"One, " he said, his head twisting and cocking at an unnatural angle, his jaw parting and moving of its own volition, "two three five seven one one one three one seven one nine two three two nine three one three seven four one four three four seven five three five nine six one six seven seven one --"

He couldn't stop. He couldn't even hear himself think. He wasn't tired anymore, and the jets of water did not come back on.

"-- six two six three six two six nine six two seven one six two seven seven six two eight seven six two nine nine six three zero one six three one one six three one seven --"

Mother continued to speak, and they seemed content to let Her. His throat was ragged and sore from speaking for so long, but he couldn't seem to move, and... and it was nice. Why would he want to move, when he could finally allow everyone else to hear Her music, if only a bit of it?

"-- two one nine six one three two one nine six one nine two one nine six two nine two one nine six four seven two one nine six four nine two one nine six seven seven two one nine six seven nine --"

His throat burned. He had gone from feeling much too cold to much too warm, his skin finally drying, his muscles aching from remaining still for so long. Mother continued watching the Director, singing all the while. The hours ticked by one after another. None of the staff left the observation room.

"-- four three six six nine three four three six seven one seven four three six seven two seven four three six seven two nine four three six se-- se... s-seven -- three nine four three six seven four one four three six seven five seven four three six eight zero one four three six eight one one four three six e-eight one nine four three... six eight.. three one four th-three -- th... hh..."

His voice came out in a weak rasp. He wasn't sure how long it had been. There was colour swimming all around him, patterns moving on the walls. Faces in the corners. Mother relinquished Her grip on him, and he fell from the wall now that he no longer knew how to be there, collapsing in a shivering heap in a puddle of ice water and torn metal and broken glass.

The Professor's voice echoed around the empty room, punctuating the sudden silence that had washed over them:

"Well, that changes things, doesn't it?"

He didn't understand anymore. A small sob of relief escaped him; it was blessedly dark and quiet. That was all he needed to carry him off to sleep, and when he woke up, he realised he'd been clothed.

Zack jolted awake to find something warm pressed against his chest, and shoved a still-sleeping Cloud away from him with a thrill of disgust.

Chapter 43: Boys, Please, You're Both Pretty

Notes:

I guess I should actually publish chapters if I have them done, huh?

First things first, I want to thank WaifuJuju for drawing this incredible fanart of that one scene in chapter 8 as an early birthday gift! Thank you so much!

Next, thank you to la-regina-scrive, belderiver, revolutionarygirlkaasy, and deathrebirthsenshi for helping me make some absolutely vital last minute tweaks to the outline that the story 10000% needed.

Lastly, I wrote this a while ago (as in, the majority of this was penned almost a year ago) but I don't think anyone gets eviscerated in this chapter? What a concept.

Aeris didn't sneak out of the hotel until later that evening, when she was reasonably certain the police would be a bit too preoccupied with the way the light from the street lamps was weaving itself into a glowing web throughout the streets, like moving afterimages, to chase after them. They wound up going out the window with Tifa's help, since they could still hear something shuffling about outside their door. Maybe it was just room service, but Aeris wasn't willing to take chances anymore.

"It's like the hallucinations I have during bridging," she said softly, voice tinged with awe, as she watched another string of lights skip their way through the air. Most of the other pedestrians were giving them a wide berth, causing traffic to be backed up . "They were real?"

"Maybe they weren't. Maybe they still aren't." Tifa shrugged. "If Jenova -- if she's showing up like this, like she did in Southampton, maybe..."

Still, the lights weren't bothering them, and the way their shadows kept pace with them just slightly out of step didn't stop them from getting to a library.

The place was packed, buzzing with activity. People were crammed into every conceivable inch of space, on computers to share pictures, speaking to one another in a mixture of panic and excitement, taking up tables with their own laptops to watch the news. Somewhere in the back, a baby wailed in protest.

Aeris froze as the screen briefly flashed Zack's picture again, but no one seemed to have recognised her. Yet.

Tifa kept trying to crane her neck over the crowd to take a look at the machines lined up across a long bar countertop. "Those are computers?" she asked in Standard, sounding mildly impressed. "What... kind of program are they running?"

"Well -- Windows," said Aeris. "But they're on the internet. Computers aren't really -- quick, go sit by that one and I'll show you."

Tifa nodded and wove her way through the crowd to sit down in front of an unattended laptop that had fallen asleep.

Aeris pulled up a chair behind her and wiggled the mouse, waking the computer. She didn't bother having to search for news -- the previous user had left several tabs open.

The first wasn't anything new, just a message board full of speculation over what the dragon that had appeared in Reading was. Theories ranged from it being a UFO to it being an elaborate publicity stunt. A baby yowled in the background, cutting above the already overwhelming din of the crowd, and she put on the headphones just to be able to focus for five seconds.

look at how low res the textures on it are, read one comment. youre all so fucking stupid lmao

It's just the video quality, read another, the textures look fine to me

are yall still on that hologram shit, jfc, read a third.

Nothing useful here. Next.

The next tab was a news story about said dragon, but the next three after that were about the explosion in Soho. Aeris pulled her chair in closer to get a better look.

Officials say that more than one hundred have been declared dead, with 58 hospitalised and another 300 missing, an article read. Despite public demand, there has yet to be any statement released on what caused the incident, and there has been no official confirmation of any link between what happened in Southampton, and the collapse of the Gainsborough Extraplanar Research Facility the day prior.

Still not really useful -- she could have told them that herself.

Aeris opened the sixth tab, and the article title made the bottom drop out of her stomach.

GERT member Angeal Hewley apprehended in Southampton

He was alive. He was still alive.

The article didn't mention much of use -- just that he was "in custody". But his haggard mugshot was the best thing she'd seen all week.

The last tab was some... interesting artwork someone had drawn of the summon. Because of course they had.

Tifa stared at it, frowning slightly, trying to parse everything she was looking at.

"Let's -- let's just --" Aeris gently reached for the laptop and closed the lid.

Angeal was alive. And people were dead now, and even more were missing, and Angeal was alive, and maybe Cloud and Zack were alive somewhere too, and her hallucinations had somehow leaked out into the real world, or maybe they were always real to begin with, or maybe all of this was fake --

Her vision began to blur with tears as everything began to hit her at once.

"I did this, didn't I?"said Aeris.

Tifa said nothing, which was almost worse.

"I wanted this so badly," she continued. "And now whatever it was I -- I let out somehow, it's wrecked everything. Cloud is gone, Zack is gone, the world is falling apart, I got everyone killed --"

"What else were you supposed to do?" she objected. "Jenova was already -- it all already happened, in my world. Jenova already arrived, and Shinra already found it, and Cloud already barely functions, and I'm already on my way to joining him."

"My mum -- my parents --"

"Whatever you did because of her, it doesn't change what she did in the first place," said Tifa. "Maybe all of this would have happened anyway."

"Do you honestly believe that?" shot Aeris.

"...No," admitted Tifa. "But... can you think of any other circumstance where things could've gone differently? Where you never got involved with the project. Where they just died, and that was the end of it?"

Aeris said nothing.

"We're all trapped before we even know it," said Tifa bitterly. "I could've let Cloud drown in the rain, and maybe I wouldn't have wound up killing thousands with that stupid materia. But either way it doesn't matter."

"...That can't be it," said Aeris. "That can't just be how things are."

"I wish you were right," said Tifa. "Who knows. I'm infected now, right? If Cloud can blow up Meteor maybe I can just believe myself into a world where I'm a better person, but..."

She trailed off, and Aeris waited for her to finish her train of thought. Kept waiting, even as it became clearer and clearer that Tifa seemed to have frozen up and was now staring off into space.

"Tifa?"

"...smells funny..." she mumbled. She slouched in the computer chair -- which never seemed to have the same number of legs every time she looked at it, but she could have sworn it was more than four -- and rubbed her temples with one hand.

"What smells funny?" asked Aeris. "You mean you smell Jenova?"

"...No -- yes?" She shook her head. "It's --"

She winced, and then sat up again, looking around wildly.

"...Cloud?"

"You saw him?" said Aeris, barely managing to keep her voice low. "Was Zack with him?"

"No, he -- wait -- yes, they're -- they're both there," said Tifa. "I don't know where they are, though. They're just -- they exist, and they're alive --"

And then something dragged itself through the air, deep and slow and greasy, and it silenced everyone in the library as books were jostled off the shelves, hanging there in midair as they drifted towards the ceiling in slow motion. A cup of pens tipped over, infinitely spilling out the same number two pencil that continued to vanish as soon as it hit the floor.

"...She's getting closer," muttered Aeris. "Or maybe we're getting closer to Her."

"It can't be just us," said Tifa. "They all saw that. Everyone's seen all of this."

Aeris watched as the books continued to float through the air like misshapen goshawks. Something whispered behind the shelves.

...I don't know it's there, Aeris told herself. There isn't even anything there to see. I won't look at it.

She stared determinedly at the bookshelf, which was completely undisturbed. The world seemed to zoom back into focus.

Aeris sighed in relief, even as the world seemed to refract itself again, and the books scattered themselves into individual sheets of paper and the laptop screens flickered and went dark. Whatever was there seemed to have gone.

The baby wailed again. Louder this time, and much closer, nearby her ankles.

Aeris blinked. That wasn't a baby.

Aeris turned around to see a rather crabby tortoiseshell cat rubbing itself against her legs, demanding attention.

"...Shithead?"

"Well, hello to you too," said another voice behind it, raspy but unmistakable, before kneeling to pick up the cat. "Don't thank me or anything."

Then she straightened up, and Aeris found herself looking into the weary, smiling, self-satisfied face of Cissnei Sauvage.

She gaped. Cissnei smiled wider.

"You -- you're --" Aeris swallowed. Opened her mouth. Had nothing to say after all this time. "You --"

"Don't I know you?" asked Tifa. "Didn't you die?"

"Shot," said Cissnei. "And... it's entirely possible I died as well. Things have been very strange as of late. You might have noticed."

"Yeah," said Aeris faintly, wiping the tears out of her eyes as fresh ones oozed forth to take their place. "Yeah, a -- a bit. How...?"

"You're a hard woman to find," said Cissnei. "I wasn't sure where you lived, but then I remembered you had a cat. So I found her, and they had you on file, and then I found you. At your house, I mean. But --"

"They just let you take my cat?" asked Aeris incredulously, as though this was the most objectionable thing about this situation. She stared at Cissnei's chest, shirt still soaked with dried blood.

Cissnei's smile faded a bit. "They likely wouldn't have, if they knew I was there at all." She handed Shithead over for Aeris to pet. "She's been about the only company I've had over the last few days."

"Knew you were...?"

"Watch," said Cissnei. And then she walked up to a nearby man and waved her hand in his face. He didn't appear to notice.

Aeris only stared harder.

"After I was shot, I was -- I think I was dead. I cannot be certain. The facility was still there, but it was very dark, and there were -- it was like dreaming, almost. And -- I had always heard you were supposed to move towards the light, and there was one, but... it just led back here.

"But -- you're here," said Aeris. "I can see you. And Tifa."

"Sometimes they can," said Cissnei. "Sometimes they can't. I thought I was a ghost, but then -- if I'm here, why isn't Tseng? Or Lazard?"

"...He went back for you," said Tifa. "That man did. He was shot in the head."

Cissnei nodded. "And there were other people that didn't get shot, that -- are other people, I mean," she said.

"Other...?"

Cissnei gestured, and Aeris jumped slightly as she realised the library was even more full than she'd previously thought.

"...How...?"

"From Soho," she said shortly. "They say they felt like they were being dragged somewhere, but whatever it wasn't didn't -- perhaps they escaped, perhaps it just let go. But we've -- well, they're trying to get home." She shrugged. "I followed the troops."

"Which troops?" asked Aeris.

"The ones that had set up outside the compound," said Cissnei. "They didn't notice I was there. They took a lot of samples, obviously. And I know where they shipped them."

She squeezed in next to Tifa and began to pull up an address on the computer. Aeris's head was reeling.

"What -- why are the samples important?"

"They're not," said Cissnei. "This is."

She leaned away to allow them to see a blurry aerial shot of some grey, imposing-looking building. Obviously government-affiliated, given the distance the photo was taken from, and the parts that were censored. But...

"It's where they took Angeal," said Cissnei. "If we can go back for him, we should."

Aeris was barely listening, because she'd just caught sight of the address. She looked up at Tifa, glancing twice, a third time, a fourth at the numbers, thinking she had to have been mistaken.

"...That's where Mum's lab was," she said.

 

---

 

Again.

We've been at this for three fucking hours, man. It's not happening --

Again.

Zack groaned loudly and closed his eyes again. "Don't think about it," Cloud had said. "Remember it. The knowledge is already yours." It was a lot easier said than done, because Zack couldn't stop thinking about how his leg was falling asleep, and remembered how it felt to slam Cloud's head into reinforced ceramic tile hard enough to shatter it like porcelain. He pushed the image from his mind and sighed.

Zack steadied himself, imagining that he already knew how to call up fire, and tried to just... start. Without thinking.

It was like trying to remember a dream. For a split second it was there -- memories that weren't his, that he hadn't even realised he'd had. And then before he could act on them, or even understand what was in them, it had slipped away once more, and Zack had no idea how to find it again on purpose. How would one even go about remembering something they didn't know they remembered?

He didn't inherently disagree with learning to carry his weight in dangerous situations beyond just "being strong", but Zack seriously doubted he was capable of magic in the first place.

Perhaps it wasn't working because he didn't "have" a soul, at least as this world understood them, and was just... borrowing Cloud's, as creepy as it sounded. Zack remembered reading about, and had then been briefed again by Cloud on, the Lifestream. Apparently everything here had a natural symbiosis with the Planet. Far from "part of each other" being a metaphor, there was a real, quantifiable connection between the two of them, with the organisms on its surface merely being extensions -- free-roaming pieces -- of the consciousness of the world they lived on, all interconnected by the same presence that could be tapped into at will. The Lifestream was the soul of their world, literally, and while the Planet wasn't directly worshipped as a deity by most people, it was certainly given the same amount of deference, veneration, and uneasy reverence as one.

It was like that one movie he'd seen, with the blue cat people. Only instead of living together in sorta racist, half-naked harmony, they'd pumped it out of the ground, processed it, and used it to power lingerie billboards. Which ultimately said a lot about human nature that he didn't exactly want to think too hard about.

What must it feel like, to be tangibly a part of someone else? In a non-awful space virus related context, anyway. Did they get along better? Apparently Cloud was on pretty good terms with his ex, which was a little weird. But then they didn't seem to have a concept of what "war crimes" were, and it wasn't because there was a corresponding lack of war. They definitely didn't have a greater love of nature, if the wasteland (one of apparently many) that they were currently practising in was any indication.

Or -- perhaps the awful clawing feeling in the back of his head was actually the Lifestream, and Cloud was bothered by something completely different and found the feeling that his thoughts were somehow "itching" comfortable. He wondered what made one billion year-old mass consciousness different from another. Maybe there wasn't that big of a difference at all -- in the end, they'd both been exploited to make supersoldiers.

Thus, the Planet wasn't overly fond of humans, and especially not fond of Cloud, in particular. Long ago, apparently there had been a more active form of the symbiosis going on, with people communicating with the Planet directly on a regular basis. But their descendants-- the humans of today -- had long since forgotten how to listen, and anyone that still remembered had died at least two hundred years ago. Now, the only way to commune with the Planet was either flinging yourself directly into the Lifestream (lethal if you were lucky, according to Cloud), or through materia.

If Zack's results (or the lack thereof) from the last two hours were anything to go by, the Planet didn't exactly care for him either.

Not to mention, it was fucking infuriating, because this was the easy version.

Cloud had tried to start him out on an actual sword drill right off the bat, complete with integrated magic -- whether it was to be petty, or because he had just given Zack way too much credit, he wasn't sure. All at once, he'd been told to keep track of the positioning of his feet, the basic forms Cloud had taught him that he'd immediately forgotten, the disorienting toggling between using his brain in a way his entire universe probably never intended for him to with no results to show for it, left foot, block, block, parry, turn, remember, right foot, parry, left foot, remember, turn, block, parry, thrust, block, left foot right foot left foot turn pivot left foot parry block remember block left right parry remember block thrust turn --

Zack had lasted all of three minutes before tripping over his own feet and throwing up into the grass.

"...Alright, take five," came Cloud's exasperated voice from somewhere to his left.

Cloud had glowered at his back the whole time, and Zack tried to focus more on the fact that they were mutually dependent on one another at the moment, and less on the fact this man had tried to hide four deaths by eating the fucking bodies; had a completely alien mindset that felt unlike anything Zack had ever experienced; wasn't human.

Was clearly setting him up to fail. Repeatedly. Zack sighed and glowered at their grey, colourless surroundings, wishing there was something more interesting to look at to take his mind off it all.

So. Baby steps. Sitting down and just trying to get a single fire going successfully. The keyword being "trying", something Zack hadn't needed to do in years.

In a lot of areas.

Zack opened his eyes with a grunt and threw a nearby rock out of frustration, where it lazily drifted ahead before floating towards the sky like a submerged tennis ball.

Cloud stared at Zack's empty hands thoughtfully. Do you mind if I try something? came his voice suddenly, causing Zack to jump.

Knock yourself out, he replied dully, waiting for Cloud to adjust his posture and tell him to stop breathing with his shoulders for the millionth time.

Instead he felt Cloud's presence needle its way more and more to the forefront of his mind as Cloud sat down in front of him, calling forth a flame into existence as casually as anything.

Feel that? he asked.

Zack frowned, trying to figure out what, exactly, he was supposed to be feeling. Cloud seemed to be weirdly faint in general, at least compared to the million other voices he was hearing. Maybe this was just another soul thing, or --

He drew a breath in sharply as something seemed to prickle its way into him as he pressed up against it, like touching a live wire. Suddenly the sensation he'd experienced for a split second was steady and constant, and the flame flickered for an instant as Cloud shuddered at the contact.

So that -- that's me, casting magic, said Cloud. Just -- just use those parts of me, only it's you controlling it.

How do you know that'll even work?

It's what I did with Aeris. If it worked for her, it should work with you, right? We're both tied to Jenova. And I know you know how to take advantage of that, he added bitterly.

Look, I thought you were a hallucination --

I know. Just -- just take the damn flame.

And before he had time to react, Cloud dumped the fire in his lap as Zack fumbled through Cloud's mind for knowledge he'd never used before but somehow would know anyway.

To Zack's relief, the flame went out as he flinched at the heat, pushing the connection away, and suddenly Cloud went very still.

He sat there for several long moments, eyes blank and glassy. Zack nervously snapped his fingers in front of his face a couple times, and he seemed to come to slowly.

"You okay?" he asked. Cloud stared at him uncomprehendingly, before curling in on himself and gritting his teeth, head in his hands.

"C-ca... y..." he blinked hard a couple times, taking slow, deep breaths. "D -- zyouuuu get -- fhh..."

He shook his head to clear it, squeezing his eyes shut tightly.

"Cloud?"

Another string of slurred gibberish issued from his mouth, and he began to rock himself back and forth, eyes still closed.

"...Are you okay?"

Cloud simply held up a finger, taking deep, slow breaths. A muscle in his face twitched.

Zack waited. The presence in the back of his head that he'd come to associate with Cloud seemed to pulse, growing louder and quieter.

At long last, he sat up, still blinking hard. Zack took his hand off the bag, having wanted to reach for the first aid kit but not knowing even remotely where to begin.

"What was that?" he asked, as Cloud shakily got to his feet.

"No idea," Cloud said. "I think... I think that's enough magic for one day. We'll figure something else out. Think you can handle a gun?"

"...Maybe," Zack said, shifting nervously. "Do we have enough bullets to waste until I figure it out? We still don't really know where we are." Whatever "level" of reality they'd wound up on, it had what at least was recognisable as a forest, even though both he and Cloud had walked behind trees and not reappeared out the other side from each other's perspectives on multiple occasions, and the trunks didn't always seem to be growing in the correct direction. It was as though someone had made a brush tool out of one of them and just lazily smeared the landscape with the same plant a thousand times, with no regard for what they were next to or if they were even touching the ground.

"Mm. Hand to hand, then," said Cloud. "Angeal's not here to drag you off again if you freeze up."

"I -- I guess," said Zack, not particularly relishing the thought. "What kind of...?"

"Depends," said Cloud. "What kind of experience do you have?"

"Uh... not much. Was in a fight once, but I wouldn't really call it a fight. We just punched each other a bunch."

"Any other background?" probed Cloud. "Fencing? Firearms? Did you take any magic as an elective?" He frowned. "Wait --"

"Did a lot of sports," said Zack. "Basketball, mostly. Some football." Then he paused, too. Did they make the American-European distinction here? There wasn't an America, so maybe not. "Um... I'm a pretty good swimmer. Did track for a little, too, but that was just for me." He vaguely recalled a few buddies in university going out for a hunting trip, and now regretted immensely that he hadn't taken the opportunity to learn how to use a gun.

"Figured as much," said Cloud. "It's a start. Means you're used to being active. Pacing yourself. That's good."

Zack brightened a bit. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. You'll still have a lot of adjustment to do, though," said Cloud. "Your limits are different than what they used to be. So's the way you have to handle yourself. You said you were in a fight once?"

Zack nodded, shrugging. "It was stupid. Some fuckin' gringo called me -- some stuff. Wanted to get a rise out of me, I guess."

Cloud was frowning now, clearly disapproving.

"He had it coming," defended Zack. "Yeah, yeah, I know, careful in fights --”

“You need to be taking this seriously. Remember what you did to the floor in that cell? And the drawer on that desk." said Cloud. "I told you earlier -- imagine if that was someone's face."

Zack imagined. In his head, it looked an awful lot like someone dropping a cherry pie crust-down on the pavement.

"We should lay down some ground rules, I think," said Cloud, "before we really get started. And afterwards, I want you to try and hit me, see what we're working with." He began clearing away rocks and sticks from the area they were in.

"You're a weapon now, by design," said Cloud. "So, rule one -- like any weapon, you should never point it at anything that you aren't prepared to kill if necessary. Like with the gun."

He gave Zack time to consider the statement as he continued clearing space. "...When we fought earlier," said Zack, "with the floor. Were you ready to kill me?"

"If necessary," Cloud repeated. "That's a distinction you'll --"

"What if I don't wanna kill anyone? How many people -- human beings -- how many do you even think we'll be fighting?" said Zack, the edge in his voice returning.

"...There's nonlethal takedowns, but we're past that," said Cloud. "It's what you are. You don't have a choice anymore."

"Fuck that."

"You don't have a say in --"

"No, fuck that," repeated Zack again, more firmly this time. "I read the transcripts. You put on the act for everyone else, but you're a goddamn sociopath with a hair trigger, and I'm not playing into that."

"Well, if you wanna stand in the middle of more gunfire and panic, be my guest," snapped Cloud. "At the end of the day, either you're dead or they are, and I've got enough sense to pick me to be the one that lives. Aren't you supposed to be smart or something?"

"Doesn't mean I have to wind up like you," growled Zack. "You broke a lady's arm for trying to give you a flu shot."

"She shouldn't have touched me after I told her not to," said Cloud. "She would've done something. I do what I need to."

"What the fuck does that mean?!" yelled Zack, staring at him, fully aware of the fact that he'd mowed down at least a hundred people a few days ago without so much as blinking. "If anyone has the fucking problem with knowing who and who not to pick fights with, it's you," he spat. "But fine. You want a fucking fight? I really don't think you were sorry for killing my rat. I told Aeris before, that's a good indicator you're just a sick fuck." He began to tick off fingers. "Killing small animals, antisocial behaviour, hearing voices, high aggression, being a fuckin' creep, setting fires, fucking -- eating people -- yeah, that's right, I saw," he said, in response to the stricken look on Cloud's face. "I saw what you did. Shit keeps leaking through and it's always like that. Does Aeris know you killed a bunch of people and then tried to eat the bodies to cover it up? Does Tifa? Any of those people you call your family, do they know what you are?"

"You -- ?!"

"Oh, like you care?" continued Zack. "Like you weren't just telling me I was the same fucking thing as you are, and that that was a part of it. Not to mention you don't give a single shit about anyone but yourself."

"...Excuse me?"

If Zack had been less worked up he would have noticed how still Cloud had gone, or how cold his tone was. He didn't, though.

"That shit you tried to pull earlier. You don't even like me! And you know damn well that I don't like you. You tell people whatever they want to hear so they'll give you the time of day long enough to pat you on the head and say you were a good boy. You just whore yourself out to whoever's nearby as long as it gets you what you want -- hell, I don't know, maybe even literally --"

Cloud lunged, closing the gap much faster than any human ever could have. He felt the fist connect with his gut and fell to his knees, and something in the back of his head told him that he shouldn't have survived that.

"You have no idea," hissed Cloud, voice shaking with contempt, rage, grief, as Zack wheezed, trying to fill his lungs with air again, "you have no idea what the fuck I've had to do to get here. What I had to give up. Don't you dare act like you could've done better, like -- like you would've known how to fix any of it, or could've held out longer, like you're -- you're better than me. You're not. You have no right."

But Zack was fast now, too. He wondered if Cloud was expecting it.

He grabbed Cloud's leg and wrenched him to the ground. Cloud was almost a head shorter than he was, he realised, as he immediately drove his weight into Cloud's chest as hard as he could. And since they had a level playing field, Zack was probably stronger, too.

Indeed, he managed to force his face sideways into a rock until Cloud kicked out beneath him. He lunged again, screaming, and there was no technique in it anymore. Cloud was angry. This was nothing but rage. He threw a wild punch, causing Zack to stumble away in a daze, tasting blood, and he didn't even get a chance to register what happened before Cloud delivered another one to his jaw, ripping open the skin and forcing him to bite his own tongue as his teeth were smashed together by the impact. The third first he caught, and squeezed painfully, his blood rushing in his ears drowning out all other sound, wanting nothing more than to --

The next thing he knew, Cloud was wrenched into the air and then flung into a tree.

A stunned silence fell over both of them. Cloud got to his feet, his face absolutely blank. He looked at the ground, then back at Zack, then back at the ground again. Zack looked down at himself, not quite sure what he'd just done, let alone how he'd done it.

He looked up to find Cloud staring at him, still completely expressionless.

"That's not fair," he said faintly.

Zack had barely opened his mouth to ask what the hell that meant before he was flung into the air by some unseen force, then hurtled to the ground again.

"That's not fair!" shouted Cloud, not even looking at Zack. "That isn't fair!"

Zack felt himself being dragged into the air again, before being flung into another tree, much harder than his own throw, eliciting another cry of pain from him.

"What right do you have?!" yelled Cloud, forcing him against the wood harder and harder, eyes wild. "I spent years -- I was supposed to be the best! I was Sephiroth's replacement! They gave me a number! I earned it!"

Zack gritted his teeth and reached for what he'd felt earlier, when the world had felt flimsy beneath his fingers, and shoved himself away from the tree, tackling Cloud into the grass.

"That's bullshit and you know it. You gave up!" Zack shouted, as he forced Cloud to the ground, pinning his arms with one hand and using his other to drive a fist right into his smug, effeminate face again and again, relishing the sound his nose made as it crunched. "You're just a shitty masochist and you went and gave up because it was easier than deciding what was right for yourself --"

"I did what I had to!" he fired back, and suddenly Zack remembered that Cloud actually had combat training as he found himself flipped over onto his stomach with his face pressed into the ground and his arm twisted painfully behind his back, Cloud straddling his hips. Another cry of pain was torn from him as he yanked sharply, stressing the joint further, and his fingers began to feel like heated metal around the same time Zack started smelling his own flesh burning. "I did what I fucking had to, and so fucking what if I'm good at it, and it makes me happy to be good at something for fucking once --!"

"You don't get to choose what I get to do!" he screamed, not caring if it gave away their location, not caring if Cloud was listening, not caring about the pain in his arm, not wanting to do anything but pull his arms free and continue to bloody every single patch of skin on Cloud's face he could get to. "I didn't even get to choose! I didn't fucking get to choose to be this!"

"Well, neither did I, so I guess we're both stuck with it no matter what!" Cloud screamed back.

Silence fell over the both of them. Cloud was breathing thickly through his mouth, and Zack's stomach still ached every time he moved.

"Aeris was right," Zack muttered, mostly to himself. He felt Cloud's weight disappear from his back as his arm was released, and he reluctantly sat up, though he would have liked to do nothing more than lie facedown in the dirt for a little while longer.

"Probably," said Cloud. Then he paused. "...About what?"

"Forget it." He stood slowly, wincing, as Cloud clutched his nose as though about to tear it off. When his hand came away, it looked significantly less swollen, though just as crooked as before. "Think I probably gave up, too."

Cloud stared at him, uncomprehending, turning away uncomfortably. "...You'll have to learn to fight," he said. “I’m just trying to keep you alive.”

"I know."

"And you are what you are. If you needed to kill someone, you'd have the tools to do that. The only thing stopping you would be you."

"Yeah," said Zack. "I know."

There was a pause as Cloud wiped his nose off on his shirt before gesturing to Zack's arm and stomach. "Want me to take care of that?"

"Huh?" He looked up at Cloud -- more specifically, his nose. "You did the... the healing thing. That's what that was."

Cloud nodded. "I'm -- I mean, you know I'm not that good at it, but fixing a bruise is easy." He scratched his neck. "Burns are a little harder, but..."

Zack hesitated, then reluctantly nodded and allowed Cloud to place a hand on his sternum, still half expecting him to stick a blade in it. His palm was unnaturally warm.

A strange cooling sensation spread through his torso and with a steady pressure, as though he were being doused with water on the inside somehow. It disappeared just as quickly, taking most of the pain with it.

Zack let out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding and looked up at Cloud. "You could've helped a lot of people with this, you know," he said.

Cloud said nothing.

"Now what?" Zack asked.

"I think..." Cloud paused, wiping some more blood off his face, "I think we need a few more rules. Just to be safe."

Zack rolled his eyes, but Cloud seemed uneasy again as he continued.

"Know who your allies are," he said. "That's the second rule."

Zack waited for him to elaborate. After a moment of staring expectantly at Zack in return, Cloud continued.

"...If you're in a fight, you don't have time to worry about whether or not the people you're working with are going to stab you in the back. It distracts you, and you make stupid mistakes, sometimes for no reason. You have to trust that they're there to help you. Either they are, or they aren't."

"And what about you?" asked Zack. "Do you trust me?"

Cloud seemed to actually be considering it. "...You're an asshole," he said finally. "But... you gave me clothes."

"No I didn't," said Zack. "Tifa bought those, remember?"

"No -- in the cell. You don't remember?"

"...Yeah, I guess. You were naked, though."

Cloud went quiet again for another moment. Zack stared at him.

"...Guess you don't really need magic," said Cloud. "You just figured out in ten minutes what took me five years."

"Huh?"

"You threw me," said Cloud.

"...I didn't even really realise I was doing it at first," admitted Zack. "It just... felt like I could. Everything's been feeling more like that the more and more screwed up everything gets."

Cloud nodded. "...I'd have killed to get results like that in the lab."

Zack didn't have a response for that one either.

"So, our fight," he said suddenly. "How did it feel to you?"

"...Like I don't really know what I'm doing," he admitted.

"That's about right," said Cloud, and Zack had to work to keep himself from rolling his eyes again. "No training. I don’t…

“You’re not a fighter,” he said. “And I guess… I dunno if I’m one either, but -- it’s wrong that you have to be now. And I’m sorry. You had a right to not.”

Zack grimaced and said nothing.

“I’m trying to make sure you don’t die. That’s all.” Something seemed to occur to him. “You asked about the scar. The little one.” He tapped the remains of the gouge on his cheek. With how small it was, it seemed strange it hadn’t healed away almost completely like the gunshot wound had.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Cloud. “I got it from my -- from the very first time I ever killed someone.”

Zack stilled. Cloud seemed to be addressing Zack’s shoulder, but his voice was steady as he spoke.

“Food riot in the slums. Sector… Two, I think. I can’t remember. We got deployed after they didn’t clear out the next day and got orders to just fire into the crowd. I -- panicked. Froze up. Everyone else shot, though, and the whole thing turned into one big firefight and I just ran and hid in some empty shack while a bunch of people died around me.

“I spent -- I guess it must’ve been almost a full day hiding in that building. It’s a little hard to tell under the plate, but -- someone else found me, then. This lady. She was -- she looked like she was Ma’s age, and I tripped on a board going for my gun. Dropped it, cut my chin open. She could've wasted me right then and there, but she didn't. I guess… I mean, she probably didn’t want to shoot a little kid. Or maybe she had kids of her own or something. But whatever the reason, she hesitated."

Cloud shrugged, his face carefully blank. “I didn’t.”

The sound of the ocean was more akin to crackling static than waves, but it was the only thing filling the silence between them until Cloud spoke again.

"The... the way I see it," Cloud began, "every time you kill someone, you -- you've already decided you being alive is more important than them being alive; that whatever you wanted to do was more important than everything they were, and all the people they knew." He shook his head. "Even if you know the world would probably be a better place without you."

He took a deep breath. Went back to staring at Zack's shoulder. "And... you're right. About me, I mean. I'm a mess. But... you're wrong about -- about --"

"Look, I shouldn't have said that," cut in Zack. "I don't know if whatever -- if anything happened in that lab or anything, but even if it didn't --"

"You don't understand," said Cloud. "They're all I have. They're the part of my life that isn't that." He gestured vaguely, still not meeting Zack's eyes.

"Look..." began Zack. "Maybe this isn't... maybe it'd be better if we travelled separately."

The effect was immediate. Cloud froze, whatever words he was reaching for dying on his lips.

"We're gonna kill each other if this keeps up," he continued, reaching for their bag, wondering how they were going to divvy everything up. "I'll just -- I'll follow you, with the Reunion thing, and we'll keep out of each others' hair and --"

"Don't."

Zack looked up to find Cloud staring at him, visibly pale.

"Please don't. I know I fucked up. I'll do better. You can -- you should set some ground rules too." Cloud swallowed. "That way, we'll both -- I can help keep you from dying, and you'll --"

"You don't even like me," said Zack, rolling his eyes. "We both know we'll wind up in another fight sooner or later."

"We won't," said Cloud quickly. "I've been unfair. I'll keep quiet from now on, just -- please don't go. I'll be quiet."

To say the look Cloud was giving him was making him uncomfortable was a vast understatement. He looked away.

"I'm -- I'm gonna hold you to that, then," said Zack slowly. "That's all I want, is for you to lay off. Alright?"

Cloud nodded.

"And... and about..." Zack sighed. "Forget it. Just -- let's try not to piss each other off too much from here on out. Alright?"

Cloud nodded again.

"Are you just nodding to shut me up?"

"No," said Cloud. "No. I mean it. I'll -- I'm sorry."

"...Let's get going, then," said Zack. "We've wasted enough time here as it is."

They travelled in absolute silence for the next two hours, and true to his word, Cloud didn't open his mouth once. Zack found himself asking for the radio soon enough, and tried not to think too hard about the fact that it seemed to be playing the same song on loop, each time just slightly more out of key than the last.

Cloud stopped dead after a while, frowning. "That's..."

"What, what is it?"

He gestured to a boulder off in the distance -- or, what Zack thought was a boulder. Upon closer inspection, he realised it was actually a massive tortoise shell, made of what looked like tarnished bronze. Whatever had been in it had long since rotted away, leaving behind a pair of vicious-looking tusks attached to a skull as tall as Zack was, one of them sliced clean in half.

"The fuck is that?"

"An adamantoise shell," said Cloud. "I downed that thing myself four years ago, in Wutai. We... that shouldn't be here. This is on the northern half of the island, and we haven't even found the coastline yet."

"Maybe we got turned around."

"It's pretty hard to lose track of an entire ocean," said Cloud. He turned around and stared at the burnt remains of the forest around Rocket Town, still faintly visible in the distance. Then he turned back to Zack. "We're... we can't be in Wutai already, right?"

"You're the one navigating," siad Zack, shrugging, trying his best not to sound as irritated with Cloud as he felt. Cloud didn't seem to notice, being too busy looking between the shell and the coastline, now off somewhere south of them.

Guess so, he said at last. Come on. He jerked his head as a gesture to get Zack to follow him, backpedaling a few steps to make sure he was keeping up. Then he paused.

The air felt... the best way to describe it would be "greasy", but that didn't really do justice the way it dragged itself over Zack's skin. He could practically feel the fingers raking themselves over his face, that awful noise burning itself into his head more and more with each second.

The grey, diffuse light from the sky seemed glaringly bright, and he looked away only to find the earth crumbling around them, revealing the same vast, churning ocean underneath that he'd seen at the facility, unable to shake the feeling that something deep below the surface was gazing back at him.

A cry from Cloud forced his gaze upward to see the man crumpled to the ground in agony -- at least, from what he could make out. There was a mere suggestion of Cloud standing there instead, as though he were constructed from ink suspended in water, drifting and churning in and out of focus, stirred by some unseen current.

Standing in front of him, completely indifferent to Cloud's presence, was the woman from before. Jenova. She smiled at him, placidly, calmly, and took a step towards him. On the ground behind her, Cloud convulsed. The world around them splintered, as though viewed through stained glass. The most beautiful, terrible sound he'd ever heard rang in his ears as Jenova took a step towards him. 

"HEY!" barked Zack, and before he had a chance to stop and consider what he was doing and why it was a terrible idea he'd already lunged for her throat just as the world gave out beneath them.

The low howl growing louder and louder with every second joined the sound of the wind rushing past them as they fell towards the endless sea.

Chapter 44: I Take It Back, NOW We've Gone Full Eva

Notes:

I said I'd have this thing updated by Monday and god dammit I made it happen.

IMPORTANT NOTICE!: The last couple paragraphs or so of the previous chapter had to be edited because I'm a dumdum and created a giant fucking plot hole on accident (you'll probably understand why later). So if you haven't already, go ahead and check that out.

This chapter contains brief depictions of body horror and gore, as well as references to suicidal ideation.

Thank you so much to la-regina-scrive and deathrebirthsenshi for betaing this thing, as well as Denebola Leo for acting as an extremely obliging sounding board while I panicked and shouted half-baked ideas at everyone until one of them stuck.

This is likely the closest I'll get to actually writing romance and let that be a warning to all of you.

Cloud was falling. Hands snatched at his skin as the wind rushed past him (him -- Cloud -- he was here, he was himself, I am), even as he could feel something crawling through his veins with too many legs, and then he wasn't sure where -- who -- what he was, and then -- music -- too loud --

He was burning up. The pain ate in through his skin into his chest, until even drawing breath was an uphill struggle. The world around him was far too bright, and he forced his eyes shut to avoid going blind, leaving him at the mercy of the sensations around him once more. Above him he could hear Zack shouting, so quietly it might very well have been entirely in his head. The place it was coming from seemed cool and dark, the storage room calling him, an escape from week after week of hurt and fear, and he wouldn't even be alone this time, because Mother...

Pain lanced through him again, and it was all he could do to force himself to focus on it this time, the sharp bite of it dragging him back to the present, even as his head swam and the world around him seemed to fade in and out of focus from one second to the next.

Behind him was a massive waterfall, bigger than any Cloud had ever seen, and below him stretched a vast ocean. He looked up and saw no sign of the forest he'd been walking through not a minute ago. Above him was Zack -- or at least, it seemed like Zack. Everything was a blur, the wall of water beneath them the only other constant he had to cling to at the moment.

This was... decidedly a problem. To put it mildly.

Cloud was no stranger to surviving absurdly high falls, even before the enhancements. This, though -- this was a hundred times higher than his dive off the Sector 5 plate, at least. And no amount of enhancements or proper landing positions or sheer dumb luck would keep him from breaking every synthetically-reinforced bone in his body once he hit the water.

He swallowed and closed his eyes once more. He could fly, right? He'd managed it a couple times. Granted, he'd been in a different mindset then: pleading to anyone who'd listen, whether it was for a number, or touch, or the end, in the northern crater, and embracing his role as little more than Sephiroth's pawn, something that had never had any free will in the first place, much less something as indulgent as something to be proud of; and the second instance two years later, one foot in the grave already from various stab wounds and the stigma, his family counting on him, forcing him to keep standing for just one more minute, and then another, and then another, refusing to fail as every kind word they'd ever said to him coursed through him, stronger than any magic.

Doing his best to ignore the roar of the water around him, he clenched his jaw and tried to reach for that feel again -- to know, with conviction, that he wasn't falling to his death at all. That his family -- his family was --

They weren't really counting on him, were they? If anything, he was counting on them. That had certainly been made clear enough. Ever since he'd learned how fragile it could all be --

Shut up, he told himself. Shut up right now or you're going to die.

His -- his family, he needed to see them again, he needed --

You're going to fall to your death. What have you put into the world that anyone would know you're here? Jenova's not the parasite, you are.

No one else was falling. It was just him. The loudest silence was deafening, the way it always was.

"Those aren't your eyes."

"Why can't we just pretend? Why do you care so much if I just pretend?"

That's what he was doing now, right? Pretending. And right now he needed to pretend he wasn't falling anymore. This had been so easy lately, the less and less real everything had felt, why was it so difficult now?

Wanting something doesn't make it true.

It had to. That was how this worked, didn't it? And he wanted -- he wanted --

Who's Cloud?

Tifa smiling at him in the afternoon sun, fingers laced through his -- Cid's offhanded comment, as though it wasn't even that big of a deal to say it -- "You're a good kid, Cloud" -- the melody of a song he couldn't quite remember --

Mother?

He was nothing without them. Truly. They'd poured themselves into him and all he'd been able to give back was...

You're still falling.

He was, wasn't he? Though, it was strange -- the wind still howled as loud and deep as ever, but the world had gone black around him. Things watched from the dark.

The air was still. Nothing here to overwhelm him. No pain. No noise, either, the loudest silence rushing up to meet him as Mother embraced him. A warm hand closed about his arm.

"Cloud!"

His body didn't seem to want to listen to him anymore. He could hear the sound of radio static, mingling with Mother. Deeper this time, layered on top of itself, loud as it ever was.

"Shit -- shit, shit, shit, shit, shit --"

Zack was shaking him. His eyes opened, though his limbs still didn't want to obey him. The static -- the ocean, rushing in and out -- whatever the noise was, seemed to lessen.

Zack was kneeling above him, wet hair in his face, eyes wide with panic. One of them, anyway. The other one seemed to have bifurcated down the middle into two orbs awkwardly wedged into the same socket. One of them was chestnut, the other the same dark blue he'd grown used to catching wary glances from every few minutes. Both looked heavily irritated, and it was nothing compared to the raw flesh on his face that was already healing itself back together, feathers shrinking and vanishing, brown weaving itself over ugly, wet red.

Cloud managed a rasp instead of the "what's wrong with your face" he'd been aiming for, and Zack breathed a sigh of relief and leaned away as Cloud pushed himself upright on trembling arms.

His face was fine. Cloud wasn't sure why he'd thought it wasn't.

"You've gotta stop doing that," said Zack, sounding shaken.

"Doing...?"

"Almost dying," said Zack. "Or -- freaking out whenever space bitch gets too close. Or -- or whatever it was you did, after."

"...After?"

Everything felt slow and muddy. Then again, he was pretty cold from the water he couldn't remember hitting. He looked out across the ocean, and saw a plume of water, still caught halfway between splashing back into the waves in slow motion and floating off into the sky.

"You just -- I dunno, she -- she did something to me," said Zack. "Or, tried to. Same thing you did to me, or I did to you, or whatever, back when we first met. Just didn't get very far."

"...Weren't we falling?" asked Cloud. "Did I dream that? How... we went to Wutai, right?"

"You stopped it," said Zack. "I dunno how, but it sure as hell wasn't me. Twenty feet from the water, maybe. If it is water. And, er..."

Zack glanced away nervously, and Cloud felt a spasm of guilt flit across the back of his mind.

"And what?"

"You passed out again, I guess. And -- I mean, I can swim, but -- I -- look, I didn't even know if you were gonna wake up or anything, or if you were even still there since you went all blurry, and -- buoyancy, you know? It -- you're kinda small, no offense..."

Cloud narrowed his eyes. Zack took a deep breath, clearly bracing himself for something.

"I kinda had to ditch your sword in the ocean.”

The moisture instantly vanished from Cloud’s mouth. “You…”

“Thing was too heavy, kept weighing us down,” continued Zack. “I guess super strength doesn't count for a whole lot in the water."

"...You 'ditched' my sword."

There was a ringing in Cloud's ears, and he didn't think it was from Mother this time.

"Look, I'm sorry, alright? It was either that or let you drown."

"You ditched my sword?" repeated Cloud, his voice rising in pitch.

"I --"

"You ditched my sword?" shouted Cloud.

"Yes, alright?! Jeez, you're welcome for saving your life!" snapped Zack. "You -- what the hell are you doing?"

Cloud wasn't listening anymore, having already jumped to his feet to kick off his boots. He sprinted into the waves, ignoring whatever inconsequential bullshit Zack was on about this time, and began to swim out to the impact site he could see in the distance, the waves carrying him further and further out to sea.

You're being an idiot, a very tiny oft-ignored voice in the back of his head told him. You're gonna get yourself killed.

It'll be worth it, he told himself. It's your sword. He ditched your sword.

And it was his sword, too. Finally. It was his.

If his chest had ached when he'd first woken up, it burned now. Cloud kept swimming anyway.

Worth it, he reminded himself again, and dove beneath the waves.

He could see it, he realised with a thrill of relief -- it was a couple hundred feet down, it seemed. The enhanced eyesight helped, but even then all he could make out was a faint metallic sliver. Still, it was in the right area, and it was better than nothing.

It was also way too deep. He knew before he started diving he couldn't hold his breath for that long. He knew even as he made it to what must have been ten metres, then fifteen. His ears popped under the pressure, and his vision began to swim again.

But it was his sword. It was his he made it it was his sword it was his it belonged to him it --

He kept swimming. He could really see it this time, even through the murky water. The salt stung his eyes. He was very deep now -- his ears hurt worse than his chest did. He kept swimming.

It was his he put it into the world all himself --

...When was the last time he'd taken a breath?

He stopped swimming, floating there as the ocean pressure drilled itself into his ears. He hadn't breathed in a while, he realised. Nor was his chest burning anymore. But he was clearly underwater...

I'm still passed out on the beach, he realised, with an internal groan. He pinched himself, waited to wake up.

Kept waiting. Pinched harder. Repeated the process.

It certainly felt like he was dreaming. He knew he'd had dreams like this before -- reliving some test or another from Nibelheim, his brain too caught up on the fact that he was being cut open to remember that he was also suffocating -- or too busy drowning in mako to remember that swimming was not the same thing as flying.

Below him, his sword glimmered faintly.

He willed himself towards it and picked it up off the ocean floor... which didn't even seem to be a proper ocean floor, the water instead resting on heavier, more silvery water. He'd spent a while not breathing there, too, hadn't he? What did it matter if he retrieved his sword here, if none of this was real?

Still, it didn't feel right not to. He looked towards the surface of the water and willed himself up.

He rose much more quickly than he had sunk, the sword as weightless to him as it ever was. He flew himself over the waves and lighted on the beach in front of Zack, and sheathed his sword, waiting to wake up.

He did not wake up. Zack stared at him, jaw slack.

Cloud swallowed. Came up with a theory. Tested it.

...I don't think we need to breathe here, he said to Zack.

"Bullshit," said Zack. "Bull fucking shit. You weren't -- I choked on so much water -- you -- how -- ?"

I haven't been breathing this entire time, said Cloud. Try it.

Zack paused, holding his breath, then a moment later was forced to draw one in sharply. “Nope. You -- how are you doing that?”

Cloud shrugged. Just didn’t need to.

“What do you mean, you just didn’t need to?” asked Zack. “You -- you’re not breathing? Right now. You’re not breathing right now?”

Without waiting for an answer, Zack strode towards him and held his finger under Cloud’s nose. Cloud flinched back, glowering at him.

“Did you -- did you grow gills or something?” asked Zack. “You can’t just not need to breathe. There’s not a spell for that, right? Did you use magic?”

Cloud shook his head. I dunno. I just don’t need to. It felt sort of nice, too -- the stillness. He hesitated before putting his fingers to his own neck feeling for a pulse.

“It’s there,” said Zack. “I can hear it.” Sure enough, there it was, hammering away as usual. “But -- that means you’re still getting oxygen, right?”

Maybe. It felt a bit like flying -- in that he knew he wasn’t going to suffocate.

A thought came into his head, then -- one that had his pulse quickening even further, but then -- if he wasn’t breathing, but didn’t need air… and if Aeris had said his brain wasn’t working, but he could still think…

Cloud closed his eyes and forced himself to know, to be certain of himself, remembering how it had felt in that strange, silvery void.

His heart beat once, twice more, and then he felt it stop with an alien lurch.

The seconds continued to crawl by one after another. Zack was staring at him even more intensely, his chest completely silent to the both of them.

Cloud had started breathing again, but it was in the form of several jagged, panicked gasps choked down in between heavy swallows. His head spun, and he sat down roughly in the sand as Zack loomed over him.

“...What did you do?” he asked hoarsely.

Dunno.

“Cloud, what did you do?!”

Cloud shook his head. Stopped it. Didn’t need it.

“What do you mean, you didn’t need it?!” he shouted.

Just -- made it stop. Didn’t need it.

“What -- how did you even do that? Are you dead right now?”

Cloud curled in on himself, and didn’t reply. He didn’t know.

“Look, this is not the time for your evasive holier-than-thou bullshit! What did you do?!”

He didn’t know. He didn’t know. He knew that was the wrong answer, that questions like this had answers, but he didn’t know. He couldn’t breathe now, didn’t dare move, even as his hands began to shake. He had his head tucked in front of his knees, arms cradling it to avoid the worst of the -- of something. Something bad. Because he didn’t know the right answer.

“...Cloud?”

Didn’t know the right answer. They’d be angry about that. He was supposed to be moving boxes without touching them, and it wasn’t working, and they didn’t know why. This is why they took his sword -- his sword, his sword was gone -- no, it was here, so why --

“Hey.”

Zack’s voice was much closer now, and Cloud couldn’t do much more than flinch when his hand settled on his back.

“...We don’t -- have to talk about this now. If you don’t want to,” said Zack, sounding uncomfortable. “Um -- here.”

The hand began to rub in small, awkward circles. It was warm. The beach was quiet, the rushing of the waves reminiscent of faint whispers more than anything else. Cloud thought he could hear words.

“...Is this helping? You’ve gotta tell me if it’s not.”

Stay.

He felt Zack startle slightly beside him, but the rubbing continued. He closed his eyes tightly, and allowed himself to shake.

In through the nose, he reminded himself. Out through the mouth.

He didn’t need to, of course. But it helped.

A while later, he felt his fingers starting to go numb. They were both drenched, and the water was still steadily dripping from his hair onto the rest of him.

He tentatively lifted his head and realised how long it had gotten. It hadn’t been cut since before his birthday in August, and with the water weighing it down it had reached his shoulders in an unruly mop.

"Feeling better?"

Cloud nodded. The world still swam at the edges.

My hair looks stupid, said Cloud, pushing it out of his eyes. You should've said something.

Zack stared at him in disbelief. "That's your takeaway here?"

Am I wrong?

"I'm not about to tell someone that just mowed down an army with a sword and their brain that their haircut makes them look like a tool."

Cloud made a noise that might've been a laugh if he wasn't so bone-deep tired. Guess we've been at this for a while, he said. Must be almost winter.

"If we hurry now, maybe we can go home in time for Christmas," said Zack bitterly.

His head throbbed.

What's that? he asked. As though he hadn't -- Aaron hadn't --

...Hadn't he? He wasn't sure anymore...

"Biggest holiday of the year, where I'm from. You and your family all gather together to pretend they don't wanna strangle each other, and sometimes there's presents."

Like birthdays? I know you have those already. What's the point?

"I mean," Zack faltered, "you're not supposed to argue. And the presents are sort of a thing that -- I mean, the thing about Christmas is that it was originally like, three different holidays, and two of 'em were just stolen and cobbled together from people that got colonised, but... well, I guess it's a moot point anyway since the whole thing is hypercommercialised these days, and the whole religious thing's kinda screwy anyway since technically Jesus was born in September -- allegedly, anyway, and..."

Cloud stared blankly at Zack. Zack shrugged.

"It's a winter celebration thing. You get your family gifts. Sometimes that causes a lot more trouble than it's worth in the first place." He sighed. "I'd kinda hoped the next one would be better. Y'know, after I came home from this stupid project."

...I'm sorry you miss your family, Cloud said after a moment. To his surprise, Zack snorted in response.

"Who the hell said I missed them?" said Zack derisively. "Not like they miss me, either."

Cloud stared at him. Why would they not miss you?

Zack rolled his eyes. "Come on, you've met me."

You're...

Taller than him, and smarter, and better-looking, and...

Cloud kept his mouth firmly shut and shrugged. You don't seem that bad.

"Alright, look, I watched you fix a car from like, nothing, so I know you're not that stupid," said Zack. "I think you already know why no one's gonna miss me."

Cloud looked away uncomfortably. My problems with you aren't --

"But they are," said Zack. "Told you I'm good at reading people. Not like you're subtle about it, either." He sighed. "Wanna see me do him? Watch this."

And then he did -- something. Some change in his posture, maybe, or his face. Something Cloud had no name for, but the effect was immediate and obvious. The man in front of Cloud was not the same panicked civilian Cloud had been spending the last few weeks with, freezing up at the sound of gunfire. Whoever this person was, he oozed charisma from every pore, and everything about his gaze radiated warmth and familiarity, and Cloud was suddenly struck with an inexplicable urge to punch him right in his smug prick face. More than usual, anyway.

And then it was gone again, as quickly as it had appeared. Zack was rubbing the bridge of his nose now, looking as weary as Cloud felt. "Look... I had a brother."

Aaron, right?

"Yeah. You've seen him by now, at least. Four years younger than me. Enough distance that -- that it was obvious what I could do, by the time he was old enough to talk. And everyone kept thinking..." Zack trailed off as Cloud tore off a scrap from the hem of his shirt and reluctantly tied back his hair. Long hair was for children, as far as Cloud was concerned.

"I fucked things up with Aaron," said Zack. "The whole family did. I'd already been skipped four grades by the time he'd learned to read, and the whole time there was this pressure on him to... I mean, his brother's this genius athlete, right? Makes sense he'd be one, too. Except he wasn't. Turns out I was a fluke. Mom and Dad were pretty pissed." A wry smile crossed his face then. Cloud felt a sudden sense of foreboding.

"Of course, it's not like they could be mad at him. Not like he picked all the dud genes on purpose. But... even if they weren't trying to treat him like that, everyone could still tell. And here I am, mathlete and quarterback, and my parents can't shut the fuck up about their wonderful prodigy son, and Aaron was -- was trying so fucking hard. All the time, because he knew he was -- he was supposed to be doing all the stuff that I was, and maybe our parents would give two shits about him, too.

"He never fooled anyone. Never even got jumped a grade. No one cares how many high Bs you pull in if your genius brother's already in college. And -- and for a while, I didn't really understand either. Thought he -- well, I figured maybe he just wasn't trying hard enough, and I could help him stop getting stuck on the easy stuff. But when he didn't get any better, and I figured out he really was trying his best..." Zack shrugged. "That's the main difference between me and Aaron, I think. Aaron tries. Aaron always tried. Even after I spat in his face, he kept trying. For him. Because it couldn't be for us, not after Mom and Dad decided they didn't care. Not after I decided I didn't care either, because they always acted like he was a disappointment, and after a while I started buying into it. And he kept fucking trying anyway.

"Now, me? I've never had to try my whole goddamn life. I've always been smarter or stronger or faster than anything I ever would've had to deal with, and he knew it, and I knew it, and I thought I was hot shit for years before I figured out all I was doing was looking down on everyone else."

Zack's hair was much shorter than Cloud's, and he shook it out with a haggard expression even as his lips started to take on a blue tinge. "He told me that, three years ago when he finally made it into college, and I upstaged him right away by getting my designs for the facility accepted by CERN. And he was right, you know," said Zack. "Just like you're right. I never earned a goddamn thing in my entire life."

...If you were already smart, said Cloud, then -- I mean, maybe you're trying now --

"Doubt it," said Zack. "With everything you told me about the mako, it's honestly just made everything worse. And that's without taking the 'inhuman abomination' thing into account."

But... they're your family, said Cloud, at a loss for words. They'd have to miss you.

There was a pause, and Cloud realised it was because Zack was glowering at him.

“Fuck you,” he said exhaustedly.

What --

“Seriously, fuck you,” he repeated. “You have no fucking idea how good you have it.”

You -- !

“No, you don’t!” shouted Zack. “Don’t tell me you do. Look, I apologised for the thing I said about -- about that lab, or whatever. But this? You don’t have a leg to stand on here.”

I know I’m lucky, returned Cloud. You know I know how much worse things could be.

“You asked me to kill you,” said Zack. “Begged me. You were crying, you wanted to die so bad.”

Cloud looked away. That -- it’s not the same --

“‘No one will miss me,’” repeated Zack. “That’s what you said. Do you honestly fucking believe that?”

Cloud opened his mouth. Closed it again.

“People love you,” said Zack, his voice oddly brittle. “More than I’ve ever seen anyone be loved by anyone. The way you talk about them, and -- it can’t be all awful bullshit in there. And you -- you told me before, no one ever comes back for you, in that dream you have. Why the fuck not? Because I know for a fact someone did. And now Tifa’s stranded god knows where dying of some alien space virus, and she did that for you, and I know you chewed her out for it anyway so I know you know that’s something no one should ever have to do for anyone, and that’s all you can say, is ‘no one would miss me’. You make me sick.” He shook his head. “And you have the balls to tell me that they’d miss me because they’re my family? It doesn’t work like that. Not everyone gets a nice little room over your wah-she’s-not-my-girlfriend’s bar. Sometimes you get wandering around in the middle of nowhere slowly going nuts, or being locked in a dog crate and denied sleep, and sometimes you get a family that just sees you as a trophy or a brother that hates your fucking guts because you spent the first eighteen years of his life treating him like a subhuman. Sometimes that shit happens. You stupid fuck.”

Cloud said nothing, but the unspoken question in the back of his mind must have managed to simmer through anyway.

"Oh, I'm sure they do on some level," said Zack dryly. "Don't you get it? I fucked it up already. I spent the last three years trying to make up for a lifetime of bullshit and he knows just as well as I do that I'm in over my head. I've finally gone and decided I need his approval and he's learned to live without mine years ago, and that's all there is to it. You don't know how good you've got it, with -- with all those people that care about you. God knows why, not like you're fucking mister personality over here, but... they do." He wasn't bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice anymore. "They care about you. Even Aeris, she -- I was telling the truth, before. She joined your fanclub real quick, as soon as you stopped swearing at her. That was all it took."

Now it was Zack's turn to stare at Cloud in bewilderment. "How the hell do you do it?"

Cloud shrugged. If he knew the answer to that question he probably wouldn't be here.

...I still don't understand, said Cloud, after another moment. He's your brother.

"Coulda fooled me," said Zack. "Not like we have anything in common. The only thing we did was --" he stopped himself, glancing at Cloud warily. Then he looked away again. "...It was cooking. He was real good at that. We used to cook together all the time," said Zack.

Why'd you stop?

"Didn't want to take that from him, too."

Cloud remained silent, fingers working away at a bit of loose skin on his wrist. Zack wordlessly handed him one of his boots to put back on.

"The project was supposed to be a way to fix that, I guess," he said unenthusiastically. "I'd finally be working with people on 'my level' or -- or something like that. This would've been the first thing in my entire goddamn life that I'd actually earned. That I'd had to try for." He let out a tired laugh. "Fucked that up, too. In more ways than one."

He looked back to Cloud then. "There's no non-asshole way to say this, so sorry in advance, but... man, it'd be a load off my back if you knew even one answer to a question I asked you. Make my life a hell of a lot easier."

Let me know if you find that one out, was all Cloud said.

"What, the breathing thing?"

No. Never mind. He swallowed. ...I think there's something wrong with me.

Zack might've had the sense not to say what he was thinking out loud, but Cloud could still sense it anyway. It seemed he was growing better at that.

I thought it was this place at first, said Cloud. Since it's... it's closer to Her. But if you can't do it, then -- then I don't know.

"Maybe I was in the wrong headspace for it," suggested Zack. "We could probably cover more ground if we flew, right?"

To where? asked Cloud. I don't even think we're anywhere right now. Everything feels fake again. He gestured to Zack. Try it. Even you have to be able to feel it.

Zack went still, focusing his gaze on the ground. A moment later, a stream of sand rose from the shore and wove itself through the air, following Zack’s eyes.

“This is so weird,” he breathed. “But -- how’s this supposed to help?”

Well… began Cloud, if we’re not anywhere, we could be anywhere. Right?

“...I don’t follow.”

Everything’s just gotten weirder the further out we’ve gone, said Cloud. Like… we’re not walking on ground, just the idea of it. Or -- or the lab. It probably wasn’t the real one, just -- the idea of what the lab should be, right? Which is why it still had power. Or -- the “people” we saw. And Jenova, she’s not solid. I mean, I dunno why she looks like that, but --

“But…” Zack frowned. “You said that before, back in Soho. Soho’s real.”

Not to me, said Cloud. Think about it -- it’s --- how does your machine work again? The one that let you visit my world?

“...Makes you cease to exist,” said Zack, a look of comprehension dawning on his face. “But then, if you don’t exist, you’re in a place where you don’t exist. Which… which I guess, your universe still isn’t mine.”

So it was easier for me to change things in ‘Soho’ said Cloud. Just like it’s easier to change things here. They both must be farther away from my universe than I’d normally be. He frowned. Is that another name for your planet? Soho? Better than “Dirt” if you ask me.

“It’s called Earth, not Dirt,” said Zack, “and anyway, that’s not -- whatever. So… do you think you could do that thing you did in the train station here?”

Maybe, said Cloud. I guess I should try.

“So, I guess we’re in cooking oil level,” said Zack. “And all we have to do is get back to soy sauce or honey.”

Cloud nodded. Problem is… I don’t even know where we left from. We couldn’t have been in Wutai, but I don’t know where we were either.

“Maybe we weren’t literally anywhere,” said Zack. “Just -- instead of being somewhere, it was just the idea of a place around that area. I mean, it’s not like you’d literally moved us to Aeris’s house, until we went back down a -- a ‘level’ and then we were.”

I guess… think I could try getting us back to Soho, then?

“You almost died the last time you jumped us across an entire universe,” said Zack. “And I still don’t know how you pulled it off.”

The Planet pulled me, said Cloud. ...So I guess it couldn’t pull me back the other way.

“You shouldn’t have been able to do that at all,” said Zack. “It’s an entire universe away. It… maybe there’s less space in between now. I don’t know. You said getting to Edge would help, so let’s just… let’s see how that goes.”

Right, said Cloud. Soy sauce, coming up.

He took a deep breath, because he was supposed to. Felt his heart beating, because it was supposed to. Knew to feel for the earth beneath his feet, solid as ever, reached through the music around him and felt the claws of things plucking and grasping at the air, and pushed --

Muddybadtiredfallingthroughthegratestopyellingpleaseblanketonthefloortifaaaronmom

Mother.

She was beautiful. His eyes burned. It hurt more than anything had ever hurt before in his life.

She pulled at him. He pulled back. The something in him that he'd ripped earlier tore a little bit more.

Once, four years ago, Barret had taken Cloud clothes shopping.

It was a little embarrassing, getting dragged out to something like that with a four year-old that knew more about the process than he did. It hadn't even occurred to him to go in the first place. Everyone had been so out of sorts trying to rebuild after the near-end of the world that Barret was the only one who'd noticed he'd been wearing the same two outfits for a month now -- a spare set of civvies that, like most of Avalanche's "backup" wardrobe, he'd stolen while on the road; consisting of a grubby sweater and some sturdy working pants, both of which he'd taken off one of Don Corneo's henchman. The other was "his" old Soldier uniform -- practically grey at this point, barely holding together after being patched up time and time again from being shot and stabbed and clawed at and a million things besides.

It hurt. Cloud was certain he must be dying, it hurt so badly.

Barret had suggested that perhaps he throw the latter out, since a Soldier presence wouldn't exactly be welcome these days, and Cloud had barely managed to tamp down the urge to punch Barret in the jaw and run -- still couldn't keep himself from snatching the filthy clothes from the other man's remaining hand with an indignant yell, because they were -- they were his. They were his clothes. They were his, and he'd earned them, and they and the Buster Sword were the only things in the entire world that belonged to him. Even if they were practically rags by now. Even if Hojo had been the one to give them to him.

"...They're mine," was all he managed to offer up in explanation, clutching them tightly enough for his knuckles to have gone white. An expression passed across Barret's face too quickly for him to read, not that he was ever much good at reading Barret to begin with, before he'd simply nodded and told him to be up by eight, and that he'd better not be wearing that uniform.

Everything surged in and out of darkness. His heart jerked in his chest.

So, Barret had taken him shopping. The pickings were slim, with most markets having dwindled down to street vendors selling whatever they'd managed to loot from Midgar, but soon enough Cloud could no longer count the number of things he owned on one hand, or even two hands. They were all his, and he'd picked them all out himself. It was dizzying to even think about.

Marlene had picked him out a thick knitted sweater, and he'd instantly become enamoured with the texture, the way he could hook his fingers through the fabric, the way it was silky and plush and warm all at once. He hadn't thought he would get to touch something that soft ever again.

Someone was shouting at him again.

And then halfway through getting him a pair of sunglasses, Barret had rounded on him, furious.

"Thought you said you were gonna stop dicking around," he snapped.

Cloud glowered at him through the sting of his words. "Merry Christmas to you too. I don't have to get you shit, you know."

"Yeah. You're real gracious like that," he replied. " Plenty of generosity to go around. Must be why you're on your sixth sorority girl this month, right?"

"Did you fucking drag me out here to antagonise me?" spat someone else, and Cloud found himself covering his ears, squeezing his eyes shut tightly as he felt the muscles in his neck tense up from the hostility in their voice. "You could've done that at home. Saved me the goddamn gas money."

"You never loved me, did you?"

"I did! I do, please, it doesn't have to be like this --"

"If you could leave me to die, you would. That's why you joined this project, wasn't it? To get away from me."

"Parasite."

"You're going to die alone."

He was choking -- the world blurred around him. He wasn't sure who was talking anymore. Where did Barret go? Where was Aaron? Where was Cloud? It was too loud to hear.

“...alright?! God dammit you said you were gonna stop doing this!”

Zack was shaking him again, and it was nearly enough to send him toppling to the ground. He picked himself up unsteadily, waving Zack away.

I’m okay, he said. It’s fine.

His head ached. He was pretty sure if he tried to actually open his eyes, they’d pop like grapes in a vice.

He took a breath; smelled dry earth, and rust, and just a hint of rot, so faint he wasn’t entirely sure he was imagining it.

So -- he’d gotten them close-ish to Midgar. He’d done it, hadn’t he? Everything was going to be fine. He’d done it.

He cracked open an eye.

The world was still grey around him. The sound of the ocean still swirled about them despite the fact that it was nowhere to be seen, and Cloud realised it wasn’t water he was listening to.

“...I mean,” Zack began, “we’re a little closer, right? Like, that’s down, and that’s up, so we’ve got that going for us.”

He’d failed. They were barely out from where they’d started, and he’d barely managed to get them back at all.

“Hey,” said Zack in the beginnings of a warning, but Cloud had already shut his eyes again, and pushed once more.

The world around him plunged into darkness, but it was more than that -- he felt blind and deaf and scent-deaf in a way he hadn't in years, something he usually associated with old memories half-buried under mako. Certainly not something this sharp, skin warm, a woman he didn't know beneath him, a leg hooked around him as he thought about how maybe he shouldn't have propositioned her if things went bad after tonight given she was the only dateable woman in his quantum theory class... not that she hadn't made it weird anyway. "Aren't you gay or something?" she'd said with genuine surprise. Because he could date eight girls and ask out one guy and then of course everyone immediately just assumed gay, and then people had started to give him shit for the eight girls already, and maybe number nine would --

-- would move her other leg, holy shit --

"Zack," she breathed into his ear, nails digging into his back. He wished she'd taken them off before they started.

"Wish you could see yourself," he murmured back instead. "Your --"

No. No no no no no -- that was the last thing he wanted to see right now, Zack would murder him. And then he couldn't move, couldn't even breathe -- could do nothing but exist, until someone pinned him against the wall by his wrists, mouth warm against his. He was still a little in awe of the process: didn't think it would feel this good; didn't think anything could feel this good, even after he'd gotten used to the absence of pain in his life in general. No wonder people did it all the time.

He'd said that to Tifa at one point, and she'd very obviously been trying not to laugh then. He wondered if he wasn't doing something stupid right now.

He sucked hard on her lower lip just in case, so she would know he was being very serious about this. That he intended to do well.

She responded in turn, taking one of his hands and guiding it under her shirt, and he had to stop himself from jerking it away when she settled it on her breast, certain she was about to yell and shove him off, that he was doing something improper, somehow. Which he knew was stupid, because if that was too forward of him, then what Tifa was doing to him right now with her free hand certainly was. He felt himself buck into it, making a keening noise somewhere in the back of his throat, which was currently being nipped at.

All of this still failed to distract from the fact that he hadn't gotten hard yet.

Tifa ceased her ministrations and frowned. "If I'm going too fast, you can tell me," she said.

She was not. It had been more than long enough.

"...I'm sorry," he said. It was all he could think of to say. The disappointment was as clear as day on her face, but the next moment she had replaced it with an encouraging smile.

"It's fine," she said. "Really, it is. It happens sometimes."

No. No, it didn't. Not like this.

"We can stop if you're not in the mood --"

"I am," he said, wincing inwardly at how desperate he sounded. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise," said Tifa. "I can top if it's an issue."

"It's not an issue," he snapped. "It isn't. I'll --"

"Cloud, this isn't your fault," said Tifa. "You understand that, right? I know there are -- circumstances involved, and we can work with them. You haven't 'ruined' anything. This isn't your fault."

She sounded like she really, really meant it. Like she thought that it wasn't his fault. Wasn't looking down on him for it. Like the smile was genuine. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

He hated her for it.

He was consumed with an image, suddenly, of her throwing the box of condoms at his head. "You're a fucking joke!" she would scream. "If you're gonna piss and moan the whole time about not wanting to hurt me and we move our fucking schedules around and then you go and pull this -- this bullshit, then -- !" She would slap him across the face, eyes swollen from tears because he'd ruined her evening. Again.

He closed his eyes, and reveled in it. It was -- it was comforting. The realisation was almost terrifying, but it wasn't enough to pull him away from the image. It grew, even as Tifa hesitantly pulled him in for another kiss.

"I didn't ask for this!" he would scream back. "You're the one that wanted to have sex! Or did you just pick me because you wanted to fuck before the world ended and it was either me or Nanaki?!"

"Like you had any other options yourself!" the Tifa in his head yelled back, undaunted, as he leaned back against the cushions. "Is that comfortable?" she asked him. He nodded. "Like Jessie didn't dump you before you got half as far with her as you did with me! Because I'm an idiot, and made the mistake of dating the one fucking moron that thought a labia was an STD!" She would slap him in the face again. It would hurt. He wouldn't hit back, because someone had to have the moral high ground here.

"But hey, I'm sure that 'Soldier stamina' will kick in one day, if we ever fucking get started," she would say. He could feel Tifa guiding his face to where it needed to be with soothing hands, running her fingers through his hair as he rested a hand on her thigh. "Will you still be mooching above my bar by then? Or will you have found someone else to disappoint, and someone else will get to live the dream of wiping up your drool when you decide not to be a functioning person today?"

She didn't mind the silence. They'd never been much for pillow talk, anyway. "What, do you think I'm ugly? Is that it? Am I too fat for you? Were Jessie’s boobs too small? Well, sorry I’m not a porn star. If it’s any consolation, it’s not like you fucking qualify either."

She would advance on him, and he'd glower right back at her, holding her gaze. "No wonder no one else would fucking have you, if this is the best you have to offer. To anyone. Gods know I'm sick of putting up with it." He could feel his body gently rocking with each of Tifa's thrusts. It felt good. Sex felt good. He knew not to say that out loud anymore. "I love you," she whispered into his ear.

"Why don't you just fucking kill yourself?"

The world was a blur. He was kissing Tifa again, both of them out of breath. He was having a pillow thrown at his head, her face contorted in fury. He was curled against another body, pulse beating through her skin, feeling limp and boneless. He was --

"Just kill yourself. You stupid, selfish ass. Just fucking kill yourself."

He opened his eyes. There was grass beneath his feet. Rain drifted this way and that, like glass marbles someone had spilled across a polished floor.

Zack was staring at him, at a loss for words.

Cloud stared back. Made a hoarse noise in response, in what was an attempt at words. An explanation. Nothing came to mind. Nothing he’d believe, anyway. The heat against his skin had felt real enough in the memory to leave him shivering slightly in its absence.

Zack was still staring at him. Cloud eventually met his eyes. There was an awful sort of wariness in them now.

“...Not all the way back, but it’s a start,” he said slowly. “Why don’t we take a break for a bit?”

Cloud didn’t reply. He was breathing again, in through his nose -- back out through his nose. Uneven and ragged. His skin felt greasy. His fingers itched.

He hadn’t changed a bit. He’d always been like this, he supposed. Now Zack knew that too.

“Hey,” began Zack again. “Look. You -- you know I wasn’t trying to -- to see that. Right? You know that.”

Cloud slowly nodded.

“...I mean,” he continued, “she obviously cares about you a whole lot. Like I said.” He attempted a smile. Cloud knew that smile. Still hated it just as much as he had the first hundred times. “And -- I mean, she still came back for you. That, um… that girl you saw -- Siobhan -- we broke up a month later. So…”

The snide look was gone. He was worried. For Cloud’s sake.

“I know you don’t -- that we don’t know each other that well,” said Zack gently, “but -- but it isn’t your fault. She was right. It’s not your fault. You said we didn’t get to choose, right? You can’t still think it’s your fault. Your family doesn’t. I don’t.”

Cloud stared at Zack for a moment longer. Zack stared back, his gaze free of judgement.

Then he looked down at the bag he was carrying. Began rummaging through it. Found what he was looking for.

Zack wrenched his arms away with a shout as his he raised the gun to his chin. He pulled it one way. Zack pulled it the other.

Zack was stronger than he was now. It wasn't fair.

He stiffened in pain as the first shot punched through his own leg, Zack barely managing to wrest it away in time to throw off his aim. Another two shots rang out as Zack unloaded the revolver into the ground. Distantly, he heard the awful screeching of metal as Cloud watched him crush the gun in his bare hands, before throwing what remained of it as far as he could.

He rounded on Cloud then, and all he could do was flinch in anticipation. In the end, that got to him before Zack could have, stomach roiling in a combination of dread and shame and fatigue. He fell to his knees and threw up, watching the bile he’d coughed up curl its way into the sky with defeat.

Zack did not get any closer. Cloud looked at him tiredly.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “Might -- might still need it.” He swallowed around the bitter taste in his mouth. “In case we need to fight, or something.”

“No we didn’t,” said Zack, with the most forced smile Cloud had ever seen in his life. “I don’t know how to use that thing anyway, and -- you’ve got magic, right? We don’t need it.”

“If…”

“C’mon, I saw you kill like a hundred guys without using a gun once,” said Zack, before immediately wincing. “I mean -- like, we had to, right? Look --”

“...Where’s the other gun?” asked Cloud.

“Ditched it in the ocean with the sword,” said Zack. “I thought you knew. You never came back with it the way you did with your sword, so -- I mean, that proves we don’t need it.”

Cloud swallowed.

“Come on, cuz,” said Zack, with a hint of desperation, “let’s just… just sit down, and get your leg fixed up, and think about things for a bit, yeah? I mean, you never even finished teaching me to do that thing with the fire, right?”

He shook his head.

“Well, someone’s gotta,” said Zack. “It’s -- you said it yourself, what chance do I have unless I learn some useful self-defense skills? Unless you don’t think you’re up for it?”

“I’m good at magic,” said Cloud dully. One of the only things left he could claim any kind of competence in.

“Prove it, then,” said Zack, more insistently. “Come on. I almost had it last time.”

Cloud nodded mutely, only vaguely aware of Zack putting his arm around his shoulder and leading him off. There had been something strangely soothing about working with Aeris, in that regard. It hadn’t just been her pride bubbling through him as she cradled that flame in their hands.

“I still really want to know how to heal stuff, too,” said Zack, still rambling on, his own hands shaking as well. “You know -- just in case. You could teach me that. We still have to fix your leg, right?”

Cloud nodded again. “White magic,” he muttered.

“Yeah, I read in the transcript, a little,” replied Zack. “I really wish I could -- just -- just start to explain how neat it is, that I’m gonna get to know magic. On Earth, that’s… I mean, they have whole books and movies about it. I guess that must sound a little weird to you.”

Another nod. Cloud realised he was being escorted over to the remains of an old abandoned compound built into the rocks. The jagged edges of a mountain range loomed over it, and over the eerily silent tapping, scratching noise of the rain scattering every which way, he could hear the rush of running water. A wooden sign, covered in moss and pockmarked from lack of upkeep, declared itself Healen Lodge.

They couldn’t be that far inland already, could they?

He’d probably just lost track of where they were. Everything seemed to have a thin veneer of fog over it.

“There’s medical supplies in there, if they haven’t been looted,” he said quietly. “So if you can’t manage it, that’s okay.”

Zack’s steps skipped a beat, clearly surprised Cloud had responded at all. “Well -- that’s good, then. I’m pretty lucky, getting to learn how to do this kind of thing. Are there stories about learning magic on the Planet?”

“Sometimes,” said Cloud. “Maybe.” He frowned. He might have read one or two in school. “I can’t remember.”

“Boring book?” asked Zack.

Ma’s face was little more than a blur these days. “...Yeah.”

“I know the feeling,” said Zack. “Never a big literature fan myself. Hold on --”

He carefully eased Cloud off of himself before shoving the door open with a well-placed shoulder. The lights were on in here, as well. Or at least, Cloud expected them to be, so they were.

Zack still continued to hover over him, even after leading him inside and helping him sit down against the wall. He seemed to hesitate, however, at the prospect of actually taking off Cloud’s pants.

“Oh, whatever,” muttered Cloud, rolling his eyes. “I’ve been you naked.”

Zack made a noise somewhere between disgust and exasperation before helping him remove the offending cloth. The gunshot wound that greeted them continued to slowly ooze red. The gory hole of the exit wound on the underside of his thigh was a different story.

“Relax,” he said. “Had worse. Remember?”

Zack paled and swallowed thickly. “Okay,” he said. “How do I do this, exactly?”

“Just -- remember, and let the magic go where it needs to,” said Cloud. “You’ll know how.” He closed his eyes. “I’ll start.”

He rested his hand on his leg, feeling Zack do the same, and let the spell hover at the edge of his thoughts, not quite amassing enough intent behind it to let it tip over into action. He slowly let the magic build, and Zack let out a short gasp. For those unused to it, it was rather like having one's brain dunked in ice water.

“Felt it that time,” said Zack. “Lot stronger than the last one, anyway.”

“I’m the one making the connection,” said Cloud. “Now, you just have to do it instead.”

He could sense Zack feeling his way in towards the spell, the way Aeris had. This time, though, was different -- he felt a tugging inside him that had his head swimming, as though he had stood up too quickly without eating. He blinked again, and he felt himself focusing once more at the sensation of magic working its way through his leg, taking the pain away with it. The wound was rapidly closing itself, and while he could feel the connection to the Planet being made through his own soul, there was nothing of himself in the consciousness shaping the magic, closing up the wound and leaving only a mottled scar in its place -- one among many, at this point.

Zack looked up at him, then down at his hand, then at Cloud’s leg again, then back up. “...I did it,” he said hoarsely.

“You did,” replied Cloud. He prodded the spot curiously. “Did pretty well. Aeris had an affinity for White, too. Must be a doctor thing.”

“For White?” said Zack, raising an eyebrow. “How can you tell?”

“Because for a first healing, that was really damn good,” said Cloud, blinking away the last of the stars in his eyes. “And I guess it makes sense, if you’re good at the numbers thing.”

Zack was frowning now, staring at his hand again. Cloud felt another mental lurch as suddenly, there was fire flickering about his fingers, illuminating the bones in his hand, making the flesh glow a warm red, little hints of mako blue flickering through the veins occasionally.

The flame vanished as soon as it appeared. Zack looked about five seconds from toppling over.

“...Not great at pacing yourself, though,” said Cloud, as Zack yawned, blinking hard to keep himself awake. “Get some sleep.”

“No,” he said suddenly. “No -- you should rest, I’ll… I gotta keep watch. Carry my weight, you know? At least one of us has to reach Edge in one piece.”

Zack wasn’t meeting his eyes anymore. Cloud stood to put his pants back on and sighed.

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “But… if you don’t get some rest, I can’t teach you more magic tomorrow.”

Something flickered across Zack’s expression, too quick to catch. “Yeah, guess you’re right,” he said, managing a small smile. “Wake me when the rain lets up.”

“I think there’s some beds in the back,” said Cloud. “Showers. Stuff.”

“Thank god,” said Zack tiredly. “See? Not half bad, for a first attempt.”

Cloud closed his eyes again as he heard Zack disappear down the hall. He scratched idly at the patch of skin on his chest that he knew was supposed to be slowly killing him. He closed his eyes again. Listened to the rain for a while, the way it scraped its way past the glass, Mother singing sweetly in his ears.

It stopped a few minutes later, as a matter of fact. He let Zack sleep the next few hours anyway. Everything still seemed strange and unreal -- perhaps because it was, at least partly. Perhaps because he’d just tried to shoot himself. Succeeded, too, on a very basic level. His leg was gonna be sore for the next week, healing or no.

His head swam as images began to overlay his vision, voices he didn’t recognise muttering away in the back of his head. Human voices, in a language he knew, and upon listening closely to it, realised he didn’t know at all. There was a very tall woman with striking blue eyes looming over him, smiling proudly and offering him a cake with candles on it.

Mom, said the label in his head. Mrs. Fair, he realised. Zack was dreaming.

He was tempted to wake him up right then and there. Their respective privacy was rapidly dwindling already. This wasn’t his to see.

But -- he was already sitting. And he didn’t want to get up, because he’d been injured. So, if he was going to see this, there wasn’t much he could do to wake up Zack. It wasn’t his fault.

Instead, he sat there, looking out the window at the mountains, the sound of laughter and conversation over cake being the only thing punctuating the silence of the empty building besides the sound of breathing.

Chapter 45: I LIVED BITCH

Notes:

Believe it or not this thing is in fact still updating. I'd say it was the quarantine but honestly it's probably because my meds finally kicked in. Yaaaay.

Whoa what the fuck???? This thing got popular in the last two weeks. Remake traffic bump I guess. Too bad the Remake sucks shit!

Thank you so so so much to Belderiver, deathrebirthsenshi, la-regina-scrive, Sanctum_C, Denebola Leo, Motchi, and Bel and Billie a second time holy shit for extensive fucking help on this chapter because it's important and I'm still not convinced I haven't fucked something up irrevocably but I guess we'll find out!

Also I don’t even know if this counts as fanart or not given it was a joke request but also thank you to Waifujuju for drawing Cloud holding this rat. I love it I have stared at it for five hours now.

"This is illegal in your world, right?" asked Tifa, taking one last look around for any police.

"...I'm sorry, you're worried about doing something illegal? Now?"

"I'm worried about being caught doing something illegal," corrected Tifa. "Better to know how much I should be hiding this."

"It is extremely illegal," said Cissnei, adjusting her grip on Shithead, who squirmed in protest. "No one's looking. Go."

Tifa closed her eyes and rested her hand against a nearby car’s window before phasing it through. It was easier not to look, it seemed -- it helped her forget there was anything she was putting her hand through at all, though she could still feel the glass along her arm like ice. She fumbled for a moment for the lock before popping it open, then withdrawing her hand and opening the door normally.

"Interesting trick, that," said Cissnei. "Do you suppose I could learn it?"

"I'll trade you," said Tifa glumly. "I'd rather know how to not be noticed by the authorities. I'm driving," she added to Aeris, "I'm guessing you've never navigated during a police chase."

"Well-spotted," said Aeris, as Tifa clambered into the driver's seat -- on the wrong side of the car, she noticed. The car she'd stolen before certainly hadn't been like that. Another indication of things falling apart? "I should hide in the back anyway. Don't like being this exposed."

"You ride shotgun," said Tifa to Cissnei. "You're the one that knows where we're going."

"Isn't it going to look a bit strange anyway?" she replied, handing off the cat to Aeris. "The city’s basically empty, what with the military ordering everyone to stay home."

Tifa grimaced. "...We'll get to that when we get to that," she said eventually, and set about hotwiring the car.

She could practically feel Aeris vibrating with anxious anticipation in the back seat. She could certainly hear how her pulse had quickened, even amongst the din of every other sound competing for her attention right now. She finally had an answer for how in the world Cloud dealt with it all, and it turned out he just didn't. Her brain had already managed to filter out all the scents and sounds she'd come to notice unless she was actively seeking them out, much like the high pitched whine of a television screen. Of course no one actually focused all these stimuli all the time. They'd go nuts trying.

It wasn't ideal, but for the first time Tifa thought that it might actually be manageable. And Tifa was used to managing things.

She felt her shoulders unknot a bit more as Cissnei directed her onto the M25. No police had noticed them thus far, and no one stood a chance in hell actually pulling them over in the middle of gridlocked traffic. Safe. For now, at least.

Though at thirty minutes in it was getting more than a bit old.

"Everyone's fleeing the city," Tifa reasoned, "after everything that's happened."

"Oh, no, it's always like this," said Aeris airily from the back. "I don't suppose you know any flying car spells, do you?"

"I thought we were supposed to be keeping a low profile," argued Cissnei.

"It was a joke," said Aeris. "...Do you, though?"

"I could blast us into the air and hope we survive the impact when we land," said Tifa tiredly, leaning back in her seat.

"...Are there any useful spells?" asked Cissnei hesitantly. "For regular people, I mean."

"Any spell can be useful," said Tifa, unsure if she'd understood the question. The car ahead of them edged forth ever so slightly, prompting the car next to them to immediately try to merge, lodging itself between two lanes of traffic. She sighed and popped the handbrake.

"Well -- I mean -- finding an object you've lost, or doing the washing up," she clarified.

"No one can speak to the Planet anymore," said Tifa. "So the only magic that's survived is the kind found in materia -- and it takes materia thousands of years to condense, so only big, important concepts and memories survive that long. Artificial materia sped things up a lot, but it could still only take from what was already available. And it's illegal to make now anyway."

"So no one gets to use magic anymore?" asked Aeris, sounding scandalised.

"Most people don't use magic anyway," replied Tifa. The motorist behind her honked loudly as the car in front of her finished forcing itself into the lane, worsening her stress headache. She gave him the finger in her mirror in response, kneading the bridge of her nose. "You people have electricity -- how many times over the course of your day do you need to be able to create fire? Unless you smoke, but... buying matches is easier. The reason Cloud and I know so much is the same reason Shinra used to mass-produce the stuff to hand out to its troops: there was fighting to be done."

Another car length or so before applying the break again. She never thought she'd miss how relatively lonely Edge's roads were. "Better this way. If anyone wants new materia they can master it themselves or find someone else who has. More potent that way anyway.

"It's not that big of a deal," she added. "I mean, do you know how to -- to mountain climb, or fly a plane?"

"No, but I intend to learn," said Aeris firmly.

Tifa gritted her teeth rather than reply. The car moved up another few metres, and she pulled up the brake once more to allow herself to lean back in her seat and close her eyes.

She could still hear Aeris and Cissnei idly chattering as they inched through traffic bit by bit. Maybe Cid was right, and the stress was finally getting to her. She barely managed to make her turn with Cissnei's direction, her eyes squinted and blurred with tears.

She was clenching her teeth around the pained noises threatening to escape by the time they got off the motorway. She heard Cissnei ask something in English next to her, but Tifa was already too busy pulling over on the side of the road, cradling her aching head, feeling the pain build to a point below her left eye. She heard Shithead hiss in the back seat.

Then it peaked, and she was unable to force down a scream, her eye streaming, her head pounding until it suddenly, mercifully faded away to almost nothing.

She blinked slowly, wincing at the motion -- her eye was still incredibly tender, and the motion still felt off. Her vision was still a little blurry, too, even as she wiped away the remaining tears. Then it sharpened into focus -- even more than it had been before -- then it went blurry again -- then sharpened --

At some point, apparently Aeris had popped up from the back seat. Now, however, she was staring at her with equal parts fascination and shock.

"...What?" she muttered, looking down at herself to see if she'd bled any. The motion felt strange.

Aeris wordlessly reached up and adjusted the rear view mirror, and Tifa found herself looking back at herself with three eyes -- one on the right, and two on the left, the smaller one wedged in below her tear duct. Her vision blurred once more as she shifted them, then settled once again.

Tifa rolled down the window and gagged. Nothing came up -- she hadn't eaten for a while.

Until now, everything else so far had been easy to chalk up to that, or to stress. She knew she was deluding herself, but still, there was a chance. Maybe the headaches were stress. Maybe the way it was getting harder and harder to breathe was stress. Maybe the way she felt constantly watched, more and more, was stress.

Maybe. And maybe Reeve would be ready and waiting with a whole lot of a controlled substance, enough to keep her from dying. And maybe the mako itself wouldn't kill her either.

"Do you actually think you're going to get to learn to fly a plane?" asked Tifa tiredly, cutting through the silence.

She heard the frown in her response, even with her eyes -- eyelids -- all closed. "I had better," said Aeris. "...Why don't I drive from here? Fewer cameras on the smaller roads. You can sleep in the back."

"I don't need to 'sleep in the back'," snapped Tifa. "I --"

"You're sick," said Aeris firmly, "and you're the only one here with any kind of breaking-and-entering experience, I think, so you'll probably wind up being even sicker. You should sleep in the back."

Tifa sighed and opened the car door again, but the second she attempted to stand the world lurched sideways and tipped her out onto the road. She groaned.

Over the thundering of blood in her ears, she heard the door to the back seat open behind her as well.

Someone said something else in English, and the words sloshed uselessly around her brain, static creeping in around the corners of her vision. Everything was too hot and rough and far away, and seemed to slide into place around her. The world felt wrong.

"...try poking her again?" she heard Cissnei offer.

"No," said Aeris. "Tifa, can you hear me?"

"Mmhm..." How could she not, when everything was this loud?

"We need to get back in the car," said Aeris. "Come on -- we're in the middle of the road. We're going to be spotted and you're going to let the cat out, come on now..."

Somehow she managed to get to her feet again, with Aeris and Cissnei's help. She was too drained to protest when they laid her down across the back seat.

"Cissnei can navigate," she heard Aeris say. "Just rest up for a bit."

And there was already a cat settling onto her chest, so it wasn't as though she was in any position to say no. She squeezed her eyes shut tight -- all three of them -- and tried not to cry.

Something jabbed into her side as she shifted her weight, and for a moment she panicked, thinking she might be growing a third arm as well. She reached down and retrieved a camera from underneath her.

"...I thought we smashed these?" said Tifa, holding it up.

"We did," said Aeris, her frown visible in the rear view mirror.

"Not that one," said Cissnei. "Zack borrowed it, remember? I think he dropped it when he -- when I was shot. I found it next to me when I woke up. He said he wanted to record a message."

Tifa blinked slowly and switched it on, a blurred image of Zack fumbling with the camera sitting neatly on the screen with what was apparently the universal symbol for "play" over it. She started the video.

He didn't say anything for a while, had one false start after another. He looked... well, he looked like Tifa felt. Tired, and alone, and with a bitter resolve smouldering underneath it all. As he took a deep breath in to speak, Tifa paused it again immediately. This wasn't hers to see.

She clicked to the next image. Aeris, and the younger man with black hair, with the long nose -- Tseng, she remembered -- talking excitedly about something. Behind them on a whiteboard was a crude sketch of a golden ratio, rendered in binary.

She clicked to the next one. Zack and Aeris, recreating some complicated mathematical array in gummy bears. They were smiling and laughing.

The next picture had Aeris holding up a camera Tifa actually recognised -- the kind that developed the photos on the spot -- and taking a picture of whoever was holding this one. She was grinning cheekily.

The next one -- Cissnei and Lazard, pouring over some sort of chart determinedly. Characters she could recognise from Standard -- and a couple from Nibeli -- were dotted across it.

The next -- Angeal and Zack and Tseng, holding up glasses of champagne. A woman's hand snaked into the shot from behind the camera, holding up her glass as well.

The next... a plexiglass box, with a message carved in Standard --

HELLO

I MISS YOU

-CLOUD

She wasn't sure how long she'd spent staring at the image, feeling her eyes grow wet again, the cat on her chest steadily purring as she idly scratched its ears with her free hand. The feeling of the car stopping suddenly jolted her back to reality.

"We're here," said Aeris softly, as Cissnei craned her head back to look at Tifa.

"...I'm sorry, but I want to save the battery," said Cissnei. "Could you...?"

Tifa nodded and switched the camera off again, dislodging Shithead as gently as she could.

"What about your cat?" she asked.

"Can't exactly bring her inside, I suppose," said Aeris. "I'll crack a window."

"Maybe you should stay here with her," said Tifa, looking out across the compound through the fence.

There was a veritable horde of guards gathered outside. At least two hundred, all scattered about. The uniforms differed wildly, but most were visibly armed, and seemed varying levels of distressed. They were huddled in various knots, talking nervously amongst themselves. Some were wearing body armour, some appeared to be beat cops, and a few weren't even wearing uniforms at all.

"...That can't be right," Tifa muttered, watching a girl of about six or seven pull on her mother's sleeve to draw her attention away from the guard she'd been chatting with. She pointed directly at Tifa. She looked up at her, as did the guard, and their eyes met. His face visibly paled.

Before she had a chance to sound the alarm to the others, he was drawing near, as was a small crowd. The two guards remaining at the entrance gave no sign they noticed.

"I --" she began, fumbling for an excuse. Beside her, she saw Aeris reach for the gun in her pocket.

"You can see us," he demanded. There was mud and blood splattered across his shirt. "You're able to see us?"

Tifa nodded uncertainly, still deciding the best angle to body slam him into a tree.

"I was at the Gainsborough Compound," said the man. "Minnie and Kate, they were in Soho. What about you?"

"Take a wild guess," said Cissnei flatly.

"You're Sauvage!" said another soldier. A ripple went through the crowd. "You're -- you were shot."

"As were you, I imagine," replied Cissnei, giving him a cold stare.

"I got run through by -- I didn’t even get to see it, it was moving too fast, it --" he stumbled. "Are we dead?"

"That's what we're here to find out," said Aeris. Everyone turned to stare at her now. Someone in the back muttered that's her.

“What’s wrong with your face?” said the little girl, and suddenly Tifa realised there were an awful lot of people staring at her now as well. She covered her third eye with her hand, wishing she had a scarf or something to hide it with at the very least.

"It felt... right, to come here," said the woman. "No one knows what's going on. And no one can see us. You’re the first ones that have -- that weren’t caught up in that explosion, anyhow."

“What do you mean, it felt right?” asked Tifa, narrowing her eyes.

The woman fell silent.

“Did you see anything?” she asked. “Anything… big. Besides the thing in the sky.”

A smattering of negatives this time. An uncomfortable look went through the group as more and more heads craned over one another to get a look at them.

Aeris pulled them both aside.

“Cissnei was shot,” she said. “Cloud... did what he did to the military ones. And everyone else here was in Soho by the seafront.”

“They’re infected,” said Tifa. “They have to be, but… I mean, they smell human,” she added, still apprehensive that that was a thing she could even detect now.

“Everything went black,” said Cissnei quietly. “Just for a moment. And there was this awful noise, like television static. And then I woke up in the grass, next to Tseng’s body. I thought… maybe he would come back, too. But he didn’t. Not all of the soldiers did, either. The ones that did tried to arrest me, until they realised… well.” She sighed. “We followed the vans back to this place.”

“We can see you, though,” said Tifa.

“You are also infected,” pointed out Cissnei.

“We couldn’t see Cloud at first, either,” said Aeris. “Like he was out of sync with the world. And everyone here, they were nearby one of those… ‘holes’, I suppose.”

“So -- what,” asked Tifa, “you were too out of sync with the world to die?”

“Can you help us?” came another voice from the crowd. Another civilian, it looked like. He appeared unharmed, but the bags under his eyes were extraordinarily pronounced. “No one else can see us. No one knows what’s going on. And now everyone’s looking for you,” he added, pointing to Aeris.

“Are you going to turn me in?” she replied.

The man shook his head uncertainly. “...Can you help us?”

“I’d like to,” said Aeris firmly. “I’ll need all of you to help us first. If we’re going to start to fix any of this, we need to get in there.” She pointed at the building. “They’ve got another one of our team in there.”

“What do you need us for?” asked one of the soldiers. “Just walk in. No one will notice you.” She, too, was staring at Tifa now. “...Mostly, anyway.”

“We weren’t -- people still know we’re there,” said Tifa. Then she frowned. “Do you suppose you could deal with the cameras?”

“They’ll know someone’s here the second they lose eyes,” said the first soldier.

“Not if I keep them busy,” said Cissnei. “We know what to look for, mostly. If you can get us in, we can handle things from there.”

Another murmur went through the crowd.

“What do you need us to do?” someone asked eventually.

Somehow they managed to get into place. They waited a full thirty minutes as the group they’d sent ahead to the compound presumably went ahead and smashed every camera they could find around the perimetre. Within minutes the place appeared to be on high alert, but as long as they kept their attention diverted elsewhere it wouldn’t matter. Shouldn’t matter, anyway.

As the last few soldiers filed back out of the building, Cissnei loudly and conspicuously kicked over several trash cans at the other end of the field before hurrying back over to Aeris and Tifa, no less than six guards already on their way to check out the noise now that they knew for certain they were being broken into as they made a mad scramble for the entrance.

The door noiselessly slid shut behind them, leaving them alone in the reception area, the front desk mercifully vacant and the lights off. There didn’t seem to be any cameras here, either. This wasn’t the kind of area anyone wanted anything videotaped in.

Her head throbbed.

"So now what?" asked Aeris.

"Now we start looking around," said Tifa. "Keep out of sight, and we act like we belong here if we can’t. Stay quiet..."

Easier said than done, though, with everything being so, so, so loud.

She held her breath as she motioned Aeris and Cissnei to follow her, keeping low behind the metal detectors at the end of the room. The humming of the machinery was exacerbating her headache, and it was all she could do to stay silent, even as she fought down a groan.

They had been right. She was needed here. Something needed her here. It needed her. She needed to be here. She needed…

“Mother?” she said breathlessly.

Aeris stared at her incredulously. Tifa stared back through the haze the world was starting to take on. Footsteps drew near.

She could smell blood beneath his skin, hot and wet. She could hear the way his meat pushed its way around his fragile bones, could hear Mother singing to her louder than ever, so loud it wanted to burst out of her --

But it couldn’t. There was a hand over her mouth. More meat. More old songs.

The next thing she knew she was being shoved roughly to the ground beside an x-ray machine. The footsteps were moving away from them now, and Aeris looked as though she was trying very hard not to scream.

“Dizzy,” mumbled Tifa. It was the only coherent thought she could manage right now.

“Honestly,” said Cissnei with a huff, before dashing off ahead.

Beyond the metal detectors was a vast, sunny atrium, with a spiral staircase in the centre descending downwards, several potted plants adorning a small sitting area in the front. Even their black ops sites had plants in them, Tifa noted dully.

Cissnei proceeded to the fancy couch and immediately flipped it over.

“Move,” muttered Aeris urgently as the guards stationed by the stairs went to investigate. Cissnei pulled a mocking face at one of them before scurrying back to Tifa, who just about fell down the stairs as they rushed by in the window they’d been given.

The stairwell, at least, was empty. Especially so since the little red radio Cloud had forgotten to take back from her began emitting static. Or at least, what seemed like static.

“Turn that off!” hissed Cissnei.

“It is off,” she said, holding it up for them to see. They could still hear the guards outside, even as Tifa frantically ripped open the back of the radio and yanked out the batteries. The radio fell silent just as the voices of the guards began increasing in volume again, drawing closer. Tifa held her breath, one revolution of the stairs the only thing keeping them hidden should they decide to open the door.

They didn’t. Though one of them did bring up into his radio that there appeared to have been an intruder that had left the lobby. So far so good.

She was closer, too. That was good. She needed to be closer--

Another spike of pain lanced through her head, and this time she only barely managed to stifle a moan.

She wasn’t in any position to object when Aeris and Cissnei dragged her out of the stairwell into a broom closet. She could faintly hear a disgruntled, c'est bien, c'est tres bien, j'en ai ral le cul, c'est des conneries! Tous les jours sont les mêmes, je jure devant Dieu through the static, before the voice vanished again, presumably to go break something else. At least no one had put their hands over her mouth again.

Over… over her…

She could taste blood on her tongue. She blinked hard and looked up at Aeris.

“Feeling better?” said Aeris, her face haggard. She had her hand wrapped up in the hem of her own shirt, red soaking through into the fabric.

“Oh gods.”

Aeris sighed. “That’s a no?”

All Tifa could do was stare in horror at Aeris’s hand. Which was bleeding. Because Tifa had bitten her.

She wordlessly pointed instead, because no amount of apology would ever be enough. Not for what she’d done.

Aeris looked down at her hand, then back up at Tifa. Then back down at her hand as the same thing seemed to dawn on her as well.

Aeris didn't have any residual mako from Cloud's bloodstream. Aeris had gotten nothing but Jenova, and Tifa had read enough of Shinra's science department reports to know what that meant. She would die soon, if she was lucky. Mako was an entire universe away, along with everything she'd ever known. Already she smelled --

...Well, as though she were bleeding. And very stressed out. But… even now. Even now, she was…

...fine. She was fine.

Tifa grabbed at Aeris’s hand, prompting the latter to yelp and pull away.

“Chew on your own fingers for a change!” she snapped.

“Aeris, let me see that right now.”

Aeris glared at her before reluctantly offering her hand.

It was inflamed and swollen, to be sure. And that was it. No veins spiderwebbing their way up her arm. No jaundiced skin. No sickly sweet smell of rot. She closed her eyes and healed it away -- and immediately paid for it as she slumped against the closet wall, exhausted -- and there was never any proof she’d ever been bitten in the first place.

“...Tifa, what --”

“You’re immune.”

“...What?”

“You’re immune,” repeated Tifa. “I drew blood. That was more than long enough to seep into your bloodstream. And you’re still human. You’re not even sick.”

Aeris was staring again. Tifa closed her eyes.

“Somehow, I don’t know how, you’re immune to Jenova,” she said. “Zack wasn’t special. It was you.”

“But -- but I can’t be,” she stammered. “I can’t. You said --”

“If Jenova came from here,” said Tifa, “and your mother made it… maybe she decided to inoculate you. Or maybe -- maybe everyone from my world, we don’t have the natural immunity people from your world would.”

“What about Zack, then?” asked Aeris.

“...I don’t know,” admitted Tifa. “But I know about you. I barely survived, even with the mako, and I’m telling you, you should be dying right now.”

“But how --”

Cissnei reappeared in the stairwell, clearing her throat.

“...If you two feel up to it, I just spent the last half hour microwaving someone’s cheese pita, and they are only going to stand around watching and blaming each other for so long,” she said. She glanced between the two of them. “Have I missed something?”

“Nothing,” said Aeris shortly. “Lead the way.”

Another two flights of stairs, and they emerged at the bottom in a smoky office space. Tifa could hear loud accusations coming from the back, and quickly snuck across the aisle between cubicles to find one with a computer, trying not to gag on the smell.

The computer sitting on the desk was much, much sleeker than anything she’d ever seen, with its thin, matte screen and weird little wireless sensor lump with the buttons on it next to the keyboard. Jessie would probably know what half this stuff was.

She missed Jessie too.

She blinked and realised Aeris had managed to gain access to the computer in the five seconds or so she’d zoned out.

“...You hacked it that fast?” she asked.

“I used the password,” said Aeris, smirking. “My project, remember? Let’s see here…”

Whatever Aeris was clicking on, it was completely beyond her expertise. There was a grid, and then a “server login”, and then another password, this one 30 characters and alphanumeric, that the owner of this computer had so helpfully written on a sticky note adhered to the monitor.

And then the words GAINSBOROUGH PROJECT were displayed across the screen in English lettering, clear as day.

There were a series of little boxes, styled to look like the tabs on a stack of folders, on the screen as well. Aeris clicked the first one available.

FINANCIAL REPORT, it said.

“No good,” said Cissnei. “Next one. We need a map or something.”

Aeris nodded, then hesitated.

“...Cissnei, look at the date,” she said. Cissnei leaned in closer, frowning.

TIfa looked as well, her eyes widening.

“That’s over three thousand years ago,” she said in disbelief.

“Oh -- well, no,” said Aeris, “we use a different calendar system than you, we’re not into the fifty-eighth century yet. Or perhaps you’re just farther ahead than we are? Though…” she frowned. “It is a bit odd that this has been going three years before the project even began.”

She opened another file up in the grid program and scrolled through it. It was mostly just numbers with vague ambiguous labels like “personnel” or “research”. Not particularly helpful. She closed it and went through to the most recent file available -- LIQUIDATION REPORT, dated a little over a year ago.

“...That’s around the time I was approached with a serious offer to finance the project,” said Aeris. She scrolled the page down so they could read the section under OVERVIEW titled A BRIEF MESSAGE FROM HER MAJESTY’S PRINCIPAL SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE.

While we acknowledge the slowed progress this year has yielded, we recognise that opportunities for continued improvement exist, and we embrace the challenges we must overcome. In light of various incidents associated with the continuation of this project, the Ministry of Defence has opted to discontinue the Gainsborough Project under its current management. The Other Information section of this report provides details surrounding confidentiality protocols regarding these incidents. Henceforth we will be proceeding with the project through public channels, via approval of Doctor Aeris Gainsborough’s proposal for funding and joint cooperation with the European Organization for Nuclear Research. We in the Ministry of Defence are grateful to the hard work put forth by the personnel stationed here, which has allowed us to continue our vital work in protecting the British Commonwealth and its interests.

“That’s a fun word they used there,” said Aeris.

“What word?” asked Tifa.

“‘Incidents’,” she said. “Probably tried to get a gate going themselves with what I made public and blew themselves to hell.”

“Will this help us find Angeal?” asked TIfa.

Aeris sighed. “...No. It won’t. So they went behind my back, what else is new.” She unplugged the computer with a grunt. “Let’s keep moving.”

They returned to the stairwell just as staff began drifting back to their desks.

“And now my damn computer’s not even working!” Tifa heard someone shout indignantly from further up the stairs and behind the door.

“We still don’t even know where Angeal is,” fumed Aeris. “What if they’ve moved him?”

“If he’s anywhere in this place,” said Tifa. “It would be further down here, wouldn’t it? The one place in the building with one entrance and exit, where they can easily stop anyone from getting out?”

“This is an awful lot of trouble for just one man, though,” mused Cissnei. “What do they expect him to do?”

“After seeing Cloud? Who even knows,” said Tifa. “We’re getting close, I can feel it.”

And then, five flights of stairs later, they emerged into a dead end.

Or what seemed like a dead end, anyway. The room was fairly small, about ten feet by ten feet, the cold steel walls unadorned but for a safety poster that said LEST WE FORGET, depicting the twisted, bloodstained wreckage of someone’s lab beneath. Behind her, she heard Aeris inhale sharply, but said nothing more.

At the far end of the room, there was a heavy steel door set into the wall with number pads and retina scanners and things Tifa didn’t even recognise lining the frame. Tifa jimmied the handle, and was unsurprised to find it firmly locked.

“Well… now what?” said Cissnei. “He is definitely behind that door. He has to be.”

“Think you could magic it open?” asked Aeris.

“Even if it weren’t exhausting, it would probably set off every alarm in the building,” said Tifa, “assuming they’re not on their way already.”

“What about that thing you did in the hotel?”

“What thing?” asked Cissnei.

“Same thing she did with the car,” said Aeris, “but with a door. Just go through this one.”

“I don’t… I’m not sure…” faltered Tifa.

“How hard can it be?” asked Aeris. “You didn’t have any trouble with it before.”

“It --” began Tifa, then stopped herself. It had been easy enough before, hadn’t it? Not even thinking about the door she was barrelling through, just that she fully intended to go through it. And before, when she’d slipped through solid glass on the airship, because it simply hadn’t occurred to her that she couldn’t.

“I’ll try,” said Tifa.

She put her hand against the doorway and took a deep breath in to focus, the way she’d seen Cloud do before his guts splattered across the hardwood floor --

No. Concentrate. She knew she could walk through that door. She pushed her hand against it.

Solid.

She sighed. Sephiroth had made it look so easy.

She took a few steps back, closed her eyes -- all three of them -- and knew she wasn’t going to walk into the door, that she was going to go through it, and stepped --

Cold metal enveloped her on all sides. She opened her eyes and found herself still in the door -- it really was that thick. She shimmied to the side, trying to stay focused even as she felt herself perfectly encased in solid steel, yet able to pass through it as though it weren’t there at all.

She moved herself into what she was fairly certain was the wall, catching a glimpse of something wrapped in plastic. But surely it wasn’t -- ?

She didn’t have time to wonder anymore as she stumbled out the other side, into yet another stairwell.

“I need all of you to be very calm,” she said immediately upon opening the door. “And keep your voices down. And stay behind me.”

“...Why is that?” asked Cissnei, stepping into the second, even more claustrophobic stairwell after Tifa, Aeris following behind after taking another look at the safety poster on the wall.

“Because this entire stairwell is rigged to explode,” said Tifa curtly, closing the door behind them. Best not to leave something like that open and risk an alarm going off, but…

“It what?”

“I caught a glimpse of it when I went through,” said Tifa, directing Aeris’s attention to the walls. “Plastic explosives all over this place. And look,” she added, beginning further down the stairs, pointing out little metal bumps set at even intervals along the wall -- nearly invisible, dismissible as just bolts unless you knew what to look for, “those are receptors for a signal. This entire stairwell can be collapsed in a second.”

“How do you even know this?” asked Aeris, staring at her in disbelief.

“If you knew how many bombs I helped Jessie build over the years…” she sighed. Jessie would get such a kick out of this. “Let’s keep moving. If we can find Angeal and leave quickly, they won’t have a reason to set them off, will they?”

“All this for one man,” said Cissnei again, shaking her head.

“But it can’t be,” said Aeris. “Think of how long this would have taken to build.”

“They had something similar for Cloud,” argued Tifa, but Aeris just shook her head.

“Yes, and it was a rush-job,” she said, as Tifa remembered there had still been construction vehicles parked outside the WRO even as they’d pulled up to the building. “I was there in that cell with him after he set it on fire. This” -- she gestured around them, to the tightly winding stairs and the little metal studs in the wall. “-- is not a rush job.”

Tifa could feel the tension in her shoulders unknotting with every step she descended. It was the silence, she decided. It helped to get her thoughts in order.

And the music wasn’t all that bad to listen to, either…

It was much, much easier to slip through the second door and unlock it from the other side. The others emerged from the darkness of the stairwell into a well-lit office, this one significantly smaller, blinking at the sudden brightness.

This was the sort of lab she was used to, she decided. Lavishly decorated for the higher-ups, claustrophobic, and containing one stunned-looking technician that started to reach for a button on the desk next to him.

Tifa lunged and tackled him out of the chair first, pinning his arms behind his back. He struggled for all of three seconds before Aeris trained the gun she’d stolen on him.

“I would think very carefully about what I said next, if I were you,” said Cissnei. The man gave no sign that he noticed. Probably because he didn’t.

Cissnei seemed to realise this about the same time Tifa opened her mouth to tell her, and sunk into a nearby chair to sulk.

“Right, then,” said Aeris in a chipper voice. “This your workstation?” She gestured with the gun to the computer. She was holding it wrong, Tifa noted dimly.

The lab technician nodded.

“Mind if I have a quick look about?” she asked. “Thanks.”

This one was already unlocked, fortunately. There was a staff email already on the screen to boot.

We really don’t have much choice but to cooperate with Dr. Hewley and use the information he provides us. If he manages to bring us a viable sample, there’s nothing to worry about. If he doesn’t, he can be used to cultivate a less stable one. He’s too close to ground zero to risk sabotaging.

Tifa stopped reading. “Plans fell through with Zack, did they?” she spat. The technician swallowed.

“...What’s wrong with your face? I thought they stopped testing that,” was all he managed to get out. Tifa rolled her eyes, which felt incredibly weird now, and re-pinned him to a desk to free up a hand.

“What I can’t figure out,” said Aeris, as Tifa began tying the man to a chair with his own shoelaces, “is how they knew they’d want a sample in the first place.”

“You could ask him,” said Cissnei, gesturing to the technician.

“Don’t want to spend too much time here,” said Tifa. Then she paused. “...Testing what?”

The man swallowed again and said nothing.

Tifa tightened the last knot with a decisive tug and returned to the computer. She was still a little shaky with written English, but the writing system at least used a lot of symbols found in Standard. She hesitated, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

“The search is going to be the little bar with the magnifying glass,” supplied Aeris helpfully, gesturing with the gun.

“Thank you,” said Tifa. “Please put that away before it goes off.” She navigated the little arrow over to the box like she’d seen them do upstairs as Aeris gingerly tucked the gun into her belt once more, and typed in JENOVA.

No results. Of course not. Where would they have even learned the name?

“...Symbiote, maybe?” offered Aeris, as Cissnei sniggered loudly in response. “Well, what else are they going to call it?” she said indignantly.

It did return one result, entitled RE: Re: Re: FW: Fw: Fw: Fw: Please stop making Spider-Man jokes, this is a federally funded project, not a public school theatre production. It didn’t look terribly helpful.

“What’s the English word for this?” asked Tifa, tapping underneath her third eye to get the point across.

Aeris looked a bit uncomfortable. “A mutation. M -- U -- T -- A -- yes, like that.”

Several documents showed up this time, all referring in one way or another. The most recent one seemed to be from around a year ago, and declared itself a proposal to the Ministry of Defence. She opened it and began reading.

BUDGET PROPOSAL

No use beating about the bush; this is a bloody waste of time.

Not one single test subject we’ve administered Gainsborough matter to has survived the entire time we’ve been doing this. The only ones that didn’t die of rapid onset cancer were the ones that went into psychosis and committed suicide before the mutations had time to progress far enough. We are wasting time, money, and personnel. I apologise for the frank tone of this letter, but every day we fail to produce a second sample with the same level of stability is another day we risk the containment on the first one failing. Bottom line: Clearly we are missing something here, and the risk performing an actual field test is entirely too high. Shut it down before circumstances shut it down for us.

RE: BUDGET PROPOSAL

Approved, pending further discussion. Maintain current sample. See attached table for the upcoming quarter’s budget allocation.

Tifa read as slowly as she dared, given the circumstances. “They tried to start their own Jenova Project,” she said. “Doesn’t seem to have worked out.”

“With what sample?” said Aeris, frowning. “Part of the reason they wanted Zack so badly is because they didn’t have one, I thought.”

“Can we come back to this after we’ve found Angeal?” said Cissnei delicately. “If there was one employee down here, there are bound to be more.”

“Right -- sorry,” said Tifa. Her head throbbed again. Mother was closer.

“Borrowing this,” said Aeris, relieving the technician of his badge.

“This way,” said Tifa decisively, pointing to one of the doors. Aeris shrugged and swiped it open.

The connecting room was much bigger -- a few large screens adorned the wall, currently displaying some sort of chart that looked vaguely like the one she’d seen in the fifth ring.

Sitting below them was Angeal. Flanking him on either side were two armed guards.

Tifa lunged before they had time to draw their weapons. The first one was slammed into the wall hard enough to embed him in it. The second she rounded on immediately, wrenching him over her shoulder in a suplex. She heard something crunch as he impacted the ground.

Brittle, brittle bones in humans. This was how Cloud felt all the time, then, always surrounded by brittle, brittle bones and hot rushing red and the crackle of electricity along every wet nerve --

“Tifa?” Aeris was next to her now, waving her hand in her face. She turned her head to look. Every movement felt slick and oiled, and every tendon in her body felt pulled taut with energy.

“I’m fine,” she said. She smiled to prove it, then turned to a stunned Angeal.

He looked exhausted beyond belief, but his face lit up the second Aeris threw her arms around his middle.

“You really shouldn’t have come here,” said Angeal tiredly, returning the hug. “Someone will have heard that.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, “and you can thank Cissnei, it was her idea.”

Angeal blinked. “Cissnei is…”

Cissnei sighed and reached out to shake his shoulder. Tifa’s eyes stung for a moment as --

Well, she wasn’t sure what she just saw, but she was certain her brain never wanted to see it again.

Angeal acted like he didn’t notice.

“He isn’t infected,” said Tifa, kneading her forehead. Everything still felt so weird. “He can’t see you.”

“Aeris can,” said Cissnei unenthusiastically.

“Aeris is…” Tifa trailed off uncertainly.

“Who can’t I see?” asked Angeal. “What’s going on?”

“Cissnei,” said Aeris. “She survived. But she’s -- out of sync, or something --”

“The people here have a term for it, apparently,” he said. “R-shifted. There’s a lot of new vocabulary I’ve had to catch up with over the last couple days…”

“You can fill us in when we get out of here,” said Tifa. “Cissnei, see if you can check up ahead next time so we don’t run into anyone else --”

“Wait, I can’t leave,” said Angeal. “Not without --”

“I admire your dedication to the project, but we really don’t have time to...” began Aeris, before Angeal shook his head.

“No, really,” he said. “I can’t leave.”

He lifted the leg of his pants, then, revealing a device clamped onto it that looked like a particularly chunky house arrest bracelet.

“If I ever left the premises, they would set this off,” said Angeal. “The guards you… killed, I think one of them had it on him, but I can’t be sure.”

“If it’s not on them?” asked Tifa, as she knelt and began searching pockets.

“Head of security, maybe,” said Angeal. “I’m obviously not kept in the loop.”

“Worst comes to worst, we can swing by upstairs and grab it on the way out,” said Aeris. “I’m sure they’re still trying to find who smashed all their cameras.”

“What were you working on?” asked Cissnei, leaning over the computer he’d been sitting at.

“...Cissnei wants to know what you were working on,” said Aeris, as Cissnei gave an irritated huff.

“Looking for another waypoint,” said Angeal. “They don’t believe me when I say there simply isn’t one anymore. They want to replicate what happened five years ago, in controlled circumstances. It’s been their goal the whole time.”

“And we finally accomplished it,” said Aeris glumly. “Lucky us.”

“Yes -- well, they had to,” said Angeal. “It’s a miracle they even got as far as failing, given the language barrier. Cissnei Sauvage wasn’t an accidental redundancy, she was a deliberate hire.”

“What do you mean?” asked Cissnei, at the same time Tifa dropped the corpse she’d tugged out of the wall and asked the same thing.

“I mean they have their own source of Gainsborough matter -- what they’re calling Jenova -- and he’s been very uncooperative, and they’ve basically given up on him. They think he understands some English by now, but he’s --”

“...’He’?” asked Tifa, dread settling into her stomach.

“There’s another man they’re keeping down here,” said Angeal. “He was infected when they found him -- I don’t know the particulars. They attempted a second bridging experiment based on partial data -- what your parents used, Aeris, and what you compiled yourself, before Zack was brought in to fine tune things. He showed up when they tried.”

“Great -- where is he, we’re breaking him out too,” said Aeris immediately.

“Aeris,” warned Angeal.

“No -- he’s here because of me. You’re here because of me. All of this is here because of me!”

“He won’t be easy to get to,” said Angeal. “And he’s barely even alive.”

“What does he look like?” interjected Tifa. Not Cloud -- it couldn’t be Cloud, it was impossible, but…

“I only caught a glimpse,” said Angeal. “Mostly I just heard audio logs. It was all in Standard, mind you -- they have an entire library of the stuff compiled at this point. I guess this time around, since they already knew they’d need a translator...”

Cissnei looked as though she were either about to start laughing or throwing things. Tifa pressed onwards.

“So -- so they start injecting people with C -- with his blood,” she said, her breathing beginning to quicken. “Then what? Then they just -- get bored?”

“Something like that,” said Angeal, “but you have to remember, they’ve been at this for a while, since he showed up. No progress to speak of. All they know is, he’s got the pattern we’ve been using the whole time, the same one that seems to come from the space in between universes, and that it does funny things to people that make them awfully hard to kill.”

“Show me,” said Tifa. He was here. Cloud was here. She was so close, she could feel it -- this is where he had disappeared to. Aeris had already said she’d been doing things out of order, using Jenova. Was it that much of a stretch to think Cloud had somehow wiggled his way through time with Her too?

“I will check the halls,” said Cissnei. Aeris wordlessly swiped the next door open to allow her through.

“Is there anything else you know about him?” asked Aeris. “He’s been here for three years?”

Angeal shook his head then. “Just two, I think. Give or take. Apparently he’s given up on escaping, but every now and then someone gets careless and another body turns up. Security’s going to be very heavy.”

Cissnei returned a few moments later, knocking on the door. Aeris buzzed her back in.

“Six guards,” she said. “Big guns. And a bigger door.” She looked at Tifa. Aeris did as well.

“...Six is a lot,” she said. “If we had some sort of distraction, maybe, but we’ll be walking down a hall right at them.”

“You have magic, though,” said Aeris, raising an eyebrow.

“And it gets harder and harder to keep using it,” said Tifa. “And we still have to get back out, and they’ll definitely notice us then, if they haven’t already. It’d be so much easier if I had a -- a smoke bomb, or a grenade, or…”

Her eyes settled on Angeal.

Perhaps it was a bit unfair, she thought a few minutes later, as she wrenched the metal device off Angeal’s leg and hurled it down the hall, where it exploded an instant later, setting off nearly every alarm in the building and rattling the steel door the guards were now scrambling away from as they dove for cover. She’d never liked playing dirty in fights no matter what Cloud or Reeve’s thoughts on the matter were. Zangan had taught her better than that. Still, she considered, as she spin-kicked another guard across the room before lunging for a third, every fight was an unfair fight now. The only fair fight she would be having, she realised, flipping a fourth guard over her shoulder and wrenching his gun from him, where she shot another two before slamming the stock into its owner’s head, would be with Cloud. Now it purely would be a contest of pure skill -- none of him holding back that bullet-dodging speed, or the kind of strength that let her easily break out of the chokehold the last guard had her in before driving her elbow into his gut and following it up with another kick. In terms of hand-to-hand, in a contest of pure skill, there was no way in hell Cloud would ever beat her. Not anymore. He was close. Cloud was close. He was right there. She could feel it.

They’d have their Reunion.

She blinked hard, forcing herself to pay attention to whatever Angeal was saying over the din of the alarms. He was pointing at the door.

Right. Yes. She went rummaging through what was hopefully her last set of corpse pockets for today, taking a badge off one of the fallen guards and unlocking the door.

“Someone will have heard that,” said Cissnei nervously. “I’ll keep watch outside. We can’t stay here.”

"He should be in there," said Angeal. "Just be careful. Doesn't exactly seem to be friendly."

The door lurched open as Tifa slowly shoved it aside, and immediately bristled as she felt a chill run through her, before the tugging sensation in the back of her head intensified tenfold. Whatever was in there knew she was here, and wasn't happy about it.

"Hello?" she said, cautiously taking her first step into the room. Faintly, she could see a figure hunched in the corner. The sound of weak, laboured breathing echoed off the unadorned walls of the cell. "Can you hear me?"

"We've come to help you," said Aeris. "My name's Aeris. What's been done here isn't right, and we're here to fix it. We're breaking you out."

That got their attention. The figure shifted in the corner, and slowly, shakily raised a head of grimy white hair.

"Can you stand?" asked Tifa gently, taking another step closer to it, before stopping abruptly. Something wasn't right, she just couldn't put her finger on it.

"What's your name?" asked Aeris.

"Tell me," rasped a weary voice in perfect Standard, "why in the world would you care what my name is?"

Tifa opened her mouth to reply, but the words died in her throat the instant the figure raised its face and glowered blearily at her through its dirty hair with a pair of poisonous green eyes Tifa had seen a thousand times over in her nightmares.

"No way," she croaked out.

Sephiroth froze.

"...I know that voice..." he said slowly. Tifa was rooted to the spot, torn between wanting to rip him to shreds and wanting to run out of this place and never look back.

"Look," Aeris continued, oblivious, in the best Standard she could manage. "I really think -- I mean, you don't want to stay here, surely? I can help you. I... am I saying this right?" she said, turning to Tifa. "You'd think he'd be more enthusiastic about this..."

Tifa didn't reply. Aeris looked between her and Sephiroth in confusion.

"...You," was all Sephiroth said as he stared at them.

"Do you -- do you know each other?" asked Aeris nervously.

"You," he said again in disbelief.

The recognition in his face was tempered with equal parts utter fury and absolute shock. And then Tifa realised he wasn't even looking at her anymore.

He was looking at Aeris.

Chapter 46: Reeve Gets a Drink From the Cooler

Notes:

I'M NOT DEAD YET I SWEAR

Short chapter this time, but a necessary one. Finally got back on the writing horse, feel real good about it this time. Took me long enough. Thank you so so much to Belderiver, la_regina_scrive, and Denebola_Leo for proofreading and betaing!

Also, check out this incredible fanart of Tifa in the car with Shithead from Belderiver. Absolutely one of my favourites, I fucking love it, thank you thank you thank you.

Behind her, Jessie could hear Barret pacing. The actual phone call he'd been pacing for had ended twenty minutes ago, and with the both of them too burnt out to actually talk to each other, Barret's anxious footsteps were the only other noise accompanying the crackle of the fire they'd built a couple miles out from where they'd parked the Shera.

"How's she doing?" asked Jessie, prodding one of the logs with a stick.

"About as well as she can," said Barret. "Keeps wanting to help, I keep telling her no."

"School any better?"

Barret shook his head. "Her grades are falling. That was the teacher I was talking to. I don't want her gettin' behind, but..." he sighed. "Maybe we'll homeschool. They're sayin' I should get her in therapy, at least."

Jessie did not reply, and went back to prodding the fire.

"Yuffie and Nanaki shoulda been back by now," muttered Barret. "They were supposed to meet us here. He was supposed to keep her on task."

"They're probably just screwing around," said Jessie. "Let them. Gods know they need it."

"We got two idiots missing already," said Barret. "I ain't messin' with four."

"Ten more minutes," argued Jessie. "Then I'll call them myself. Promise."

Barret just grunted and went back to pacing. Jessie tipped back in her chair and looked up at the sky.

It was still red right now. It had come and gone throughout the day, bright and sunny one minute, burning ochre the next. Sometimes, if she looked closely, she could see a faint pinprick of light in the distance, set in against the red like a jewel, slowly growing brighter every time.

Astronomical scans had confirmed there was nothing there, according to the news reports over the radio. But damned if it wasn't convincing.

Her phone rang, then, Grandpa Fuck displaying neatly on the caller ID. She flipped it open and sighed.

"Any luck?"

"Found a campsite."

Jessie sat up straight in her chair. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Northern end 'a Wutai." A pause. "Place looks pretty rough, though."

"What do you mean?"

"There's been a fight. Got a tree all smashed up, and there's places in the dirt..." There was a pause. "I don't think Cloud's travelling alone, and I don't think it's Tifa that's with him."

"Who else would be with him? Maybe... I mean things were always a little strained between them, right?" asked Jessie.

"He wouldn't lift a finger against her even if his life depended on it," said Cid. "And even if Tifa decided to beat the shit outta him... there's too much of a struggle here. But no gunfire, 's far as I can see. And they had time to pack up camp from the looks of it, but there’s no body and no bullet holes anywhere."

"So then -- who the hell is with him?"

"Notta clue."

"...I'm passing the phone to Barret," said Jessie after a moment. "Hold on."

Cid relayed the story to Barret as well while she waited, Barret grilling him for further details afterwards. There had been an abandoned shack nearby, but no signs of entry. The remainder of some prepackaged snacks that Cid swore on his life had been taken from his fridge. No sign of anyone nearby, or which direction they'd gone in.

"A lead's a lead," said Barret. "We'll rendezvous with Yuffie in a bit and meet you at your coordinates. Don't go gettin' yourself killed."

The remaining six minutes came and went in silence. Barret paced the whole time. Jessie lit her stick on fire, blew it out, and lit it again.

"So what now, boss?" asked Jessie.

"Thinkin' about moving," said Barret. "Not sure where to. Girl's got no friends. Wutai's got more kids her age, but she'd have to learn the language. It'd just be one more wall."

"I meant about the..." Jessie gestured vaguely about herself.

"Oh." Barret cleared his throat. "Head on back. Have dinner ready by the time everyone decides to show up."

Jessie tossed her poking stick into the fire and stood, working out the many, many stress kinks in her neck. She dug through her pocket and speed-dialed A Dirty Thief.

She picked up after the fourth ring. "Whaaaaaaaaaaat?" she moaned.

"You and Red were supposed to be back half an hour ago," said Jessie. "What the hell are you two doing?"

"Aw, crap... lost track of the time," said Yuffie.

“Doing what? You’re supposed to be searching!”

"I was, I swear! Whatever. I found a campsite, a little south of the capitol."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And then we lost it."

"You what --"

"No, shut up. Seriously. It was there, I swear it was, and then I blinked and it was gone. Nanaki says the scent trail just up and vanished, too."

Jessie switched the call to speakerphone and gestured for Barret to listen to Yuffie’s description as well. Easier than just repeating the whole thing again.

“Sounds like the same one that Cid found,” said Jessie. “Except his didn’t disappear.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know, but… if it vanished, it can’t have been really there, right? Like that fucked up thing Cid saw. What was that last part about…?”

"I'm telling you, someone was here. And I think it was more than one."

"How the fuck do you lose a whole campsite, though?"

"Same way you walk through a sheet of solid glass and fall to your death," Yuffie snapped. "I don't know. Weird Jenova shit. Did you hear the other thing I said? About the fact that we're tracking two people now?"

"How could you tell?"

"'Cause they got into a fight."

Jessie felt a thrill of unease. "What kind of fight?"

"Not a big one, as far as Cloud's concerned," said Yuffie. "I think I only really saw one busted tree. But... I mean, there was enough blood for Nanaki to find it. But like… Cloud’s little, right?”

"Said he prefers the term bantamweight."

"Ugh. Of course he does. Look -- we found the camp, and the damage seemed... kind of big, is all. For one guy throwing a tantrum and punching a tree, or the area where they set up the bedding. Especially since he does that weird ball thing when he sleeps."

"So... there's two people," said Jessie. "And neither one is Tifa."

"That is what I just said, yes."

"So then where the fuck's Tifa?"

"I don't know!" snapped Yuffie. "Maybe you should find her if you're so smart."

In the background of the call, Jessie heard a stern, "Yuffie" from what was presumably Nanaki.

"Whatever... I'll call you guys back if we find anything else."

As Jessie opened her mouth to reply, Yuffie hung up without another word.

"We know he's alive, at least," offered Jessie, as they began the long walk back to the Shera.

"Mm."

"...You ought to start dating again," said Jessie.

"The hell you just say?"

"I said you should start dating again, boss," said Jessie. "Do something for you for a change."

"Marlene --"

"Could also use more responsible adults in her life," cut in Jessie. "No shame in admitting you're in over your head. Most parents probably don't have to deal with this crap."

Barret sighed. "Hasn't been time."

"I can cover your shifts or whatever," said Jessie. "If we find Cloud."

"Please," said Barret, rolling his eyes. "You could barely handle him the one week."

"Yeah, well, between you and him and basically everyone I know, I've got a lot of experience with idiot-wrangling," replied Jessie blithely. "Do you know how many times Biggs asked me how my bomb had a timer on it if I didn't use an alarm clock?"

"Once," said Barret. "I was there --"

"It was more than zero, which is frankly kinda sad," said Jessie. Her face fell a little. "Guess it's just us left, huh? I didn't even think about it."

"Huh?"

"Of the original Avalanche," said Jessie. "Me, you, Wedge, Tifa, Biggs, and Cloud. We're the only ones left." She laughed humourlessly. "I thought for sure I'd get myself killed first."

"...Let's get back to the ship," said Barret shortly.

Jessie stopped to take another look at the sky, now a nondescript blue, before jogging to catch up with Barret.

 

---

 

"The stress is getting to you," said Nanaki, as Yuffie closed her phone and pocketed it. She rolled her eyes.

"What am I, Reeve?" asked Yuffie. "I'm just -- frustrated."

"Yes. I can tell. It's very apparent."

"Shove off."

"It's not like you disappeared the camp yourself," added Nanaki, trotting next to her as they trekked their way back to the ship.

"Yeah, but... it's gone. Like, at least last time we had something to show for it all."

"If you'll recall," said Nanaki, "last time, we weren't the ones doing the navigating. It was all sightings and Cloud. This time, Cloud has not been sighted anywhere at all, and he is not here to navigate for us."

"Yeah, that," grumbled Yuffie. "Him and his freaky Reunion thing. But then that went and screwed us..."

Something in her head clicked into place -- something she couldn't believe none of them had thought of before.

"Yuffie?"

"...over...."

It was obvious. It was so, so stupidly obvious. They'd started in Nibelheim, for fuck's sake.

"Reunion...."

"Yuffie?" There was a note of alarm in Nanaki's voice now.

"No -- you idiot, it's Reunion!" she said excitedly. "I gotta -- hurry up, we need to tell Barret and Cid."

Yuffie all but sprinted back to the airship, and barely had enough air in her lungs to choke out her answer upon arrival.

"It's Reunion," she gasped, her throat too dry for her to be intelligible.

Barret stared at her, then turned to Nanaki for an explanation.

"Don't ask me," he said. "This was firmly her idea."

"Get on the ship," grunted Barret. "You're runnin' late as it is."

They lifted off without another word as Yuffie chugged an entire bottle of water from the cooler, Barret staring at her expectantly the whole time.

"It's Reunion," she said, the second she could breathe. She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on what she was going to say so the motion of the airship didn't make her puke.

"We never found Tifa's body," she explained. "Which means either it was eaten, or it walked off somewhere. And Cloud -- he's been more or less heading in a straight line, all the way across the western continent, right?"

"He's looking for political asylum in Wutai," said Barret.

"So then why'd he go past the capitol? Not like he doesn't know where it is," she retorted. "He's still looking for something. And I think he knows where to find it, too." She took out her phone and scrolled through to a stored picture of the campsites they'd tracked so far. "He's not doing this rationally -- he's being drawn to Tifa. They're both infected, she's definitely got the stronger will of the two. It's Reunion instinct."

"...Maybe so," said Barret. "But that don't change much. We're still in Wutai looking for the both of them."

"They're not going to stay in Wutai," said Yuffie. "She's heading for Edge. And if she's headed there, so is Cloud."

There was a moment where all that was audible were the hum of the airship's engines. She drummed her fingers on her leg impatiently, waiting for Barret to be impressed.

He was not impressed.

"Yuffie... think about it. Why the hell would Cloud escape towards the people trying to lobotomise him?"

"I told you, he's not thinking rationally!" said Yuffie. "Cloud justified all kinds of garbage when Sephiroth was luring him to the Northern Crater. 'Quick, Barret, give me the Black Materia even though I just told you not to do that so I can make sure Sephiroth never, ever gets it!' Though, I guess you didn't question that either, huh?"

Barret grunted noncommittally before pressing on. "But then why would Tifa --"

"Why not? It's not like she's wanted. She got lost, the safest thing she coulda done was go home. But..." she began to pace, as it continued to click into place faster and faster. "She could've been injured. If she had any sense she'd stay put, but maybe she didn't since there's worms in her brain now. So she'd do the next best thing, and go somewhere where we'd be sure to find her. She'd go home."

An image of Cloud sitting next to her on the bed, tears streaking down his face as he clutched his phone, popped into her head. She pushed it away.

"This is a little bit much..." began Barret.

"No, it's not!" said Yuffie. "It makes perfect sense. He finds her, we find him. Look at the way the camps line up --"

"Cloud might be dumb enough to escape towards Edge, but Tifa would've at least stayed put so we could locate her," said Barret. "Sorry, but I ain't backing this one."

"But -- whoever he's travelling with -- what if they’re both infected? Or, what if he’s taken Cloud prisoner, and he was trying to escape? What if it’s someone from the WRO? We already know he’s been shot, they could’ve followed him out there, or --"

"I said what I said," replied Barret, and the edge in his voice, rather than ending the conversation, made her blood boil all the more.

"God, it's like you don't even want to find --"

"Yuffie," warned Nanaki, glancing between her and Barret worriedly. "I think we should all --"

"As a reminder to everyone on board, we'll be touching down in about five minutes," chimed in the pilot, cutting them all off completely.

"...Why don't you go let Reeve know how far we've gotten," said Nanaki quietly. "Please don't forget, we have good news too."

Yuffie snapped her mouth shut, mulling it over for a few minutes, and slunk off to find Reeve, Nanaki in tow.

She was sure of it -- with the way Cloud had been acting, with Tifa being compelled through the glass, it was hard to believe Jenova hadn't played a role in all of this too. Maybe... maybe the third person was actually compelling Tifa and Cloud? And she could be following him? They still didn't really know whose shirt they had found.

But still... maybe she was wrong. Maybe they would find... well, someone. Either way, they had a lead.

She marched up to the conference room and shoved her way in.

"Good news!" said Yuffie, as the door swung open. "Sorta, anyway -- depends on how you..."

The words died in her throat. Reeve was there, as expected -- as well as two men she didn't recognise, both sporting badges identifying them as WRO volunteers.

"What are they doing here?" said Yuffie. "When did they get here? Who let them on the ship?"

"...Wait outside for me," said Reeve, nodding curtly to the men. They left the room, leaving him alone with Nanaki and herself.

Yuffie crossed her arms and scowled, waiting. Beside her, Nanaki's fur was bristling.

"...Do you know why I joined Avalanche?" said Reeve at last.

"Because Shinra ordered you to," said Nanaki.

"That's why I spied on Avalanche," said Reeve. "Not why I joined."

He took a sip from a can of beer he must have gotten from Cid's cooler. It was weird, seeing him drink something that wasn't coffee. Distinctly off. As was the look he was giving her.

"It's one thing," he began, "to see the numbers, and think what a shame it was that this was the price of progress. It was another to speak to all of you -- see the cost for myself. Decide whether or not, if you, or Cloud, or Jessie had been one of those numbers -- if it was worth it then. What did it matter, if four hundred thousand people a year died of mako poisoning in Midgar? What did it matter, if the equivalent of Nibelheim's population were gunned down in Wutai by Shinra occupying forces every year? What did it matter, if every day people went missing, and more and more remains wound up in the Science Archives every time?

"I thought it was for the greater good. I didn't even know the meaning of the word." He took another sip of beer. Yuffie tapped her fingers impatiently.

"Barret realised the same thing too, you'll recall --"

"I know," she interrupted. "You told him -- what's a few casualties to some people is everything to those that died."

Reeve nodded. "And it's still true."

"What's your point?"

"Do you remember the time Cloud tried to kill you in the Temple of the Ancients? He would've broken your neck if we hadn't realised what he was doing in time."

Yuffie stiffened at the memory. "That wasn't his fault! It wasn't, Sephiroth made him --"

"I know that," said Reeve tiredly. "But it happened. Just like this is happening now. Everything that's been happening has been because of Cloud. Because of what he is, what he's compelled to do. Just look at what it's done to Tifa.

"I've taken a step back. And I've considered... how many acceptable casualties is Cloud worth?"

Nanaki began growling around the same time Yuffie felt dead weight settle into her gut.

"The WRO has offered me my job back, in light of recent events. I've accepted."

Yuffie reached for her shuriken, but Nanaki had already lunged. Reeve was ready for both of them, however, and he collided with the barrier Reeve had erected in midair -- he had fought alongside them for months on end too, after all, even if half of it had been done by proxy.

"You two-faced piece of shit!" she screamed, throwing her shuriken at him anyway, watching it thunk uselessly to the ground.

"I haven't forgotten the things I learned four years ago," he said firmly, as the two men from the WRO reentered, guns drawn. "You have to trust --"

"Is that what you told him?" said Nanaki, teeth bared. "Is that what you told Cloud? Because he was foolish enough to do that in the first place?"

"I -- we -- don't aim to kill him," said Reeve. "But he needs to be detained. For his safety and ours."

Yuffie simply stared at her shuriken, refusing to look at him.

"...Fine."

"What?"

"Fine!" she shouted. "Fine then! Fuck off! We didn't need you! We don't need any of you! We'll find Cloud and Tifa on our own, and they can live with us in Wutai, and -- and we'll be a real family again, and if you or anyone from the WRO tries to come into my country I'll have you shot!" She spat at his feet.

"C'mon, Nanaki," she said, turning on her heel and shoving roughly past the WRO workers. Behind her, she heard him hesitate before following in her wake. Reeve did not move to stop either one.

She didn't say a word as she stormed out past them, down the steps of that awful airship that kept making her sick anyway, and back outside.

"You shouldn't have said that," said Nanaki. "The part about having him shot. You're royalty, you can't say things if you don't mean --"

"I meant it," said Yuffie venomously. "That's the third time he's sold us out, and I'm sick of it. That's probably why Cloud -- why he's like this now. It was him and his stupid group, stressing him out."

"Yuffie..."

"I'm serious, Red, he's a dirty sellout and we shoulda seen it coming."

"Because you've always been such a loyal member of the team yourself," quipped Nanaki, trotting on ahead.

"At least one of us has heard of honour among thieves," she replied indignantly. "Reeve's never heard of honour in his life."

"But it seemed..." began Nanaki, before deciding better of it and shaking his head. "I believe you. And you will need my nose. Just..."

"I'll be careful."

"I'm sure you will," said Nanaki in a tone of voice that suggested he believed no such thing. "Tell me, how do you intend to get to the eastern continent given you have abandoned our only method of transportation?"

"That's not my only method of transportation," said Yuffie, grinning wickedly as she located the path back to the capitol.

Nanaki stopped dead in his tracks for a moment as the sentence slowly registered. And then, as it registered, she heard him sprint ahead of her.

"No. Yuffie, you can't, think of the trouble it will cause down the road -- Yuffie, you're not listening -- Yuffie, think about what you're --!"

 

---

 

"And... you're certain Lord Kisaragi cleared this himself?" asked the airship pilot again, for the tenth time. "Can I ask what kind of diplomatic mission this is?"

"Classified," said Yuffie, in the most heiress-y, regal-sounding voice she had, as Nanaki paced anxiously behind her. "Reeve himself requested my presence in Edge, but I wasn't able to rendezvous with him in time to catch the airship."

"How long will this take?"

“A while,” admitted Yuffie, “but I’ll be with the WRO, so no need to wait up for me. You can return to Wutai after you drop me off. Just a quick puddle jump.”

The pilot glanced at his commanding officer, who looked equally uncertain about the fact that Lady Kisaragi had waltzed into Wutai's only airbase and pulled rank.

"If this is another trip to Junon to piss off Lord Kisaragi..." began the pilot, who was at least a good twenty years her senior, before she cut him off.

"This is life and death, and it has to do with that shit in the sky," she said, mustering up the most serious face she could. It wasn't exactly a lie, either. "Every second we stand here talking about it is another second I don't have to turn things around before it's too late. Now, are you gonna get me to northern Condor or what?"

The airship, once it took off, was hardly as impressive as a Shinra-backed, Cid-led project like the Highwind, or the Shera, which had been cobbled together with its remains. Wutai didn't have much left in the way of intercontinental infrastructure once Shinra had been through with them, and anything that they did have was therefore acquired in the last few years with a worldwide shortage on just about everything in effect. It was barely much bigger than a helicopter and not particularly fast, and Nanaki paced anxiously the entire time they were flying.

"They'll have noticed you haven't come back by now," said Nanaki.

"Yeah," replied Yuffie unconcernedly, feet draped over the back of the seat in front of her.

"They won't be happy I left. I'm the only one left that can track anyone by scent. They'll have to use dogs now."

"Yup."

"There are so few of us left. Cloud is gone. Tifa is gone. Reeve is probably being thrown off the airship the second they return to Edge."

"Mmhm."

"You're going to cause an international incident as soon as anyone finds out. Which they will. You're risking your entire future."

"Yeah."

"Yuffie, what if you're wrong? What if this jeopardises the search too greatly? Spreads us too thin?"

Yuffie sighed and forced herself to sit up.

"Cloud would do the same thing for us," she asserted.

"Split apart the group at the worst possible time?" he said flatly.

"No, take risks for us."

"Risks like this?"

"Yeah. I know he would. I owe it to him."

"...What is it about Cloud," asked Nanaki, his tail lashing irritably from side to side as the ship hummed around them, creating the sense that the very air around them was annoyed with Yuffie as he was, "that causes all his worst qualities to rub off on everyone else?"

"You --!"

"-- are correct. As usual." He sniffed and jumped onto a pair of seats, sprawling across them. "He's been a terrible influence on you. Wake me up when we land."

And before she'd even begun to figure out what to say to give him a piece of her mind, he'd already dropped off to sleep.

Stupid cat.

 

---

 

"What the fuck do you mean, you can't match it?!"

"Sir, please stop shouting at me, or I will hang up this phone."

Cid took a moment to take another drag of his cigarette in a vain attempt to soothe his already shot nerves. The nurse on the other end of the line continued.

"So then, whose shirt was it?"

"We don't know," said the nurse. "It's from someone that's infected, yes, but -- it's at best only a partial genetic match."

"Could be ‘cause of Jenova," said Cid, "couldn't it?"

"There are other discrepancies," she replied. "It's got a Y-chromosome, for starters, and Ms. Lockhart's medical records indicate she used to donate eggs."

"So it's Cloud's then," said Cid. "Coulda just told me that."

"It's not his either."

"...Eh?"

"We compared it to the samples we took during his stay here. What sequences could be identified as human-adjacent don't match up either. Testosterone levels are higher than the ones we had on file, and there's regional genetic markers here that typically aren't found in people north of Gongaga --"

"So then who the hell's out there with him?!"

"I don't know, sir. I'm going to hang up now. Feel free to have someone else call us back. Have a good day."

"Wait, shit -- !"

Click.

Cid groaned and closed his cell phone. The first time in forever that he actually managed to get reception, and it was for what seemed to be a dead end. Apparently the hospital had been trying to contact him about that for a while, too -- when he'd finally gotten a signal he found there were no less than 43 unopened voicemails waiting for him. Cid listened to the first one imploring him to call them back and deleted the rest en masse. They made all this fuss about contacting him, and then they had the balls to get snippy with him when he completely understandably got a little bit frustrated with all the mumbo jumbo they were throwing around.

He sighed. At least his phone call with Yuffie wouldn't be unnecessarily melodramatic. He flipped open his phone again and began to dial.

Notes:

shhhhh this sequence was always here what are you talking about

Chapter 47: Cloud Gets A Haircut

Notes:

A long long time ago I used to update this thing weekly. About time I picked back up again. (Watch me immediately beef it next week.)

Thank you to la_regina_scrive for betaing this thing.

This chapter contains references to non-consensual sexual behaviour and discussion of suicidal ideation.

Zack awoke, and for one wild moment expected himself to be at home in bed. The shock of picking the sleep out of his eyes and opening them to find an unfamiliar ceiling above him had him lying in bed for another few minutes, long after he'd remembered the current circumstances he'd found himself in.

He was in some sort of abandoned medical clinic, in an actual bed, albeit a bit dusty one. He had psychic powers now. He'd used them to witness... some things he wasn't sure he wanted to think about, and he'd used actual, real magic to heal a gunshot wound after Cloud had tried to kill himself.

Those last two points warred for attention in his head, keeping him in bed for another five minutes as he struggled to address either one. Each one alone would've been enough to keep him in dazed contemplation for at least an hour. Eventually, the latter won out, and he dragged himself out into the hallway and into the lobby they'd entered from. Hopefully he hadn't done anything rash while Zack had been asleep. He felt pretty good about the promise he'd managed to wring out of Cloud, at least.

Which was why it was a bit of a shock to see him standing there, holding a scalpel to his head.

The cry of alarm had already left his throat even by the time he realised what was going on. Cloud finished hacking off the last of his ponytail and turned to look at Zack tiredly, his hair a scraggly mess, dark circles under his eyes.

Thought you said it made me look like a tool, he said, sounding too exhausted for there to be any real venom in his voice. Like yesterday, he still seemed to be too out of sorts for actual speech.

"...It totally did, yeah," said Zack, his voice shaking a hell of a lot less than his hands. It was fine. Everything was fine here. "Looks way better. Want me to even you up in the back?"

Do you know anything about cutting hair?

"Nope. But I've got eyes. Gimme the knife and turn around."

Cloud did so without question, offering him the blade before sitting down with his back to him. Zack tried not to think about what that meant, even though another part wanted to very, very much, before seizing a handful of hair and getting to work.

"...Think you could put on some music?" asked Zack. "Still don't really... the quiet's bad."

Mm. Cloud awkwardly craned an arm around to the back of his belt while doing his best to keep his head still, and retrieved the little red radio. Any preference?

"Whatever you like is fine," said Zack. "Just want a little background noise."

Cloud nodded and began fiddling with the dials. There's not a lot of choice anyway, he explained. After Meteorfall, most stations got knocked out. And a lot were Shinra sponsored, so no one was in a rush to reinstate them. We've only really got the two and they're all reruns, mostly. There's supposed to be a third, but...

He settled on a channel playing a smooth piano solo over a saxophone and closed his eyes as Zack continued his amateur attempts to fix Cloud's hair, which turned out to be way harder than he thought it would. Whatever. At least the ends were looking more even, or at least scraggly in a way he could maybe convince someone was "punk rock" and not "amateur with a scalpel". He seemed to be doing okay at making the back look less weird, but apparently no force on earth was going to get it to actually lie flat.

It was a lot softer than he thought it would be, too. Almost feathery, which explained why it stuck out every which way. He did his best to ignore how pleasant it felt, or the way Cloud seemed to be ever so slightly leaning back against him.

They were both quiet for a while. Zack suspected Cloud, like himself, wasn't really sure what to say given yesterday's events. Would it freak him out to try and talk about it now? Was this one of those circumstances where what they needed the most was normalcy? As he'd been rather dramatically reminded, he didn't actually know Cloud all that well, as it turned out. He had no way of knowing.

He braced himself and tried for normalcy.

"So, you like jazz?" said Zack, trying not to laugh, since it wasn't as though Cloud would get the joke in the first place.

I don't dislike it, said Cloud. But they don't usually play the stuff I like. You guys have way better stations.

"Yeah... though, you guys have got it good, without the constant commercial breaks."

Most of the people that would've been paying for 'em are dead.

"Count your blessings, is all I'm saying."

The memory of the one night they'd shared in Maybe Aeris's House had an underlying tension to it now, knowing how it all had ended. Sitting here whacking off chunks of matted hair with a scalpel seemed more peaceful than sauteing onions over the stove had.

Zack frowned, suddenly remembering. "...Didn't you leave that thing in the kitchen?" he asked, gesturing to the radio.

Cloud blinked, speaking aloud for the first time that morning. "I... guess I did, yeah. How's it --?"

And then the radio was gone, taking the music with it as both vanished into thin air.

Zack found his voice first.

"...How in the fuck...?"

Cloud just shook his head, staring at where the radio used to be. I guess... we just assumed we had it. So we did. He froze, his eyes flickering towards his sword. I -- no, I don't remember grabbing it --

"I did," said Zack. "You were pretty out of it, so I had to get it. We definitely brought the sword with us."

Cloud sighed in relief, somehow looking even more tired than he had a few minutes ago. Okay. Okay. The sword's real. Alright....

"It's that important to you?" said Zack, tossing the scalpel aside onto a nearby end table and wiping his hands off on his pants as he finished.

One of the only good things I ever put into the world, said Cloud. That was really my own. And sometimes I don't even really know about that.

Zack said nothing.

You saw what you saw, said Cloud emotionlessly. I have nothing left to hide from you anymore. Not even if I wanted to.

Zack sighed. "Do you wanna talk about it? Not -- not the sex thing, but --"

No. Not even a hint of uncertainty. But if you have anything to say, you may as well say it.

"Huh?"

Just... get it over with. None of this "I won't think any less of you for this" garbage, anyone would --

"That's not what I would've said," interrupted Zack. "I don't. I really don't, man."

So you do have something to say.

"I do, yeah." He made sure the scalpel was out of grabbing range before continuing. "The -- the other thing I saw. You know the one."

You don't know what it was like in there, Cloud said, and Zack could literally feel the desperation in his words. You can't imagine -- they were gonna -- they --

"I'm not blaming you," said Zack. "Really, I'm not, anyone would've done the same thing. I just... really, really wish you hadn't capped it off with eating the damn bodies."

If they'd found out --

"You had to have known that wasn't gonna work. The human... or, whatever-we-are stomach only holds like... half a gallon, I think? And it was four guys."

...I didn't know what else to do. I was afraid.

"I know," said Zack tiredly. "I know. It was just really, really creepy. And gross. And fucked up."

Is that all?

"No," said Zack. Then he hesitated, because there really wasn't a good way to say this. "...Can I ask you something else?"

Makes no difference to me.

"Does Tifa know about this? The rest of your family, do they know?”

About what?

“...Any of it,” said Zack. “Anything you did in that lab. The -- the things you think about, sometimes. That… you’re someone that… that you’ve felt the way you did yesterday, where you’d do something like that.”

Cloud took a deep breath, fidgeting with a lock of his own hair that he'd picked off his clothes.

I never really talked about any of the stuff in the lab before, he admitted. I didn't... I mean, you'd see why I wouldn't want them thinking about me like that. But I don't even think it'd surprise them if they did see. They all saw me give the Black Materia to Sephiroth. They know I ran off when I found out I had the stigma. They know I'm not a human.

"Do you see other people -- humans, I mean -- as food?" asked Zack, doing his best not to sound alarmed and disgusted. Probably failed a little.

It wasn't like that, said Cloud. Or -- or maybe it was, I don't know. It's -- it can be so hard to think straight sometimes, and I was afraid -- how would I even go about telling them about all of that? What if -- He was speaking very quickly now, and even with the words being relayed directly into his head Zack found himself struggling to keep up. What if I just -- pulled you aside, and said I wanted to talk to you about -- about how they made me kill a guard that felt bad for me and kept bringing me food and blankets and got caught because I was stupid enough to tell him I used to have a name and he slipped up and used it? Or -- about how they injected me with something once that had me pissing blood for a month, until they decided they might as well replace my kidneys because I wasn't regrowing mine fast enough? Or about the time I tried to escape again and they cut off my legs to keep me from trying it again too fast because they knew they'd grow back, and then threw me into a live fire exercise, and I failed it because I didn't have any goddamn legs, and then I got punished for it, and one of the guards thought it was really funny and offered me some painkillers he stole if -- if I -- see?! he blurted at the discomfort that must've shown on Zack's face. No one wants to hear that -- no one wants to hear five years of that, and I don't want to go around remembering it.

But -- everyone knows, a little bit, he continued. They have to. They know I'm a mess, imagine what they'd think of me if they knew the kind of things I did when I panicked, or -- or the things you saw in the labs or with Tifa, imagine how fast they'd leave. And they already know way, way too much. They know what I did at the Northern Crater, and about the time I ran away to die when I found out I had the stigma. No one deserves to deal with that. You asked me before why Aeris likes me. I don't know. I don't know why anyone likes me at all. He swallowed again, not meeting Zack's eyes. You're right. It was fucked up. All the things you saw. That's -- it's who I am, when I'm alone, and no one else can see, and I think no one's watching, only now you are. I don't know why anyone likes that. Isn't it bad enough that they know how often I cry over goddamn nothing? How long do I have before everyone snaps out of it and leaves?

He rounded on Zack, then, and Zack couldn't stop himself from taking a step back. Even you. At least you snapped out of it and you hate my guts, which is more than anyone else has done. But you. You gave me clothes. Why did you give me clothes? You could've just let me sit there. It wouldn't have mattered.

"What the fuck kind of question is that?" asked Zack.

The kind I'm surprised you never asked yourself, said Cloud. You gave me clothes, for no reason.

"There was a reason," said Zack. "You -- you're reading way too deep into things. You were naked. I had something for you to wear. It's basic fucking decency."

I hadn't -- I hadn't even done anything to prove I was the kind of person that should be given clothes, said Cloud, as though this were obvious. All we'd done was get into a fight about whose fault it was that we went through Reunion. Why would you give clothes to someone like that, when I wouldn't have done anything that -- that showed I'd earned them?

Zack just stared. Cloud took this as a sign to continue.

People -- can hurt other people, all the time, he said plaintively. And they'll do it, unless they have a reason not to. I never gave you a reason. And you gave me clothes, and -- and I don't -- I don't understand. I was hoping... maybe you could tell me why you decided to give me clothes. Maybe it's the same reason Aeris likes me. And -- and if I know what that is, maybe I can -- maybe I can keep earning --

"Stop," said Zack, completely aghast. "Just -- stop talking. Okay? I don't even think you hear yourself, the shit you're saying --"

If I don't, then you don't either, said Cloud. You know it's a privilege. You said it yourself. You're just better at earning privileges than I am. He had abandoned the lock of hair a while back in favour of picking around the tattoo on his wrist again. Do you think... if you'd been in the lab with me, you could've taught me?

Zack said nothing. He still felt awful, this hot, bubbling anxiety staring at this man that had picked himself bloody again, but he wasn't even sure it was a hundred percent about Cloud anymore either. He didn't particularly care for the feeling.

"...I'm not sure," said Zack quietly. "Let's just get going. Your hair looks fine. We've wasted too much time here anyway."

Cloud continued to stand there as Zack retreated to the room he'd slept in to pack up his few belongings and raid it for supplies.

He had already finished packing up his own things and changing into a clean set of stolen scrubs by the time Zack returned, and rather than raiding the place as well, he'd sat down on the couch to keep picking at his wrist. It was well and truly bloodied by now. Zack reached out and caught his arm.

"Stop doing that, man," he said, uncomfortably.

Cloud let his hand go limp, and when Zack let go of his arm, he did not resume.

"...Want me to try and heal that?" he offered, a thrill of excitement going through him despite the circumstances he was offering it in. "Might be good practice."

Sure, said Cloud noncommittally, offering his other arm to Zack. Need me to get you started?

Zack nodded, and closed his eyes as he felt Cloud reach for that weird little pocket, that was of himself and yet unimaginably vast. It was easier to take hold this time, and he once again felt the weird little mental jitter he had last time as the magic -- his magic he had magic now -- threaded itself into the skin and stitched it neatly shut.

He wasn't nearly as tired this time, either -- perhaps because the wound was smaller, or because he'd just woken up, or both.

Cloud stared at his number absently until Zack nudged him.

"So, how'd I do?"

I -- better. You've gotta learn to relax, though, he said after shaking himself awake, you're expending more mana than you need to.

"Mana?"

Fancy word for how much magic you can do before you pass out from exhaustion. Stamina, I guess, though it's not as heavily tied to how physically fit you are. At least, not entirely. You can definitely boost your output the better health you're in.

"How do I use less?"

It's like driving. You'll get the feel for it eventually, said Cloud. Let's get moving. Don't like spending too much time here. Bad memories.

"Do you have good memories anywhere?" asked Zack, rolling his eyes as he stepped outside.

Of course I do. Cloud looked around at the fact that the trees seemed to be flickering in and out of existence along the paths of their branches, as though some immense creature with a pulse. Guess we're still not really back yet....

"Maybe we should just go on foot for a while," suggested Zack. "We're pretty close, right?" He wasn't exactly keen for a repeat, either, and Cloud could doubtless sense it even if it wasn't plainly spelled out on his face.

Not to mention... he wasn't exactly a fan of whatever it was that Cloud did to move them from each "level". Every time he disappeared (always before Zack himself) he took longer to reappear each time (always after Zack himself had arrived), and he was seriously expecting Cloud to up and vanish entirely the way he had a few days ago.

To his surprise, Cloud paused before nodding and adjusted the position of his bag. Guess so. Pretty hard to get lost from here, too.

It was vastly unsettling to see all the fight gone out of him like this. Zack wasn't sure if he'd actually prefer the version of Cloud that had been spitting venom at him nonstop. Maybe he'd just gotten it all out of his system by now?

He'd been actually speaking less and less, Zack realised. Like he couldn't bring himself to say anything aloud.

"What's the plan?" he asked, trying to keep them occupied.

Cut through the ruins from the back into Edge, said Cloud. They're not gonna put guards in the middle of a bunch of wreckage that huge. And no one in their right mind would think to go right through Midgar. It's too dangerous.

"So why the hell are we doing it?"

I'm one of maybe five people in the world that has clearance to safely explore that place, said Cloud. I know it better than anyone, and I'm used to dealing with it when parts of it fall on top of me. It's safer for us than it would be for them.

"But if they know you're familiar with the area, they would post guards there, right?" asked Zack.

Cloud looked nervous. I... maybe. But it's the best shot we have. Remind me to stop for lunch in a couple hours. Once we get close to the city, there won't be any wildlife for us to hunt. May as well make the best of it now.

Cloud didn't say anything at all for quite a while afterwards. Without the radio with them filling the silence, Zack was acutely aware of every quiet murmur in the back of his head, the way the air seemed to whisper around him, telling him things he couldn't quite remember, and didn't seem able to really forget.

It would never go away. The awful way the world simmered around him, the way it was just a bit too loud, a bit too bright, the way he was certain he was even seeing entire colours he'd never seen before -- that wasn't a product of them being one step removed from reality. That was his reality now, and would be until the day he died thanks to the poison sifting its way around his cells.

Was it weird that he felt like he was getting used to it now? He knew it was definitely getting quieter either way. Maybe once he was somewhere that actually existed, it'd be manageable.

Things here looked almost right, but not quite. The grass didn't always bend the right way as they stepped through it, and the wind seemed to constantly be blowing in from one direction without letting up, as though it were coming from a fan. The sky had clouded over in a way that suggested it wasn't done raining yet, but sometimes he could've sworn he saw it flash red for just an instant. The ground, too, seemed to be alive and watching them -- which, according to Cloud, it probably was. But there was a difference between knowing that in the back of his mind, and being in this place where ideas and things were nigh-interchangeable, and watching the earth light up with a flurry of colour, like electricity through nerves, with every footfall.

He wished Cloud would at least say something so he had something to listen to. Presumably at lunch they'd stop to learn magic, but a very childish part of him was impatiently stomping its feet in anticipation. And not just because he was worried about Cloud... trying something.

...Why don't we take a break? asked Cloud.

"Already? It can't have been more than half an hour."

Yeah, but... lessons are important too. And -- I don't know. I don't want to dwell on things.

There was something in his gaze that seemed a bit fevered, but far be it for him to complain when he was basically getting what he wanted anyway.

"...Let's at least go another ten minutes," said Zack. "Get some progress. Remember, we're still being followed."

Cloud nodded without comment and kept walking.

He wondered, at that point, if maybe his worry about Cloud trying to kill himself wasn't necessarily his own.

But it was safer like this, right? They'd lost both guns. Impaling himself on that sword wasn't exactly the quick end people wanted when doing things like this. He was probably handling this all wrong. He should've made Cloud promise something more concrete, should've checked to see if he had more knives --

As if on cue, Cloud stopped dead and drew his sword.

Keep still, said Cloud.

“...What the hell are you talking about?”

Zack looked around. Their surroundings were hardly normal, true, but nothing new had been developed. He couldn’t hear anything moving in the distance that they hadn’t already been hearing, or smell anything that seemed dangerous. And yet Cloud was whirling about in a panic, tensed to swing at the first thing that came near him.

Keep your voice down. It’s Her doing this, if She knows we’re here --

“Doing what?” said Zack. “I thought She could sense us or whatever, so it didn't matter anyway. What are you talking about?”

What do you mean, what am I talking about? Look around!

“...I’m lookin’. What’s your point?”

Cloud slowly lowered his sword, but if anything he looked more alarmed than he had before.

...Zack, did everything go dark for you, too? Like… really, really dark? I can’t even see your eyes.

Zack’s dread-filled silence must have been answer enough for him, because Cloud sheathed his sword and began kneading frantically at his eyes.

No, no, no, no, no -- not now, not like this --

“Cloud?”

I can’t see anything. I can’t see anything anymore. Please -- please tell me it’s not just me. It’s not just me, right?

“Maybe -- maybe we should sit down,” suggested Zack, over Cloud’s own hyperventilation. “I can -- you’ve got first aid training, I can take instructions.”

I’ve gone blind.

“Okay, but --” stammered Zack. For the third time he was expected to be the one holding the two of them together, and he’d never felt less prepared for anything in his life. “We don’t know why, so… let’s just sit down, and maybe we can fix it.”

I’ve gone blind, Cloud repeated to himself, as he slowly sank to the ground. I’m blind.

“It’ll be fine,” said Zack, not convincing either of them. He paused. “...That light you made, when I got shot -- what’s the spell for it?”

I don’t know what’s happening to me anymore.

“Cloud!”

Cloud winced at the noise and turned face Zack.

“The spell. To make the little blue light. What is it?”

It’s not a spell, said Cloud. It’s innate magic. You can’t do it, you’ll have to use fire.

“So then help me start a fire.”

Cloud nodded and reached out a shaky hand to grab Zack’s.

“You seemed to have found that okay,” commented Zack, as he coaxed Zack’s fingers into place with his own and created a fire in his other hand.

I can still hear you, said Cloud. I can hear where you are. The sound bounces off things. Feel where the spell is?

Strangely enough, he did. The knowledge was starting to come easier now, and it was almost second nature as he reached out to Cloud’s own flame and sustained it in his own palm before holding it to Cloud’s face.

He watched as the pupils shrank into even thinner slits as they reacted to the light. Normal -- at least for him.

“Your eyes look fine,” said Zack. “So that’s good, right?”

I can’t see, said Cloud. I can’t see anything -- how am I supposed to drive around for jobs like this? I can’t fucking see, Zack.

“Alright, well chill out, I’m trying to fix that. Do your eyes hurt or anything?”

I can’t see -- I can smell it, though, I can smell it burning. It’s dark, and everything’s burning --

“Cloud -- nothing is burning, okay? Look, your eyes are fine, so we…” Zack frowned. “What do you mean, everything’s burning?”

Please don’t tell me that’s fucking broken now, too.

Zack didn’t answer. He was staring at Cloud, who had buried his face in his hands, taking uneven, panicked breaths.

“...It’s not your eyes,” said Zack, his voice grim. “It’s your brain.”

What?

“I -- I read something like this, it -- your brain’s… your eyes are working fine.”

What do you mean it’s my brain?!

“Look, there are -- parts of your brain control different parts of your body, right? And there’s… there’s a speech centre, and a memory centre, and a vision centre. Back of the head. You were in a car crash, right?”

But why now?! Why’s it doing this now?!

“I don’t know,” said Zack. “Stress, maybe? You’ve been kind of putting yourself through the wringer, appearing and disappearing all the time, and you always look like shit when you come back --”

...I’ve been disappearing?

“Yeah, man,” said Zack, his confusion mounting. “With the teleporting, and all. I thought you knew. When we go from corn syrup to soy sauce, or whatever it is we’re doing. Takes you a little while to pop back in…”

I -- I know what’s causing it. He sounded completely defeated now. It’s not the crash. This is my fault.

“How could it possibly be your fault?”

...I don’t have all that much higher brain function, said Cloud, slowly getting to his feet. Everyone keeps saying so. Even Aeris. And nobody knew how I was walking and talking and everything without it. It was Jenova.

“...Yeah, so?” said Zack uncomfortably, as Cloud turned to face him again.

What are we moving away from, Zack?

“...Shit.”

It’s impossible for me to be alive without a pulse, or to not need to breathe, or -- or to keep being myself, when everything else is broken, because I just… decided I could, and Jenova helped make that real. But now we’re trying to go back to somewhere that’s actually real, and -- and without Jenova…

“So -- what, we get back to Edge -- the real Edge,” said Zack, “and it all just kicks in at once?”

Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know why -- why it’s so much of a problem now -- maybe because She’s getting stronger. I don’t know. What’s -- what’s gonna happen to me?

“I mean…” Zack scratched his neck. “It depends. Dizziness, probably -- I guess you’ve already had a little of that… you had some problems speaking yesterday, that can happen too… you could lose language stuff in general… loss of smell, I guess, though for now you’re just hallucinating… um… inability to recognise faces… motor skills might not work so good… I mean, it’s the brain, right? It’s important for a lot of stuff --”

Cloud seemed to have stopped listening.

If I can still hear, he said, and suddenly his breathing seemed to even out, then it’ll be fine. I can -- I know how to fight with just my ears. I can pick up vibrations, too, from stuff moving -- so... it'll be fine, right?

“I -- why are you asking me? I don’t...”

You still need me to navigate. It'll be fine....

Zack reached out to catch his arm, and Cloud jerked it away before he made contact.

Come on. We need to get going, we’re wasting time.

And then he strode off without another word.

“Cloud, wait!”

For what? I’m the one carrying this mess, remember? I’m the one that knows how to hunt, and where we’re going, and you need me to teach you magic, and Tifa needs me to -- to fix things -- Ms. Suk needs me to get her groceries, and -- and --

“...Yeah. Not like anyone would blame you if you needed me to take over for a little --”

No! Cloud had started walking faster. I -- no, I’ll do it. It’s my job, I’ll do it. And once we get to Midgar, I’m moving us again. You don’t know how to do that, I’ll have to do it, it’s my job…

He trailed off again, and when he spoke again it was with a numbness that Zack could feel leeching into the back of his head as well.

Guess that's it, then, isn't it? Gotta make tracks before I shut down completely. Already can't see.

"...You've got magic, though," said Zack. "Can't you guys fix this kind of thing?"

I don't know. Maybe. The last time this happened, they decided it wasn't worth the trouble. Put me in storage.

Zack -- or maybe it was Cloud -- thought back to the empty glass cylinder in Nibelheim, in the room full of failed projects. If it was Cloud, there wasn't the expected dread accompanying it. There wasn't anything.

"...Well, if there is, it's not like anyone's gonna put you back into storage now, right?" said Zack.

Cloud didn't reply. He remained silent for several more minutes, and although it was because he no longer had anything to focus on, the way he stared blankly ahead seemed more than that.

"Maybe I should be ahead," Zack tried again, "and you can tell me where to go."

Cloud merely nodded, and halted to wait for Zack to overtake him.

Gotta head northwest, he said, his words flat. We'll know we're close when we hit the Wastes. You should be able to see the skyline from there.

"Got it."

Cloud said nothing more for quite a while.

It was a bit hard to know when to take a break when you didn't seem to get tired anymore, Zack realised after a bit. The normal muscle strain didn't set in anymore; or at least, it didn't just from walking for several hours, and with the sky looking more like a lava lamp someone had made with grey paint the passage of time wasn't all that easy to track either. The ruins of Midgar poking their way over the horizon as they crested a hill was the only real indication Zack had of how long they'd been travelling.

When Cloud had mentioned the city, Zack had pictured something along the lines of a derelict New York City -- something out of a zombie movie, maybe, with crumbling highways and skyscrapers with the windows smashed out. And Midgar certainly had both these things, but to say that was all it was wouldn't remotely begin to do it justice.

Midgar was enormous.

Zack had been thinking of it as a crumbling New York City, but a crumbling New York State would've been a bit more accurate. It was more like a small country than a city, with the way it sprawled out for miles, dominating the landscape. Something like this must have been a feat of engineering unlike anything seen on Earth: everything in the transcripts seemed to refer to Midgar as a fallen nation than a fallen metropolis, and now Zack saw that was because it basically was one. The scar cut into the land around it was no small feat either -- lifeless, barren, ruined earth as far as the eye could see, bits of metal and broken down machinery and discarded trash strewn about it being the only colour dotting the landscape. Scraggly brown weeds occasionally peeked out from underneath wrecked guard stations here and there. A single dead bush had overtaken one at some point before dwindling away to dry stems.

"It's beautiful," Cloud had said of the garbage-filled, but still tree-lined streets of Soho. Zack quietly sighed.

It just... kept going. For miles and miles and miles, no matter how far Zack looked -- and Zack could see much, much further than he used to be able to. The whole of it -- the ruins and the wasteland alike -- could almost certainly be seen from space.

"Alright, so maybe they won't post guards in the ruins," he said, cracking a small smile. Cloud did not respond to this either.

"You, um... you said you were cleared to go in there," he tried again. "So, you know where we're going, I guess?"

Another nod.

"...Can you say something? Please?" asked Zack. "Just so I know you're still in there."

They'll probably have lookouts around Edge, once we get there, said Cloud emotionlessly. Let's go.

"No, let's not," said Zack. "Come on, we should at least stop to eat something, right?"

Cloud just nodded again, then strode off back down the hill, presumably to find another unfortunate rabbit and spear it through the head.

"I bet I could do it," said Zack, "if you wanted to take a rest."

He stopped and continued to remain silent. Zack walked up behind him.

"It's gonna be okay," he said, knowing how empty the words were.

Cloud nodded. He seemed to have shut down entirely.

Zack rolled his eyes and braced himself for another fist to slam itself into his jaw, and pulled Cloud into a hug.

A shuddering gasp escaped him, and he stiffened for a moment before going limp, his weight falling across him, burying his face in Zack's shirt. His skin felt slightly clammy.

An unfamiliar sensation welled up in Zack's chest, and he found himself torn between shoving Cloud away again and standing there for as long as he needed.

He kept standing there. Cloud made no moves to pull away this time.

I can't see.

"I know. It sucks."

You do everything better than I do. What am I supposed to do now?

"I -- what? No I don't--"

Once I teach you magic, what then?

"Then I'll fucking know magic, pendejo. And -- then we'll have something to talk about that we both understand."

Cloud let out another low, shuddering breath.

"Maybe I could teach you to cook," said Zack, inspiration suddenly striking. "Get you unbanned from the kitchen. But we can't do it if you just -- blank out, okay?"

Cloud didn't move for what felt like an eternity. Then, slowly but surely, he managed a small nod against Zack's chest.

I knew you were a good person, he said. You gave me clothes.

The sensation that had bubbled up in his chest moments ago suddenly tugged hard. Everything seemed to shift into focus in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

“I --”

Taking a deep breath, he stepped away from Cloud, grasping his shoulders firmly. He still looked unsettlingly blank.

“How about I grab us something to eat?” said Zack. “I spent a lot of time watching you. I think I could do it.”

Cloud slowly nodded again. If you need me to try, then -- then I still can. I’m used to finding food in the dark.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” said Zack. “But I might as well see if I learned anything from you, right?”

Right… I’ll… I’ll set up camp, maybe. In one of the guardhouses.

“See you in a bit? I mean --”

It’s fine. See you in a bit.

It was all Zack could do to keep from sprinting back down that hill to be alone for a moment. Cloud’s words were still rattling endlessly around his skull. He didn’t even fully realise what he’d signed up to do until a few minutes later, when he heard the rustling of something moving through the grass.

We need to eat, he reminded himself, even as he remembered how it had looked to have to clean the damn things after he caught it. And if he missed it’d be in pain -- he’d never really killed anything before, and this was sort of a lot --

You volunteered for this, he scolded himself. Cloud is trusting you to do this.

Cloud trusts you.

Somehow, that was enough. He took a deep, slow, breath. Let it out quietly. Sank into a crouch.

Cloud had used ice to kill it, and if Cloud had those memories, then so could he. He closed his eyes, tried to feel how he felt when reaching for magic. It came easier this time, and with it came the realisation that there were other memories he had -- or rather, that Cloud had, nestled in alongside one another.

He opened his eyes again and remembered how to cast ice.

A flurry of snow collected in his fingers, and it took him a few tries to get it to condense into the neat little shards Cloud had managed effortlessly. It was harder still to keep them from spinning back out into fragments and blighting the whole area like he could sense they were inclined to, and to hover obediently in his hand.

It was hardest to get them to actually fly forward and embed themselves in the thing he was hunting, but that had nothing to do with magic.

Cloud trusts you, he reminded himself, and with that knowledge in mind, Zack Fair made his first kill.

It was nowhere as neat as Cloud’s was, he realised as he came in to inspect it. It was some sort of mammal he didn’t recognise, though still unsettlingly big, and with an extra set of limbs he wasn’t sure it should have. It had also been impaled in the side as well as the head, and he could only hope the one in the head had struck first, since they’d all sort of flown off at once.

Still, it was definitely dead. Zack felt slightly queasy.

“Sorry, cousin,” he said as he knelt to retrieve it. As he did, something on his wrist caught his eye.

He thought it was a smudge of dirt at first, but dirt wasn’t that uniform and tidy. Dirt wasn’t faintly blue, and dirt came off when you scratched at it. Dirt didn’t form itself into letters, flush with his skin, a part of the tissue.

Tattooed neatly on his wrist was a number:

L.C. 67-2 [S3]

Chapter 48: Aeris and Tifa Have A Conversation

Notes:

I was right, I did beef it but only because there was a gas leak in our building and it's being condemned and I've been busy all week with moving. On a related note, the next chapter may be a few days late as well. The movers decided not to show up so we've been stuck carrying everything ourselves and we're not even halfway done.

Thank you to la_regina_scrive, Denebola_Leo, and especially Belderiver who was instrumental in even getting this thing written. I probably would've stalled out for another six months without you guys.

Here I'll stop plot blueballing you now

"Sephiroth."

The single word from Tifa's mouth was barely audible, and it still hit Aeris Gainsborough like a sledgehammer to the chest.

The Planet was a damaged place full of damaged people; Aeris more than understood this by now. They had child soldiers and no concept of war crimes, no matter how gruesome. They had colonised and dismantled nearly every other culture until only a handful of each remained in the name of profit. They had burned out every speck of green from their cities until the only thing anyone was able to scavenge from their ruined home was one another's company. She had Cloud -- the way he flinched at sudden movements, the way he moved in a way that was inherently Wrong sometimes -- to show for the first. She had Tifa, the only other survivor of Nibelheim, planting bombs in government buildings, bleeding herself dry to fix the world, to show for the second. She had every word of every transcript, every stolen glance at the universe through someone else's eyes, to show for the rest of it.

It was her mother's project -- her project -- that had been incorporated into that machine, indirectly giving birth to Soldier; that had irreparably cut itself into their history. She heard stories about the living monument to every cruelty the both of them had manufactured, about how he had scorched the world, killed countless millions -- maybe billions -- about how it all came crashing down on everyone in the form of one man.

He was glowering at her now, close enough to touch, his breath ragged and laboured, clearly nine parts dead. Acid green eyes still glowing faintly in the dark, both of them narrowed in utmost contempt. Diminished and wretched as he was, Aeris found herself unable to suppress a shiver.

And he was looking at her.

Why was he looking at her?

"...You know who I am?" she breathed.

Sephiroth merely continued emitting quiet, raspy breaths.

"I know what you did," he said after a moment.

Aeris blinked in confusion. Perhaps it was meant to sound threatening, but honestly it could've referred to several horrible things she'd done by now. Thrown Cloud into traffic? Sent Zack off to be melted? Continued a project that had no business being continued?

Sephiroth’s eyes were burning into her own now, still just as stunned as they were furious. “I know it was you. But I can’t understand how.”

“...’How’?”

“In the Planet’s final throes. What should have been the end. It’s one thing to use a weak-willed puppet. But to move through me… to move through Mother...”

He was still staring at her. She thought she’d finally gotten used to having something inhuman gawk at her, what with Cloud and his shaky grasp of social customs. Sephiroth’s glowering was still every bit as disquieting as the first time she’d laid eyes on Cloud.

“You can’t have,” he said firmly. “It goes against -- everything. A human. You can’t have.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Aeris, because she honestly didn’t. They’d clearly moved far past any discussion of the truck. “What -- what puppet --”

“You use its name, then,” said Sephiroth tiredly. “Cloud.”

Aeris blinked slowly before turning to look at Tifa.

“Ignore him,” she snapped. “He does this. Gets into your head, fills it with half-truths that you can’t get out later except with fire.” As she spoke, she clenched her fist, and the air around her began to heat rapidly as Aeris’s ears began to ring. “Acts like he knows everything about you, and it turns out he just --”

“But I was right, wasn’t I, Tifa?” said Sephiroth smoothly, or at least as smoothly as he could given how laboured his breathing was. “About the puppet, about you… go on and tell her --”

“No. We’re not doing this again --”

“-- and now more than ever, I know you better than you could ever know yourself,” he added. “You can’t hide things from me any more than you can hide things from Mother.”

“Look, Aeris, we can’t afford to stay here and waste time with this asshole,” said Tifa. “He’s screwing with you. It’s what he does.”

“Aeris. You’re Aeris.” Once again, the name seemed to stun him right back into shocked fury.

Aeris said nothing.

"You're Aeris Gainsborough," he repeated, more to himself than to her. "Now I have a name and a face, to put to the voice."

"What -- where have you heard my name?"

"I'm an asset of your Project," said Sephiroth, his breath rattling around his lungs. He lurched suddenly, but the movement was so shaky that for a moment it was unclear if he was collapsing from the effort of keeping himself upright or trying to drag himself across the room to dismember them. "I confess I’m surprised you didn't know. Though, the more we talk, the more it would seem that you don’t know many things you should.” He chuckled, though the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “As always, it seems I have to be the bearer of bad news.”

Tifa stiffened up even further, and a light fixture above her cracked. “Aeris, give me the gun, I’m going to shoot him.”

“Go on then,” said Sephiroth, undaunted. “They’re careful to keep me as close to life as to death. But it might be more appropriate to let her do it, so she can finish what she began at Meteorfall.”

Sephiroth was still glaring at her, barely sparing a glance at Tifa, who seemed about ready to throw herself across the room to strangle him. The only sound in the room between Sephiroth’s uneven breathing was the hum of a fan somewhere.

“...I’ll bite, then,” said Aeris. “What happened at Meteorfall? We’ve both had pieces missing since day one. You know what they are, don’t you?”

Sephiroth merely smirked.

“Well,” said Aeris, as though she were merely discussing the weather, “this seems straightforward enough. Each of us has something the other of us wants. I see no reason we can't trade."

"What would you be trading?"

"We take you with us," said Aeris. "Fix whatever's wrong with you. Tifa can heal you."

"No, I won't!" shouted Tifa. "And if we ever find Cloud again, you can bet your life he won't either!"

"Ah... you're stranded here too, though," Sephiroth cut in. "How will you find him?"

"...We'll figure something out," she replied, her teeth gritted.

"It seems like such a waste of time, though," said Sephiroth, "when someone that does know how to get us all back is sitting right here. You've been awfully rude to him, too."

"You're lying," said Tifa. "If you knew how to get out, why do you need our help? Why have you been here for two years?"

"You may have noticed, I'm not in the best of health at the moment," said Sephiroth. "They have taken care to periodically remove one of my lungs every ten days, amongst other deterrents." He paused to heave a few nasty-sounding coughs before continuing. "Far wiser to bide my time. Wait until an opportunity to escape came around. Which it has.”

“Yeah? So, what, you’ll abandon us the minute you recover,” said Tifa.

“I am many things, but duplicitous about my intentions is not one of them,” said Sephiroth firmly. “Mother is closer than ever. The world is thinning. Now, more than ever, is an opportune time to reach through... though, as you may be able to tell, I lack the strength to do it. In the same way that I lack the strength to stop Tifa from killing me right now. Knowing all of this, what will you do?"

Tifa made a noise in the back of her throat.

“...Could you excuse us for just a second?” said Aeris sweetly, before pulling Tifa off to the side.

“You heard what he said,” she hissed, “he knows things. He has a way back home. You’re dying right now, Tifa, and if we don’t get back in time -- we need to --”

“He can still hear us,” said Tifa, not bothering to keep her voice down, much less speak in English. “He could hear us even if we walked a hundred feet away. Which we can’t afford to do because there are going to be more guards coming soon, and we came here to rescue one person, not two.”

“I’m not leaving him. I’m the reason he’s here. What if -- what if it were Cloud?”

“That man is the reason they locked Cloud up in the first place!” said Tifa, losing her patience.

"Well, maybe I'm sick of seeing half-dead men in cages!"

"Listen to yourself! He's a murderer! He tried to blow up the Planet! There's nothing keeping him from stabbing us in the back!"

"Mother is," said Sephiroth impatiently.

"What's that supposed to mean?" snapped Tifa. "I don't know if you've noticed, but everything is falling apart. Neither of us have time to sit here and listen to you hear yourself talk --"

"Some up-front information, then, in good faith," said Sephiroth. "Mother is incomplete. Only fragments of Her and Her song remain. She wants them back, just as She wants to continue to spread Herself and Her music, to consume and concentrate anything not of Herself into that song. And, seeing as how She comes from nothing -- and wishes to return everywhere She has permeated to Herself -- well..."

He frowned, then, for the first time looking annoyed. "...I will admit, the prospect of losing myself to Her as the universe is undone is... not what I had envisioned."

Aeris had long since run out of guilty gut squirms by now. Mostly she just felt tired and hollow. "So... why now? Why's She doing it now?"

"It could be any number of things," said Sephiroth. "Perhaps Her presence in this world -- or my own -- has strengthened enough to call Her from the other side."

“So you don’t know either,” said Aeris. Sephiroth appeared to pretend he hadn’t heard.

"Perhaps someone let Her in," he added to himself, "the way I was let in."

"Let in from where?" asked Tifa.

"...I have my theories," said Sephiroth, "and I've had much time to ruminate on them. The Planet destroyed me -- burned me from existence, and so I didn't exist, and was nowhere at all. Until these humans went reaching into those places. And I've been here ever since, waiting to reach back across."

"So -- what about Meteorfall, then?" asked Aeris.

Sephiroth went silent once more. Aeris looked pleadingly at Tifa who stared at Sephiroth for several more moments before closing all three of her eyes and taking a very deep breath.

"The second he tries anything," said Tifa, "I don't care what he knows. He's dead."

"That settles that, then!" said Aeris quickly, before Tifa had a chance to change her mind. "There you go. Door's over there." She stepped aside to allow Sephiroth to approach.

He remained sitting where he was, and suddenly his face had gone carefully blank as well.

"...I cannot walk," he said quietly.

"What?"

"I cannot walk," he said again, a hint of irritation returning to his face again. "There is an implant at the base of my spine that allows it to be re-broken on command. It is still healing. It keeps me from escaping, or from doing anything too... taxing."

"Unbelievable," muttered Tifa angrily.

"Tifa --" began Aeris.

"No. I'm not helping him walk. You want help?" She marched over to him angrily and shoved a hand roughly against his head, and his breathing seemed to even out slightly the longer she held on. By the time she stepped away, she looked a second from toppling over herself, but much of the lines of tension had left Sephiroth's face, apparently along with a great deal of pain. He appeared to brace himself before leaning against the wall and pushing himself to his feet, not without some difficulty.

"I'm in your debt," he said graciously, though Aeris knew the both of them could sense the waves of contempt coming off him.

"You can explain the rest in the car," said Aeris. "Let's get out of here."

At that moment, Cissnei leaned her head back into the room. "I thought you all should know --"

Then she saw Sephiroth, frowning slightly. "You're not Cloud. Who are you?"

"Later," said Aeris. "What were you saying?"

"I heard some people talking," said Cissnei. “They seem to be upset we’ve broken in."

Angeal backed into the room as well, then, glancing nervously at Sephiroth. "There's a lot of guards coming," he said. "We have to go. Is he going with us?"

"Unfortunately," said Tifa through her teeth.

“So -- let’s go then,” said Aeris, as she made for the door. Tifa caught her arm.

“How many guards?” she asked.

“A lot,” said Cissnei. “Quite a bit of shouting about how this isn’t a drill.”

Tifa sighed and staggered over to the door, and Aeris caught her arm then.

“What are you doing?”

“What are you doing?” asked Tifa. “I gotta go out there and take care of business.”

“You’ll die,” said Aeris. “You can barely stand.”

“Well, who else is gonna take care of it?” asked Tifa. “Angeal’s out of bomb collars, Cissnei’s unarmed, you haven’t even been holding that gun right, Sephiroth is -- probably only going to slow us down.” Aeris sighed quietly as Tifa shot another three-eyed glower at him. “And it’s not like we have Cloud here with us to -- to do whatever it was he did in Southampton.”

“Did what?” asked Cissnei.

“I just said I don’t know,” replied Tifa. “He just -- I don’t know, we disappeared somewhere. Zack said it was a -- a liminal space, or something. Like… like what he did, at the Northern Crater.”

“Zack’s okay?” interjected Angeal.

“Maybe,” said Aeris. “We aren’t sure, he -- he up and vanished, same as Cloud. You two kind of missed a lot….”

“Then I see no reason we can’t do the same,” said Sephiroth. Aeris turned to stare at him.

“It seems Tifa should have no problem --”

He was interrupted by the sound of footsteps growing louder, and Tifa quickly threw up a hand and filled the entrance to the cell with solid ice. She swayed on the spot, nearly toppling over onto Aeris, who barely managed to catch her without her dragging them both to the floor.

“What’s she supposed to do when she can barely do magic?” said Aeris.

“Not magic,” said Sephiroth. “Mother. I know she’s received Her gifts. You even know which ones. You mentioned them yourself not moments ago.”

“But -- I’ve never done anything on that scale,” said Tifa. “Cloud had more time to learn that kind of thing than I did. I can’t just -- just disappear everyone, I don’t even know how he did it.”

“I think you already did,” said Aeris. “Remember -- when we were on our way to the library. Everyone just disappeared. I wasn’t sure what it was, at first, but… what if we were just out of synch with everything else? The same way we were with my house?”

Aeris could see blurry figures through the ice now. From what little she could hear they seemed to be debating on how safe it would be to shoot their way through, given there were now “multiple anomalies” in the cell with Sephiroth. That wouldn’t last long.

“It has to be you, Tifa,” said Aeris softly. “You’re the only one here that’s infected. And -- and has both lungs, I suppose.”

“You cannot waste your time figuring out how to do the things Mother allows you to do,” said Sephiroth. He was clearly trying to remain unconcerned, but his posture was tense, as he too stared nervously at the door. “You must simply know you can do them.”

“I -- okay,” said Tifa, swallowing thickly. She closed her eyes.

Nothing seemed to happen. The sharp snap of gunfire made her flinch violently.

“Tifa, now,” she urged quietly. Sephiroth, without asking, snatched the gun out of Aeris’s waistband and trained it on the door, slumping back against the wall to steady his aim.

Tifa had her eyes tightly shut, her face screwed up, trying to will herself out of the room.

“Tifa,” said Aeris again, voice rising in pitch. The crack of gunfire rang out, and a fist-sized hole appeared in the ice. Sephiroth promptly put a bullet through it. A wet sound issued from the other side, followed by even more shouting.

“Tifa --”

The shouting ceased abruptly. The world was suddenly much too quiet.

Aeris could no longer see any shapes through the hole in the ice. Blood quietly dripped onto the floor from somewhere behind it.

“I suppose that was passable,” said Sephiroth, “for a first attempt.”

“We haven’t -- gone anywhere,” said Tifa nervously. “And -- and I couldn’t think of anywhere to go --”

“We have,” said Sephiroth, “even as we haven’t. We’re just less in the place we were before, instead of in another place you’ve decided to be. Like, for instance, Nibelheim, about nine years ago. I’m sure that’s where you got the idea, is it not?”

“So then… where are we?” asked Aeris.

“One step removed,” was all he said, tossing the gun aside distastefully.

“You could’ve handed it to me,” she said, as she knelt to retrieve it. Straightening her back, she saw something flicker beside his head, like a floater. Or, perhaps she’d imagined it. Sephiroth didn’t seem to notice, at any rate, and no one else had commented on it either. She blinked her eyes a few times to clear them.

“Do we just go?” Cissnei crouched and cautiously peered through the hole in the ice. “I don’t see anyone else.”

Aeris nodded. “We just go. Everyone in London reappeared eventually.”

It took only a few firm kicks from Tifa to dislodge the ice and allow them to step out into the deserted hallway. Nothing was present here but bloodstains.

“So,” said Aeris, as they made their way through the facility to where they’d broken in from, “talk. What’s this about Meteorfall.”

“I may have… forgotten some of the details over the years,” admitted Sephiroth. “But I remember the moment itself very well, which in and of itself is fairly strange.”

He paused again to take another set of deep, rattling breaths before following Aeris down the hallway. She wasn’t sure how exactly Tifa had known which door was the correct one, but at the very least it made it easier to get back out.

“Lung’s still growing back…” he muttered. “That might take a few hours.”

“Meteorfall,” she pressed. Sephiroth blinked at her, as though unused to being reprimanded.

“I was still there,” he began, “still waiting for Meteor, but it was as though I was fighting with someone to think. There was a voice in my head -- your voice -- and it seemed to be looking for something. It was a bit hard to tell what was going on, seeing as I was dying at the time -- or perhaps already dead, at least in the most basic sense of the word. But it seemed to find the puppet, and called its name, and I heard Mother stirring, until I felt Her die. That’s all I can recall.”

They’d reached the first set of stairs without incident. Faintly, an alarm blared upstairs, but no one seemed to be around to respond to it.

“Sounds like you were used as a contact point,” said Angeal.

“But he wasn’t!” Aeris objected. “We never used anyone but Cloud, and then Tifa once. All the others truncated, they weren’t fit for extensive study. There was the big one we almost went with, but even that…” She frowned, as she remembered who exactly it was. “I collected data on you,” she admitted, stopping to look at Sephiroth, who seemed to be struggling up the steps, “but we never used it. And now we can’t, the facility is in ruins.”

“It sounds like you doubt me,” he said in a clipped voice. “When have I ever lied to anyone?”

“Please -- just let me push him down the steps, we’ve gotten this far,” cut in Tifa again.

“You were there, the day Meteor arrived,” he said. “It doesn’t matter to me if you believe me or not.”

Aeris frowned. “...I keep having dreams… but it’s always from Cloud’s point of view, not yours.”

“Yes,” said Sephiroth. “And you prised him from my control long enough to ruin everything, yet I’ve decided to help you anyway, so --”

“No, shut up for a minute.” Aeris stopped walking again, causing Cissnei to crash into her from behind. “Are you seriously suggesting I blew up Meteor?”

“That’s the idea.”

“But -- I can’t have! That was years ago, and --”

“We can select contact points achronologically,” said Angeal suddenly. “You might not have done it yet.”

“What kind of dreams?” pressed Tifa. “What do you remember?”

“There was… there was a red sky, and you were there,” she said, nodding to Tifa. “And Barret. We were leaning over a rail --”

“It was you,” she said in disbelief. “He doesn’t remember a thing about that day. We just thought he’d hit his head too hard in the crash, but it wasn’t him, doing that. It was you.”

“But I never had Cloud’s data from four years ago,” said Aeris, beginning to sound desperate, “we didn’t --”

“But we had Sephiroth’s,” said Angeal. “You must have --”

“I didn’t! I know I didn’t.”

“...Maybe that is the problem, then,” said Cissnei. Everyone turned to look at her.

“Something has already been done that has not been done yet,” said Cissnei. “That makes no sense. It’s like -- it’s like a hole, in things that have happened. Maybe that’s what let Her in.”

Aeris looked from Angeal to Tifa to Sephiroth. He was frowning slightly.

“Perhaps,” was all he said, before continuing his laboured climb past them.

“...If that’s the case,” said Angeal, “then there’s little we can do to patch it. The project is finished.”

“But the data’s still there,” said Tifa. “It has to be somewhere, right?”

“They’ll have confiscated it by now,” said Angeal glumly. “They’ll have moved in and taken everything stored on that computer.”

“It was never on the computer,” said Aeris. She was walking much more quickly now. “It never made it there. I balled it up and threw it in the trash. But -- maybe they haven’t gone through the trash yet, maybe --”

Cissnei gawked at her. “You cannot be seriously suggesting we go back there?”

“We don’t have a choice,” said Aeris. “If that’s what we have to do to fix this.”

“I’m with Cissnei on this,” said Tifa. “We don’t even know that’s for sure what’s wrong. It could be what’s causing it, or just a -- a thing caused by it --”

“A symptom,” supplied Cissnei.

“A that. And four people got shot just trying to get out. Two died. Imagine how hard it will be to get back in.”

“Security might not be as strong,” said Aeris, “since half of it imploded into nowhere, remember?”

“Oh. Good. Now I’m much less worried.”

Sephiroth raised a hand. “If I might interject --”

“Not like you’d listen if I said no,” said Tifa.

“I’m curious as to what you mean when you say it ‘imploded’. Did you see Mother there?”

“...Maybe,” said Aeris cautiously. “Definitely remember this awful noise….”

“Then I too would like to… recover this data,” he said. “I would have suggested, once I had recovered, that we head to such a place anyway.”

“What, so you can kill us all more easily?” said Tifa.

“I would hardly,” said Sephiroth curtly. “Going somewhere closer to Mother will make it much easier to tap into the Lifestream on the other side.”

“Aeris --”

“Do you want to get home or not?” huffed Aeris.

“Tifa,” said Angeal gently, “whatever issues you might have with this man --”

“His name is Sephiroth, and he gutted my papa like a fish,” she replied icily. “I was fifteen. He killed everyone I’d ever known. He wiped Nibelheim off the map and as far as I know I’m the only person alive that even speaks the language anymore. My sensei and Cloud were the only other survivors, and you’ve seen how well he’s held up. And it’s that bastard’s fault.”

Tifa’s hands had balled into fists, which were now shaking along with the rest of her. Sephiroth looked both unrepentant and unconcerned.

Angeal went quiet and looked at Aeris.

Aeris squeezed past Angeal and Cissnei on the stairs and threw her arms around Tifa.

She didn’t let go for probably longer than was wise. She held on tightly until the world began to flicker around them in a spray of static, and she stepped away to allow Tifa to regain focus and knead the tears out of her eyes.

Tifa stood there for a moment, swallowing thickly, then started up the stairs again. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll go get the data.”

She didn’t say another word the entire way up that flight of stairs, or the ones after that. Though Aeris didn’t fail to miss the vindictive glare she kept giving Sephiroth as he had to stop for breath three times before they’d made it out of the facility.

The crowd outside had vanished. Or, Aeris supposed, they were just further up than they were, which was hopefully a good sign.

She jogged a bit to catch up with Tifa, who was pointedly not making eye contact with anyone.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Tifa said nothing.

“I am,” she added. “But I don’t think there’s another way, and it -- it didn’t feel right, to just…”

“I’m over it,” she said brusquely. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“You don’t need to be over it,” said Aeris. “It’s unfair. I’m sorry.”

Tifa did not reply to this either, but Aeris felt she wasn’t stomping quite as hard.

She could hear Shithead yowling impatiently by the time they approached the car. Tifa stared at a spot on the seat for a few moments, and then she appeared, pacing in distress.

“Seems like you’re getting the hang of that,” said Aeris, as she opened the door and slipped into the back.

“It’s louder than it used to be,” muttered Tifa.

“You don’t have any mako stabilising you, then,” mused Sephiroth. “Interesting. How long has it been?”

“...I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe a week. Maybe two.”

“Well, you seem to be holding out mentally, at least,” said Sephiroth. “I certainly tried to make you be less hostile, but evidently real people are more difficult to direct than puppets, even in an advanced state of decomposition like yourself.”

“...Decomposition?” asked Cissnei, slamming the door behind her as she hopped into the passenger seat to keep the cat from getting out.

“Perhaps that isn’t the right word, then,” said Sephiroth unconcernedly. “Though, your genetic code is certainly breaking down, even if your will isn’t.” Angeal started the car and Sephiroth clicked his seatbelt into place before scooping Shithead onto his lap and scratching her ears.

Tifa looked at him in utter disgust and snatched her away. A flicker of irritation flashed across his face so quickly Aeris wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t imagined it.

“So, we’re going back,” said Aeris. “Think you can keep up this… what did you call it? Being one step removed, all the way to the facility?”

“I -- maybe,” said Tifa. “It feels easier to do if I don’t think about doing it.”

“All of Mother’s gifts work this way,” said Sephiroth. “It’s simply a matter of convincing yourself, and therefore the world.”

Tifa opened her mouth as though she’d dearly love to retort to that, before closing it and turning her attention back to Shithead.

“How long from here to Cannes by car?” asked Cissnei.

“Maybe a day,” said Angeal. “Fifteen, sixteen hours if we drive nonstop, but at the very least two of us will need a rest at some point. Plus, we have a cat in the car.”

“I’ll switch places with you past the Chunnel,” said Aeris. “Let’s just… drive.”

“Why do we have a cat in the car?” asked Angeal.

“What’s its name?” asked Sephiroth.

Tifa, to her credit, managed not to scream.

Chapter 49: He's Just Pinin' for the Fjords

Notes:

If brevity is the soul of wit then I guess this story just walks around with toilet paper stuck to its shoe, huh?

Whatever. In more important news, I present to you the very last flashback in the fic! I think, anyway. It's definitely the last chapter with anything I've had pre-written for over a year or two in advance.

Thank you so so much to Belderiver, la_regina_scrive, and Denebola_Leo who are as usual the only thing holding this disaster together.

This chapter contains body horror and brief instances of gore, as well as very frank conversation on issues of body dysmorphia/gender dysphoria and internalised toxic masculinity.

Cloud ran his hand over the spot on Zack's wrist where Zack had told him was a fresh new tattoo, his fingers ghosting over it in a way that had Zack twitching out of reflex, which in turn made Cloud yank his own hands away nervously.

"It was just -- there," said Zack, having returned from his hunt just an hour later. "I know it wasn't there this morning. I think. I -- I don't know, I could've been too distracted to notice..."

Cloud merely nodded.

"So -- what's it mean?"

Serial number sixty-seven two, series three -- third iteration of the Jenova Project. Property of Lucrecia Crescent.

"No, I mean what does it mean that it's on my goddamn wrist?"

...I don't know.

Cloud stood there, too nonplussed to properly pay attention to the rest of the "picture" his hearing was painting for him. He didn't even realise at first what was in Zack's other hand.

...You caught lunch, he realised.

"Always the tone of surprise with you," he said, but there was a smile in his voice this time.

Don't waste any, he said, clearing a space to begin cleaning it. We probably won't be eating for a few days once we get into the ruins. Not even mould grows there.

"You're not worried about that?"

No, he said. We can go for... a while. Trust me. He frowned. You know how long it cooks for, right? Keep an eye on it, I'm gonna sniff around and check if there's any edible roots I can find. They'll probably keep for longer.

"Is -- so, it's safe to eat, right?" asked Zack, peering over Cloud's shoulder apprehensively. It didn't really feel recognisable as a rabbit. Perhaps it had been a mu at one point? One never really knew around here. He'd fought at least one pack of wolves out here with stingers on the end of their tongues.

It'd be so much easier to tell if he could fucking see.

Well... nothing this close to Midgar is safe to eat, explained Cloud. But a lot of that's because of mako leakage causing mutations, and lucky for us we've got so much of the stuff soaked into us that this won't even give us a headache.

"Yeah... lucky."

Zack?

"Mm?"

Thanks for -- for doing this. Cloud held up the skinned thing for him to see. I know you didn't want -- thank you.

"...Yeah, no problem," he muttered.

It wasn't much longer that Cloud had the thing readied on a spit and had left Zack to watch it. Cooking was hard enough to do without being unable to just look and see if the meat was the right colour. He'd never paid much attention to the timing before, hadn't thought he'd need to. Hadn't Jessie tried telling him..?

In the end, he didn't find any roots, but he was jumped by a pack of mandrakes in the grass, which was the next best thing. Roasting them over a fire would cook out the poison, and they'd probably last a week or so if they were careful with rationing it out.

It was for this reason he rationalised giving Zack most of the meat they'd found.

"...Do you want me to do the portions?" he asked. "You've cut these a little lopsided. I mean, you did your best considering --"

I know how much I cut, said Cloud. Take it.

"...What are you trying to prove?"

Nothing, said Cloud. You're a civilian. I'm used to living off less food, and we've got some to spare. Please, take it.

"Cloud -- come on, we both know why you're 'used to it', don't --"

Zack, please. I'm -- I'm smaller than you, too, I don't need as much. Okay? You -- you deserve it, anyway. I've been an asshole. Consider this my apology.

After another moment of hesitation, Zack took his portion. They ate in silence, which Cloud was grateful for -- his head was killing him right now.

It didn't take long to get packed up after that. Cloud wrapped the mandrakes in one of the sheets they had left, and aside from briefly stopping to explain to Zack why they had faces, and learning that apparently mandrakes on Earth weren't carnivorous, they were heading into the ruins not long after.

It was so, so quiet here. Aside from Mother whispering into the back of his mind, the only sound Cloud had to navigate was their footsteps and breath, echoing endlessly off the dilapidated buildings. Once or twice Cloud thought he could smell a corpse. One could never be sure, though -- with barely any bacteria to break them down, everything rotted much more slowly out here. It was a mass grave, frozen in time.

They must be getting closer to base reality, he realised, as Mother gradually grew more and more quiet, and the burning smell filling his nostrils. It seemed to cut in and out as they headed deeper and deeper in along what he thought were abandoned railroad tracks... at least, he was pretty sure they were.

He could've sworn he knew the way better than this. He'd been in here plenty with Tifa and Yuffie, hadn't he? For -- for salvage. And other things, but he couldn't...

He was being followed, too -- by -- by Zack. It was okay, then, Zack was supposed to be there...

His limbs felt heavy. His head was pounding. The air was soup around him.

Cloud toppled to the ground.

He heard the shout of dismay from somewhere deep underwater, felt Zack's hands on his shoulders, turning him over onto his back.

Don't feel good, he said.

Zack was saying more things to him, but the noises wouldn't -- his words. They'd sloughed off into the mako again... which wasn't right because there was no mako this time. Wasn't there? He could smell it all around him, sharp and acrid and earthy and burnt.

Then the world went quiet.

He began to panic, then -- he was alone in the dark and the quiet, and nothing here for company but Mother. It wasn't quite true, though -- he could still feel Zack's hands around his shoulders, removing his sword from his back, hefting him into an awkward bridal carry, even as his limbs betrayed him, wouldn't work the way they wanted to --

Can't hear, he said. Can't hear anymore. Can't -- Zack --

It's okay, came the response. I got you, I -- just tell me what to do.

Don't feel -- something's wrong...

Everything felt deep and slow and sharp all at once, and then he was sinking, into somewhere --

--sore. Awful. He felt as though he'd been hit by -- if not a truck, perhaps a car, or a small motorcycle. The world was still far too quiet, and the light burning through his eyelids was --

Light. His eyes snapped open, and he bolted upright to see a shaken-looking Zack staring back at him. His mouth moved, but no sound came out that Cloud could discern.

Still can't hear, said Cloud. I -- my eyes are working, though. Maybe -- maybe the rest will come back?

You had another seizure, said Zack. Bad one. Not as bad as the one in Nibelheim, but... I don't... I wasn't sure what to do. Maybe -- maybe we should stop for now.

No. We're close. If we can just get back --

Cloud, if we make it back there's no telling what will happen!

Yeah, and maybe I'll be fine! he argued back. I can already see again. Just -- please, let me -- let me do this.

Cloud --

I am not going to sit around and wait until I become useless, Zack!

You don't even see how bad you've gotten! said Zack. In fact -- say something.

...What?

Say something. Out loud. So I can hear it. I can't even remember the last time you actually talked for more than a second. And I don't think you can, either.

Cloud blinked at him. Zack, I can talk just fucking fine --

So then prove it.

Cloud rolled his eyes and opened his mouth, and --

He wasn't sure. He knew what he wanted to say -- the ideas were there, the way they were when he spoke to Zack in his head.

He swallowed, and tried to say Zack's name. He knew what it was, he -- the sounds weren't there anymore. The word wasn't there.

None of his words were. They were gone again. He hadn't even noticed them disappearing.

He tried anyway. Made some sounds that he hoped maybe, possibly might sound like the thing he wanted to say. He couldn't tell if he'd gotten it right, with his ears still not working.

From the alarmed expression on Zack's face, though, apparently he hadn't.

He tried again -- tried to reach for any word at all -- his name, his number, the city they were in, where they were going -- but they dried up the second he reached for them, past the ideas they represented. He couldn't speak anymore.

"No," he said, because it was always the last thing left to him. "No, no, no no no --"

Cloud, calm down --

" -- no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no --"

Zack was shaking him now, trying to get his attention. He stared at him -- at his wrist. Sure enough, the number was printed there neatly enough.

Zack noticed him staring at his hands, and he began to move them -- pointing to himself, then... he didn't recognise the rest. Those words, if he'd ever known them at all, were gone too.

He didn't even realise at first Zack was hauling him to his feet until he'd been half-dragged the first few steps. His head still ached.

Come on, he said. We gotta keep moving if we're gonna get you some help.

I'm sorry, he said. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry --

Cut that out, seriously.

I'm s -- I --

He bit his tongue, as though it would help clamp down the words he didn't even have anymore.

You're the one navigating, right? said Zack, as Cloud stumbled again. Cloud nodded. Everything looked identical here -- he'd never really ventured much into Sector 1. Following the train tracks was the best bet they had.

So navigate us.

I’m sorry.

Don’t be. Just -- we’ll get you a change of clothes, and then we’ll keep going. Cloud looked down at himself, then, and realised he’d thrown up all over himself at some point in his seizure. He closed his eyes in mortification. Just tell me where to go.

He rummaged through the bag and fished out a spare set of scrubs for Cloud, leaving him to change by himself. It took longer to get dressed than was even remotely acceptable, but asking for Zack’s help would’ve been even worse. The clothes were on and in the end that was all that mattered.

His hearing came and went over the next few hours, as did his vision, and he never quite managed to walk the whole day without Zack’s assistance. Twice he had to be carried. It was Zack that had to haul himself over crumbling office buildings and burnt out cars. He kept stumbling. Cloud wouldn’t have stumbled.

Sometimes, in between his vision cutting out, the world seemed to be twisting in around them, like water-damaged paper, the buildings curling up over his head as though he were trapped in a concrete fish bowl. He found he could at least walk then -- though with everything distorted as it was, it was difficult to know what was actually horizontal. Now more than ever, it was easier to walk along walls and ceilings as easily as the ground -- at least, until reality came crashing back into him, and he found himself plummeting thirty stories or more as he lost whatever focus was keeping him there.

By the end of the day, he was nursing a broken leg, and they were forced to set up camp in a crumbling shopping mall while Cloud lectured Zack on how to set the bone before healing.

He did it perfectly on the second try, as though he’d always known how, and a second later the magic was knitting his leg back together, allowing him to slump against the wall with a groan of relief.

Getting better at that, said Cloud. He couldn’t see again, but he could still feel the way Zack was casting, and sense his fatigue ebbing much more quickly this time.

“You think so?”

Cloud nodded. He unsteadily pushed himself upright to drag his bag over, and started to dole out the food.

...What do you think about another lesson?

"What, like -- other spells?" His voice was casual, but Cloud could still sense the excitement that bubbled up at the prospect.

Yeah, if you want. Or -- casting techniques, for some of the more advanced stuff. Like how I fixed the car.

"That sounds great," said Zack. "If -- if you're sure, I mean. Shouldn't we be trying to get you back?"

It'll help, said Cloud. We'll just be reviewing things I already remember. Or... I will, at least. Maybe we should get you started on trying to remember it yourself. That in and of itself could be its own challenge -- the memories would be third-hand at this point, with Zack reaching through to recall something of Cloud's that wasn't even technically his, either.

"I did once," said Zack. "When I killed -- when I got lunch. Didn't go that well, though," he added, in response to Cloud's own face falling, "so a review would be good."

They must have passed an hour or two like that, sitting across from one another as Zack rummaged through his memories. No point in being squeamish about what he might come across. Not anymore.

Little flashes of memory played out before his eyes as Zack fumbled for the wrong ones. Marlene teaching him to do a flip-to-pour, allowing himself a small half-smile of accomplishment as he actually managed to not spill water all over himself at long last; more crying alone and bruised and naked in his cell, nothing Zack hadn't seen plenty of by this point anyway; sliding under the outstretched wing of a dragon before taking it off with one smooth stroke of his sword, Barret tagging in to rush past him by nailing it in the side with heavy gunfire; quietly humming to himself as he slowly picked a stripped screw out of a chunk of wood before noticing his skin was starting to get pink from all the sun.

Then more crying and pleading, this time as a guard put out a cigarette on his hand. Cloud felt his arm jerk in the present day.

“Sorry,” muttered Zack, as the memory faded again.

It’s okay.

“Yeah, but -- I mean, you probably don’t want me seeing this stuff.”

...I wouldn’t have asked you if I wasn’t okay with you seeing it, replied Cloud after a moment.

He'd laid himself bare before Zack, the way he had with Aeris, completely and utterly. There was nowhere to hide when someone was in this deep.

He was five again, on his knees in front of the bed, waiting for Ma to come home. He looked up from the dried berries he’d been snacking on and fumbled for the red crayon, for the Pale Man’s eyes. Next to him, he’d drawn Ma, holding his hand, because they’d decided to get married. And below them he’d drawn himself, much taller than he was now, and beside him, his new best friend Sephiroth.

YOU ARE GRAT CLOUD, he wrote in a speech bubble beside Sephiroth’s head. In the present day Cloud sighed uncomfortably and waited for the snide comment he knew was coming.

Instead, Zack simply moved on.

It felt strange now -- no longer as though he were remembering, more as though he were watching someone sift through information that now seemed alien to him. He watched himself play cards with a middle-aged man in a suit with an impeccable poker face even while drunk, and it didn’t even occur to him at first to wonder why he couldn’t remember his name.

Finally, Cloud felt something catch as Zack found a fragment of thought that was less moment in time, more internalised muscle memory -- and with it, the knowledge of what he was casting.

The barrier Zack created thwacked off the side of Cloud's head and dissolved into light. His grin of excitement disappeared immediately.

"Shit, sorry --"

It's fine. Should've gone over magic safety before we even started.

"Well, go ahead and do it now," said Zack.

Cloud nodded, stood up and created a small flame to begin demonstrating.

Then he hesitated.

He couldn't remember what the first three tenets were. Don't point it at anything you weren't ready to destroy? No, that was guns. He should know this -- it had been drilled into him a thousand times over in boot camp, he'd reminded himself of it a thousand times more when on the road. He was an expert, a title he didn't claim lightly. It was one of the only things he could claim to be even halfway competent at.

And now the knowledge was just gone.

Don't... don't start... you have to commit to a spell, he faltered. You have to -- if you aren't sure -- you can't back out halfway, the energy will...

The energy would what? It was important. He knew this. He'd been casting at a level most trained professionals never even reached in their lifetimes for years, how did he not --?

"If it's Black magic, it'll all come rushing out no matter what, and you could lose an arm that way," said Zack slowly. "If it's White, you blow the energy and nothing happens at all, and wasting energy on a spell in the middle of a fight can be even more dangerous than a failed casting. Physical magic isn't directly lethal, but depending on what it's for losing focus in the middle of what you're doing can obviously cause accidents. And a summon can kill you if you do it wrong. In all cases, you have to commit to the spell.

"Second tenet is to never try and use an unknown materia right off the bat, because even though you'll know what the spell is and how to cast it as soon as you're close enough to it, you won't really have a feel for how it'll act in the wild -- how the magic will come out, how it'll feel to control, how quickly or slowly it'll act. Always test it first, away from people, or on a plant or something.

"And the third is to know how many materia you can safely use at once --"

-- because even one piece of materia will have a physical toll on the body as your connection to the Lifestream grows, finished Cloud. He was staring at Zack.

"I remember you mentioning it to Aeris," explained Zack. "I think it was in the transcript."

Cloud nodded uncertainly. He had told Aeris that, but only the first part. He hadn't even mentioned Physical magic. And he'd only gone over things briefly, he'd thought. How many notes had she taken, exactly? Had she been lying?

"Are you okay?" asked Zack. "Maybe all this memory stuff is messing with your head."

No, said Cloud. It...

Zack probably didn't even know how right he was. But -- no. He wasn't right. It couldn't be, could it? It wasn't as though he was missing memories after he'd done the same thing with Aeris. And Tifa, when they'd been in the Lifestream -- if anything he'd come back with more memories than he'd gone in with. But...

...maybe. Maybe it was. Maybe he'd been making himself sick this whole time.

"You don't look so hot," said Zack. "I think we should call it here." And then before Cloud had a chance to object, “How’s your speaking so far?”

Cloud opened his mouth a couple times. “I c -- I can’t -- I --”

“Whatever, that’s fine,” said Zack, as Cloud’s face burned with shame. “It’s not a big deal. We’ll see if it picks up tomorrow.”

Once they'd gotten settled in for the night, Cloud lay awake for a good while, long after he heard Zack’s breathing slow and even out.

The next morning, he found Zack had been partially right: It did, in fact, pick up tomorrow. There were still words missing at odd intervals -- Zack’s name seemed to come and go, among others, and English was significantly harder than it had been, but Zack was willing enough to switch to Standard if that meant actually encouraging Cloud to talk with his mouth.

“Past here,” he said, and he realised how strange it felt to be speaking, which in and of itself was probably a bad sign. “Trains all lead in. Just gotta follow them. Then out.”

His vision was out of commission again, so he paused, listening for the way the sound of their breathing echoed off the rubble. He clicked his tongue a few times to give himself more to work with, and felt a thrill of unease emanate from Zack. Perhaps he’d teach him how to do it himself -- it was something even humans could learn, after all, and at least a few other members of Avalanche had decided to pick it up as well, with all the time they’d been spending in unlit caves. Although, none of the human members of the group had really quite gotten the hang of it the same way, except… except…

He couldn’t remember her name. She brought him machines sometimes. He couldn’t remember her name.

It would come back. Once he got better, it would come back.

When he leapt off the mountain of concrete and rebar this time, he landed in a light crouch, and waited for Zack to do the same.

There was something relaxing about it -- the familiar strain of his muscles as he leapt from building to building, the exhilaration of feeling himself sailing through the air before landing a jump that would’ve killed any human. Good performance. Adequate.

Perhaps it was just added paranoia from being unable to see again, but the entire time he could’ve sworn he’d felt eyes on the back of his neck. He’d told Zack as much, and though he hadn’t noticed anything of the sort, they picked up the pace anyway, just in case.

He offered Zack more food again, and was again rebuffed.

“Ate already, when you weren’t looking,” he muttered. “Might as well --”

“The next time you hand me a whole one of these fucked up plant things, I’m using it to beat you unconscious,” said Zack shortly. Cloud reclaimed his portion without comment.

“See,” he said, chewing his way through the stems, “this is why you’re short. Never eat anything.”

“You sound like Ms. Suk,” muttered Cloud, tearing off a chunk with his teeth.

“Who?”

“Regular customer of mine. Kept fussing over me. I think she was probably lonely.” He scratched his neck. “Haven’t visited her in a while, because of all of this. Haven’t visited a lot of people.”

They were approaching Shinra Tower, he realised. Maybe he could convince Zack a detour was worth it.

“You said you were a mechanic, right?” asked Zack, cutting off his train of thought. “I never got to see your garage.”

“I didn’t really have one,” said Cloud. “I’d just fix whatever out back behind the bar. Or I’d drive out to the client, fix it there. Not like you can move houses into a garage.”

“And you enjoy it?”

Cloud nodded. “I like fixing things,” he said, though that didn’t really do it justice. “What’s -- what’s being a doctor like?” It was hard to imagine how human testing would fit into something like looking at stars.

“There’s a lot of math,” said Zack. “A lot of looking at readouts from big fancy telescopes. MKO did this community outreach thing where they let kids visit the station, and that basically sealed it. Had my heart set on working there ever since.”

“MKO?”

“Mauna Kea Observatories. There’s a whole bunch of them up there from around the world -- Hawaii’s got nice weather and high elevation points, it was basically an ideal spot for telescopes. What really got me about it was that -- that was kind of the first time I realised I was gonna die one day.” He paused to pick a strand of plant fibre from his teeth. “Which is a weird thing to be ‘inspiring’, I know, but -- you know, you hear about the universe, right? That it goes on forever and ever, which is hard enough to picture -- it’s just everything there is and ever was and ever will be. And then you find out it’s not as everything as you thought it was -- that one day it’ll all just stop due to entropy; just a whole universe, dead. The fact that it’d all end one day, for everything -- for Earth, for the sun, for the entire Milky Way, felt huge. And if we’re right about the membrane thing, every time two of them brush up against another it’s another Big Bang, and there’s this whole ecosystem of -- of things that are supposed to be infinity, forming and dying and being created again…”

“Like the Lifestream,” Cloud said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” said Zack, after considering it. “And -- things like that… everything was so much smaller than you thought it was, but bigger, too. And it made me want to look and see what it was all like, I guess. Since looking is really all we can do, but it was still worth doing. Just for me. It wouldn’t do anything for anyone, I guess, it was just… something I wanted to know. Something all of us wanted to know. Maybe that’s just part of being human or some shit, I don’t know, I never thought about it that much. But it was…”

Zack paused to stuff the last of his mandrake inside his mouth and swallowed roughly around it. “‘Course, I made it. And Mom and Dad were all proud of me, and my college buddies, I guess, and Aaron -- by that point, we weren’t speaking anymore. And I was finally here, part of this huge thing I’d wanted to be part of for so long, and all this other insignificant shit -- Aaron not talking to me, Mom yelling at him for not appreciating what I’d accomplished… it all felt bigger than that. And not in a good way.

“And -- well, you know… by that point, you’re older and less stupid, and you realise how tainted science is, no matter how happy it made you. Those observatories on Mauna Kea probably wouldn’t be there if America hadn’t barged in and stolen the land. And I wouldn’t be working there if my parents hadn’t moved us to Hawaii for business reasons when I was little.” He heard the shift of fabric as Zack leaned back against the rubble he’d been sitting against and sighed. “You can never actually enjoy anything. Someone had to suffer for it, one way or another. Or will. Never thought studying dark matter would get someone hit by a truck.” Another pause. “It’s like what you said earlier, I guess. About killing. If you’ve decided your being alive is more important than someone else’s -- it’s selfish no matter what. I decided me getting to work at MKO was more important than whatever the land meant to anyone that lived there, or whatever it would’ve done for Aaron if I hadn’t -- hadn’t dropped out of college instead of showing him up at every turn. And then nothing’s worth sticking around for. You didn’t work hard to get where you are, and where you are isn’t even… I don’t know. There’s just too much shit in the foreground for you to care anymore.”

Cloud finished his mandrake in silence. There was something prickling away in the back of his head that he didn’t quite understand, and wasn’t sure what to do with it.

Instead he just said, “Can I ask a question?”

“Seems like you already did.”

“Oh.” He went quiet.

“...It was a joke. What’s your question?”

“What’s entropy?”

“Oh -- sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Entropy and enthalpy are like -- it’s thermodynamics. Erm…” he hesitated. “I’m kinda realising you might not even have the same rules about this as our universe does, since you’ve got magic and all. Wonder how that works…”

“I know what thermodynamics are, kind of. What’s magic got to do with it?”

“No idea,” said Zack. “But -- the idea is that in a system, you’ve got your different kinds of energy, right? Electrical, chemical, rest, so on and so forth -- and thermal. And energy can be converted from one form into another, to a degree --”

“I know this bit,” said Cloud, surprising himself. “It’s -- magic allows new energy to be introduced into a system, but you’ll wind up expending some of your own to do that no matter what. If there’s a net gain of some kind, or a loss that would’ve -- would’ve -- that’s more than it would’ve been if the system was left alone, then that’s magic. Otherwise, there’s always gonna be a little bit of energy lost no matter what when it converts from one form to another.”

“Right, exactly,” said Zack quickly. “So, entropy is the end result of all of that conversion -- in a system you’ve got all kinds of energy, and it naturally wants to balance itself out -- like, when you pour water into a tub and it sloshes around. The end result is it being completely flat, when all the mechanical energy’s been expended as sound or heat. It’s that, but for the entire universe. One day it’s all gonna stop sloshing around, and there’ll be nothing but uniformity. It’ll all just… stop moving. The more things change, the more they stay the same, only literal.”

Cloud nodded. “...Do you think that’ll happen here, too?”

“No idea,” said Zack. “That’s the interesting part, right? You can literally create energy with magic, which means… shit, I don’t know what it means. Like -- what kind of end would this universe have if entropy just… isn’t a concern? How much would it matter in the grand scheme of things if the laws of physics here otherwise conform to most of what I know about if it weren’t for human intervention? Or does magic happen just on its own somewhere, with no one to cast it?”

“We’ll probably never know,” said Cloud. “Space travel --”

“-- is illegal here, you told us,” said Zack. “Which is stupid, and a waste -- and it’s not even travelling, it’s just looking. Studying this stuff. Is -- is no one interested? Really?”

“...I’m interested,” said Cloud, and was again surprised to find he was.

“Yeah?” said Zack. Cloud felt eyes on him again, and picked nervously at his wrist.

“If that’s okay,” he added.

“It’s completely okay,” said Zack. “Just -- unexpected, is all.”

Cloud said nothing.

“Well -- anyway, I guess I have a couple theories. About the Lifestream, I mean, and this universe, but stop me if I’m wrong.”

Cloud lost track of how long he spent sitting there hearing Zack talk about energy and magic and particles Cloud had never heard of before. Some of it he understood. Much of it he didn’t. On occasion he chimed in with a reply when Zack asked a question about the Lifestream he thought he could answer. Mostly, he just listened.

He’d forgotten how nice it was to just listen to someone talk that genuinely seemed interested in talking to him.

It was the most animated he’d ever heard Zack, as well. At one point he’d even started to draw a diagram with a rock before remembering Cloud wouldn’t be able to see it, and he’d trailed off uncomfortably before Cloud prompted him again.

“Keep going,” he said. “What’s dark energy? Like -- it’s not another name for Black magic, right?”

And Zack kept going.

“It’s weird to think about,” he said eventually. “That I spent so much time studying the rules of one universe, and now it’s --”

He slouched against the concrete. “...I don’t recognise anything in this sky,” he said, and he went quiet again and didn’t resume speaking for some time.

“...Thank you,” he said finally. “For listening to me talk about my own bullshit for an hour.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” said Cloud. “It was nice.”

Zack made a quiet noise of agreement and said nothing.

“You knew what you wanted to do, at least,” said Cloud. “You and Aeris.”

“And you don’t? You seemed pretty set on the repair thing.”

“It feels good to be useful,” he said offhandedly, picking at his wrist. “I’ve only ever been good at following orders, anyway. That’s why they gave me a number.”

“...Well, if it’s any consolation, I think it’s good you didn’t let that get to you.”

“...It’s -- it’s a good number,” said Cloud, unsure of what Zack meant.

Zack went quiet again. There wasn’t enough noise for Cloud to read the expression on his face properly.

Cloud waved his hand and felt the fire they’d made from smashed furniture and the contents of an abandoned file cabinet flicker out. “Let’s get some sleep,” he said. “Try and get up earlier tomorrow.”

The next day was met with another surprise, as he changed into fresh scrubs -- or at least, ones that weren’t immediately covered in body fluids.

“You’re seeing this too, right?” he asked Zack, pulling his shirt off.

The stigma was gone, once again replaced with the tapestry of scarring he was used to. A few of them even looked fresh.

“...Might as well not look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess,” said Zack. “But I guess this means your sight’s back. Seems like you’re feeling a lot better today, too.”

He nodded. “A little dizzy. Fine otherwise, I guess.” He gestured to a bit of roasted mandrake he’d set aside on one of his swords. “That’s for you. I ate before you got up.” He hopped down from the ceiling, where they realised they’d set their camp up the night before somehow, though he could’ve sworn it was on the ground. They must’ve shifted back without realising it. It was so hard to tell with half the buildings upended in the first place.

The first jump of the day didn’t go well. Cloud instantly felt queasy the second it was finished, his vision once again going dark. He closed his eyes, his jaw set.

You can see just fine, he told himself. Your brain might not work, but it’s okay because you’re not all the way here thanks to Jenova, so you don’t need to follow the rules that say you shouldn’t be able to see. You can see fine.

He opened his eyes. He could see just fine.

Maybe it’d be okay after all. He just had to be more conscious of it now.

The world surged in and out of focus. He sighed.

“You okay?” came Zack’s voice from behind him.

“I’m fine,” said Cloud. “Just a headache. Let’s… let’s just see if we can cover more ground the old fashioned way.”

Which was what they did. Cloud suspected Zack knew he was probably hiding something after he put his hand down on his third nail, and he was forced to distract him with the prospect of another magic lesson as they walked. Zack had more than proven his affinity for White magic, so Cloud had given him the restorative materia from the first aid kit to practise with. That, he had hoped, would allow him to fine tune the process of reaching for memories that weren’t even his. With luck, maybe he’d even manage a sustained casting. Cloud had always been terrible at those, too.

Still, it was strange that he was still feeling little mental tugs given Zack wasn’t reaching through his memories anymore. His soul, perhaps, but not his memories. Perhaps it was just the mental link, their thoughts mixing together without them even realising it.

The sound of their footsteps echoing off the cracked asphalt meant his sound map came and went in little flickers. Occasionally it got a little easier when they cut through the insides of buildings, as it did now -- fewer things for the noise to echo off. Of course, it also meant he found himself only half paying attention to Zack’s running commentary, occasionally offering his own pointers.

It was also the reason he noticed the ceiling caving in before Zack.

“Move!” he barked, and he lunged, shoving Zack out of the way before the remains of the second floor fell down into the first, and on top of Cloud.

The first thing that occurred to him, as the dust cleared and Zack began shouting his name in an attempt to locate him, was that he should definitely be in more pain than he actually was. Some concrete had smashed over his head, so that was bleeding, but he didn’t feel concussed. More serious were the bits of broken metal beams impaling him through the shoulder and stomach. He reached up to pull the one in his shoulder out, quickly healing it shut before it had a chance to bleed everywhere. The one in his stomach was a slightly worse problem, especially because he could no longer feel his legs. It had probably severed his spine on impact.

“Cloud? Where -- oh god.” Oh. Zack could see him now, it seemed.

“I’ve had worse,” he rasped. “Need some help though. Can’t -- can’t move my legs.”

He heard rubble shift as Zack scrambled over to him, kneeling atop the debris.

“I don’t -- if I try and move you, it could make it worse -- I -- if we get you to a surgeon or something, maybe they can -- maybe --”

“Just take the beam out and heal it before I pass out, idiot.”

“Oh! Oh. Right, yeah -- hold on….”

A few minutes later, and he was being helped to his feet by Zack again. Healing or no, he’d probably be feeling that for a while.

“That’s the best kind of practice,” he said, as he (somewhat resentfully) allowed Zack to help him walk. “Field experience. That’s what me and Avalanche had four years ago.”

He felt Zack nod. He still seemed shaken by the whole ordeal. Probably wasn’t used to seeing that much blood.

“I’m fine,” said Cloud. “Really. That’s not even the worst I’ve been run through before.”

“...Why’d you do that?” Zack asked.

“Why’d I do what?”

“Took a hit for me. Why would you do that?”

“...Because it’d be bad if you got impaled?”

“See, that’s what I thought at first,” said Zack. “You need me alive, or whatever. But… I could’ve survived it too, same as you. You know that, right?”

“‘Course I know that,” said Cloud.

“Then why’d you do it?”

“You’re a good person,” said Cloud simply. “It’d be bad if you got hurt. And I could’ve stopped it, so I did.”

Zack did not respond. Cloud let the issue drop, unsure why he’d even asked in the first place.

Cloud’s condition continued to worsen as they travelled. He moved them a little further from Mother and spent the next few hours having what Zack had decided were “absence seizures”. At one point he came to to find Zack carrying him again.

“...Put me down,” he snapped immediately.

Zack obliged, but then said, “I think we should stop for today.”

“Why? We’re getting close, I can tell. I bet I could even get us back --”

“Cloud, you aren’t the one that has to sit there and watch you have a seizure, and wonder if this is gonna be one where you stop breathing again,” said Zack. “You can’t just --”

“I’m fine now, though!” Cloud retorted. “So we might as well keep going.”

“You’re gonna kill yourself if you keep this up!”

“No, I’m not! I’ve been doing just fine without eyes this whole time --”

“You’re fucking blind again?!”

Oops.

“...So what if I am? I just need to deal with it on my own. It’s getting better, I swear --”

“You call this getting better?”

“I can handle myself fine, Zack, I can’t spend this whole time just leaning off of you, especially with --”

“Cloud, for Christ’s sake, sit down.”

And Cloud sat down. Sitting down seemed like a good idea all of a sudden. Zack was right.

He blinked hard. He hadn’t wanted… had he?

“I thought you were done with -- I don’t know, being threatened by me?”

“I’m not --”

Zack shot him a withering look. Cloud swallowed.

“Alright, fine,” he said. “I am. You’re better than me. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“I’m not --”

“You are,” said Cloud. “You -- look at you. You’re smarter than me, and you -- you had to fucking carry me, and you’re a better person, and I owe you and I haven’t even started to pay you back for the clothes, and you’re taller, and better looking, and you -- you shave.”

“‘I shave’,” said Zack flatly. “That’s your criteria for ‘better person’, is if they shave.”

“Yeah, it is,” he snapped. “I haven’t shaved once this whole entire gods-forsaken mess. Because I’m -- I --”

“Is this seriously what you’ve been running yourself ragged over?” he said incredulously. “A fucking dick measuring contest?”

“No, ‘cause I’ve already lost that too --”

“Shut the fuck up. Holy shit. Shut the fuck up. You didn’t just actually say that to me --”

“You wanted to hear me say it, and I said it.”

“I fucking promise you I didn’t.” Zack pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “This is the most juvenile fucking thing you’ve done yet, and that’s honestly saying something.”

“It’s easy for you to say,” snapped Cloud. “You -- you’ve probably never -- it’s important,” he said pleadingly. “It’s -- the Director, she never even -- and if she didn’t, then --”

“So then fucking talk to me so I can!” said Zack. “I...” he hesitated. “I already said I was gonna help you learn to cook after this, right? So -- I’ll listen.”

“It’s not all of it,” said Cloud. “It’s just -- it’s a lot of things…”

Cloud trailed off, hoping Zack would save him from his own rambling. He didn’t.

“You have to promise you won’t laugh,” said Cloud, staring at Zack’s knees. “I never told anyone about this before. Not this much. You -- you can’t laugh. Please.”

“I won’t laugh,” said Zack firmly.

“Promise,” begged Cloud. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

“I promise I won’t laugh,” said Zack, and there was a sombre expression on his face that seemed to reach beyond Cloud, somehow. “I’m listening.”

Cloud swallowed thickly. He still couldn’t make himself look up at Zack.

"It -- it took longer than most people, to... they said I'd be a late bloomer, since there wasn't as much to eat. Happened a lot with kids from poorer towns, so for a while I wasn't worried with how long I had to wait, and how slow it was going. I knew I'd get there eventually. Then Hojo --"

There was no point in worrying about lowering himself in Zack's eyes. He was likely there already.

"There were... there were a lot of... the mako treatment, it could cause cell damage. And there was Jenova, and... other things. Normally Soldiers are sterile anyway from one or the other, but Hojo didn't want the -- the -- since I was Shinra property, I was copyrighted, and they wanted to make sure there weren't 'unauthorised copies'. And since the s-s --" You’re over it. You’re over it. You’re over it. He swallowed. "The surgeries wouldn't work, because I kept healing, and it messed with the hormones they wanted, they -- they used chemical treatments or something instead, because I'd -- any of... of that stuff, that they wanted me to have, I'd be getting it from the lab anyway, and Hojo -- he thought it was for the best he control hormone levels anyway, and -- and the treatments -- and now it... my body doesn't... do a lot of the things a man's body is supposed to."

He had to pause and swallow again, because he just about threw up in his mouth in disgust. He was disgusting. He was disgusted with himself.

"I was... I was excited at first," he said. "When I -- I saw I looked different, and I realised I'd grown up. They didn't exactly keep a lot of mirrors around the lab, it had been years... and then I realised I didn't. Not after I got out and looked around. I've never even shaved before." He let out a hollow laugh. "I'm a weird, stunted joke, is what I am, and I'm lucky my balls dropped at all. And everyone fucking knows it. Tifa knows it, she has to, after -- sometimes I think... I think maybe she does want kids, and she just says she doesn't to humour me since I can't..."

"So adopt," said Zack, shrugging like someone that hadn't heard the lifetime of comments, or had been huddled in a cell feeling his body alternately changed against his will, or failing to change at all, because no matter how afraid you were you couldn't run away from your own flesh. "And -- look, you've got testosterone treatments here, right? If you guys have cloning and magic you have to have at least figured out how to manufacture T. They've even got patches, if you don't wanna deal with the needles --"

"I shouldn't have to!" he blurted. He was shaking now, sadness and anger and pent-up frustration making it hard to see or hear or think or speak. He stood up and began pacing. "I shouldn't fucking have to! Nothing -- nothing works right! I shouldn't have to take pills to look like a man is supposed to, or get through the day or -- or fucking get out of bed on my own so I don't spend the rest of my life drooling all over myself, I shouldn't --" He grunted in frustration. "I was supposed to be better."

"...Better than what?"

"Better than everyone!" shouted Cloud, kicking a chunk of rebar. "I -- they gave me a number. I was a success. I was supposed to be smarter, and stronger, and... and I was given every chance to succeed at everything, and I still fucked it all up. I'm just a bunch of mistakes that didn't die somehow, that likes to pretend it's a mechanic, and all I got out of it was that I'm afraid all the time and nothing works the way it's supposed to, and a tattoo that..." He saw his vision blur slightly, and he quickly wiped his eyes before anyone could notice he was crying.

"I was supposed to be perfect, and I can't even grow a fucking beard."

He swallowed again through heavy breathing, trying to clear his head. "...That's probably why she didn't even recognise me," he added. "Because I look like a fucking girl."

He could feel Zack staring at him, at a loss for words. Probably thought it was really, really funny that someone like Cloud, who was barely even a man, could exist at all, and all the jokes that came with it. And the jokes were probably true, on one level or another, Tifa had to have considered leaving him at least once over it all, and it was probably why Jessie had, and no one in their right mind would want anything to do with him, but even then all of the jokes couldn’t come close to doing the damage she had. Cloud glowered at him.

"It's not funny," he snapped. Because it wasn't. It was humiliating and it hurt to even think about.

"I wasn't -- who's 'she'? Jenova?" asked Zack, obviously trying to recover.

"The Director." He didn't even want to look at Zack anymore, either. "Go on. Laugh. Make your joke about how I'm a little bitch, or a shemale, or whatever the fuck else you were going to say."

"...I'm not going to laugh," said Zack, sounding rather uncomfortable. "What do you mean, she didn't recognise you?"

"I mean she didn't recognise me," said Cloud. "We... she'd been infected since forever, when she had Sephiroth. So -- so when push came to shove... I don't know. Maybe Sephiroth was just influencing her, or... maybe she really did want to help him, in her own way. But she'd never... I was only a backup to them, and she was the one that was pretty up front about that, but I hoped... I hoped for years, that maybe I could change that. And when she destabilised before Meteorfall, I thought I could -- I could talk her down, that she'd know who I was, and maybe she'd remember that I-I -- I tried to be good for her. I tried." His face -- that he couldn't believe Tifa wanted to look at, because men weren't supposed to be "pretty", and definitely not prettier than two actual women according to a wife-seeking mafia don -- burned with shame. "But she wound up fighting us anyway, and I didn't even know if she was listening to anything I was saying, but I tried. And then... then she -- she noticed me, and I thought..."

He swallowed thickly. He didn’t want to make himself recount it -- to condemn himself with his own words.

I’ll show you, he told Zack. Don't laugh. Please.

And again, he felt Zack overtake him, and again there was nowhere to hide, not even his memories --

The city was collapsing around them as the reactors slowly tore themselves to pieces bit by bit. The mass of teeth and claws and tendrils that had once been Lucrecia Crescent stood between them and the controls, and for every part that she managed to grow back, more and more of her just kept bleeding.

Cloud had pleaded with her -- had been reluctant to even fight her, but with every passing second she had given him less and less of a choice. His newfound family couldn't win this fight with him not really participating in it, and as much as he would have liked to save her, there was no question of who he would rather save more.

He ducked through another claw slamming itself down where he'd been a millisecond before, coming in low and fast. He could do it -- one blow to the "head". Even if it didn't kill her, she wouldn't have enough eyes left to dodge a volley of fire in time, and there was no healing from that.

I'm sorry, he thought to her, unsure if she too could hear him through the connection. And with that, he lunged for her neck.

He never got the chance. One of the tendrils suddenly hardened into a claw and speared him through the gut midair. He wheezed, trying to get oxygen into his body with a lung suddenly collapsed, and his sword slipped from his hand and clattered to the ground, the other one feebly tugging at the claw embedded in his gut. Someone yelled his name, but he didn't have enough air in his lungs to reply. The Director -- Lucrecia Crescent's face, or what was left of it, was suddenly looming above his, in the perfect position to sink her teeth into his carotid. No amount of healing could combat him bleeding out in a matter of seconds with a broken neck.

But she didn't. She was looking at him. She was actually looking at him.

She pulled him closer -- almost gently, even as the mere motion had him gasping (ineffectively) in pain, and she was looking at him. Cloud had dreamed of her looking at him this way for years and years, alone in the dark, trying to remember what it felt like to be touched, she and Hojo right there, just out of reach, and if he could just be what they wanted, maybe...

But she was here now, smiling at him. And then she lifted her hand and rested it softly, lovingly, on his cheek. It was still warm.

Tears welled up in his eyes -- from what, he wasn't sure. There was noise in the background, but none of that mattered because Lucrecia was holding him, even as the claw dug deeper and deeper into his body, widening the exit point on his back. Cloud's mouth was filling with blood, and it dribbled down his chin as he smiled back.

And then she spoke to him.

"My daughter..."

Cloud stared at her. The smile slowly faded from his face.

"...It's me," he pleaded. "It's me, it's C--" The tears were coming faster now. She had to know who he was. She had to. He'd tried so hard for her. "...It's Series 3. It's me."

He tried to reach back, but his arms were too heavy.

He fell to the ground when Lucrecia dropped him, Cid's spear punching through the back of her head out her eye socket, and for a moment he wasn't sure he even wanted to get up.

 

---

 

"...It wasn't even meant for me," said Cloud quietly. "It was meant for some girl. She didn't even know who I was. Because I look like this."

"...Is... is that..." Zack began, pausing to carefully choose his words, "...is that really a bad thing? It sounds like it saved your life."

Cloud's hand strayed to his wrist again.

"...she didn't even know who I was..." he repeated quietly to himself. His eyes flickered to Zack for an instant, as though remembering he was there.

"So... whatever. Everyone was right. Just go ahead and laugh."

The profound hurt on Cloud's face was about the least funny thing Zack had ever seen.

"...If she's the reason you look like that," he tried again, "because of the -- the tests, or the sterilisation, or... then... it's -- it's not something you should --" He grimaced. He was making it worse.

"...I would kill someone," Cloud said slowly, the grief in his voice tinged with a cold hunger, "I would kill someone to be able to grow hair. Or be taller, or... just to look right. I wanna look right. She would've recognised me then. And she would've wanted me."

Zack was quiet for a moment, unsure of what to say. Maybe there wasn’t anything to say for something like that.

“...It…” he began again slowly, “...it means a lot to me. That -- that you told me this. So, thank you.”

Because it did. As terrifying as it was to see this raw hurt -- to be asked to see it, to be given something white hot and fragile and sharp -- to be asked to do something with it, and to not know what to do…

He offered Cloud another hug. Cloud hugged back this time, burying his face in Zack’s shoulder.

“Thank you for not laughing,” he said softly.

“Can I ask a question?”

A silent nod.

“Does Tifa laugh at you?”

“She should -- she probably is --”

“Does she?”

A shake of the head.

“What about…” he frowned, trying to remember anyone else’s names. “What about Barret? Does he laugh at you?”

“...Once. Sometimes. He never means it, though.” He took a deep, slow breath. “They make jokes about the dress, sometimes. ‘Bout how I looked good in it.” Another pause. “I did look good in it.” There was a hint of pride in his voice. Zack fought the temptation to ask him to clarify. Not the time. Later.

“...Do people on the street laugh at you?”

“Sometimes,” said Cloud. “Don’t care, though. They’re just assholes. I know I’m a guy, and I know I could break every bone in their bodies.”

Zack blinked. “...So then, why do you even care about what -- what this Luticia lady thinks? She was trying to kill you.”

“...’Cause I wanted her to care,” muttered Cloud. He pushed away. “I -- she never cared about me, the way the Professor did, and I just -- I thought, maybe, if I was good enough… and if she -- if she thought -- maybe Tifa might --”

“Why do you care what he thinks?” said Zack, taken completely aback. “Do you know how many times over the last week you beamed some shit into my head with him cutting you open and complaining you were screaming too loud?”

“You don’t understand,” said Cloud. “He…”

Zack just shook his head slowly as Cloud failed to come up with anything that could possibly explain it. “You’re right,” said Zack. “I don’t.”

“...Thank you anyway.”

Zack nodded.

“...I bet I could make it back,” said Cloud. “We might as well try it.”

“What about…?”

“If there is something they can do to fix me,” said Cloud, “then they can’t do it if we don’t even exist in the same place as they do.”

“Aren’t you wanted or something?”

“Yeah,” said Cloud. “But it’s not like it’s doing us any good to hang around here forever. At least in Edge, we can find the others. If…” he sighed, before reluctantly continuing, “if I’m not awake enough to get myself over there, I guess you can carry me over to them or something. If -- if you’re okay with that,” he added nervously.

“You’re basically skin and bones,” said Zack. “I think I can handle the weight.”

“Says the fucking meathead,” muttered Cloud, but his lip quirked into something that might’ve almost been a smile.

Zack watched with bated breath as Cloud closed his eyes and went still one last time.

A horrible lurch went through Zack as the world shifted and tilted and tipped about him, and this time it didn’t go away. He could feel things pulsing and twitching inside him, and his vision was odd -- fragmented, at an angle that was all wrong. The air felt too hot and too cold all at once and every time he moved he felt things move that -- that shouldn’t be moving. That shouldn’t be there at all.

Zack looked down at himself and screamed. Tried to, anyway.

He was a horrible mess of limbs and claws and eyes (his eyes), flesh and feathers and teeth, an awful howling noise wrung itself from his body, sounding only faintly human. There was no nightmarish haze of pain and disorientation he was viewing it through this time -- this was his body. What was left of it, anyway.

He could still feel things moving about inside him and screamed again, closing his far too many eyes, not wanting to look at the way his flesh seemed to reform itself from one second to the next. More than anything, he wanted everything that was moving to stop, focused everything he had on making it not slink its way from inside to out.

It stopped. He opened his eyes, and several of them didn’t seem to be there to reopen anymore.

He wasn’t human anymore. He hadn’t been for a while. Cloud had told him, Lazard had told him, everyone had told him, but he hadn’t thought.. he hadn’t…

What had he been earlier, then? Just -- an optical illusion? Maybe, but… he’d fit into clothes; clothes which were now scattered around him in shreds as he’d torn through them again. He’d made himself look human, somehow, without even realising it.

That’s what Jenova was, after all. They’d said so in the transcripts. She was a shapeshifter of sorts, spreading and assimilating and copying.

He closed his eyes again, forcing his body to remember what it had felt like earlier. Felt his joints pop and crackle as they shrank and condensed, felt muscle slide past under skin, felt the nauseating quiver of organs forming and shifting and settling into place.

He opened his eyes -- just the two of them -- in time to see the last few claws shrink back into fingers. He fell to his knees and buried his head in his arms in relief.

It was okay. He just -- he had to keep pretending. He was good at that anyway. But it was okay.

“Sorry you had to see that,” he muttered to Cloud.

Cloud didn’t respond. He opened his eyes again and realised Cloud was nowhere to be found.

Zack sighed. He’d disappeared again. He did this every time they moved closer to reality, it seemed like, and it always took him a little while to reappear too. He assumed they just arrived separately since the whole process was kind of haphazard anyway.

He set down his bag and began getting dressed again. He could explain what happened to the clothes he’d been wearing later.

Maybe ten minutes went by. Then fifteen. Then twenty. Then thirty. Cloud did not reappear.

The sun kept moving in the sky. The longest he’d been gone was maybe an hour. They had to have been long past that by now.

...Cloud? he called out. He could sense him somewhere at least, even if it was weaker than it usually was. It wasn’t as though he were dead.

Zack? came the disbelieving reply. Zack, is that you?!

Yeah, where --

I can’t see. I can’t move, I -- I don’t have anything left to move, I don’t know where I am, Mother is here -- She’s so loud, Zack, I can’t get away, please -- help -- please --

His head throbbed. The voice-that-wasn’t-a-voice grew louder.

Please -- don’t leave me here, please, Zack -- are you there? Anyone -- Yuffie -- Tifa -- anyone, please -- oh god -- please, don’t leave me here --- I’ll do anything you want, please, please don’t leave me -- Zack -- !

Zack slowly looked down at his hand. Flexed the fingers. Looked at the world around them. The sky was a nondescript grey. The buildings looked like buildings. The wind blew almost lackadaisically around him, dropping off every now and then. There were no meat vines, or things moving around in the distance, or walls of water shimmering in midair. The whispering had all but faded completely to the back of his mind, and he no longer needed the little red radio to drown it out.

The radio they’d never even had in the first place….

Dread slowly pooling in his gut, he took a deep breath and tried to push back the other way, towards the static. One level removed -- somewhere almost real, but not quite.

Cloud appeared before him, tumbling to the ground as though suddenly shoved into place, sobbing disconsolately. He curled in on himself as Zack approached him, and he flinched as Zack reached to help him up, shame immediately rushing in to fill the void the panic had left.

“I thought you left,” he choked out between tears. “I thought you left me.”

“I didn’t.”

“It was dark.”

“I -- yeah…”

Things were settling into place now that he really, really didn’t want settling in. The way no one had been able to see Cloud at first. The way he’d been getting sicker and sicker -- the way he didn’t need to breathe anymore in spite of that. The way even before he’d only ever been keeping himself upright because he believed he could, the way the radio was here because they’d thought it was, the way the ideas of things were every bit as real as the things themselves when everything was only half-real anyway, the way Jenova wasn’t real at all….

“...Zack?”

Zack realised he’d been staring through Cloud the entire time and blinked. He found his eyes straying to Cloud’s arm -- to where the number had appeared on his wrist despite being burned out years ago, and then Zack's own.

“What is it?” Cloud’s voice was strained from the effort of forcing himself to stop crying so quickly. He looked around in confusion. “We’re not back. I thought… I thought I made it, I don’t --”

“You did make it,” said Zack. “You made it. You did great.” He wasn’t even going to bother pretending to sound happy.

“So, why…?”

“I brought us back,” said Zack. “Wasn’t gonna leave you behind.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t -- I’ll try again, I must’ve --”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Zack. “But you can’t come with me.”

“What?”

Cloud was still shaking. Zack almost didn’t say anything -- almost. But it wouldn’t do him any good to keep quiet. There was nothing he could do for him now anyway.

“Do you remember, in the sixth ring,” said Zack slowly, as though if he waited long enough it would stop being true and he wouldn’t have to finish, “when… when we were fused together, from Reunion? And then I woke up, and I looked like me, and met you in that dream?”

Cloud nodded.

“And then you reappeared,” said Zack. “After I did. And no one could see you but me?”

“But -- but I got better,” said Cloud. “I’m --”

“It was like --” Zack paused again. Forced himself to press onwards. “It was like I was seeing things. Like you weren’t really there.”

He took a deep breath.

“...I don’t think you were there, Cloud. I don’t think you’ve been here this entire time. I don’t think we ever unfused.”

Cloud said nothing. He’d gone very, very still.

“Every time we ever moved anywhere, you’d never show up until after the -- the ideas of things started showing up,” said Zack. “Even back in Soho. It -- it always took you a minute to -- to be here.”

“But I am here,” said Cloud, still hoarse. “I -- you can see me --”

“We could see the radio,” said Zack. “But it wasn’t really a radio, was it? It was just -- it was the idea of the radio.”

“And -- what, I’m just the idea of me?” said Cloud, voice rising in a panic.

“You were still there when we made it back,” said Zack. “Just… in my head. But what I’m looking at -- what I’m talking to, it’s not really there. Because you don’t… you don’t exist as a separate person anymore. The real you is just… in the back of my head.” He stared down at his hand again, remembering what it had felt like to have entirely too many joints in his fingers. “Just like the real me is just a pile of Jenova matter, like you said. I don’t think it ever went away.”

“I… but, Mother -- I mean, Jenova, She -- you said She was -- I’m still here, I am, I just --” Cloud swallowed to steady his breathing. “So -- I’m still -- I thought She was helping. But -- but if I didn’t…”

He stopped to take several more ragged breaths. They didn’t seem to help.

“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked in a small voice. “Jenova was all that was keeping me together before. And -- if I move away from Her, go somewhere more real, then -- then my brain shuts down. And if I go back, then --” He paled. “That’s what’s been happening to me. Why I’ve been forgetting, why it’s -- why it keeps getting harder. I never got out. I never got out, and She’s been taking me this entire time…

“I can’t get away,” said Cloud. “I can’t get away if I’m not real. I can’t get away.” His fingers found his wrist again and dug in. “I can’t go back. Don’t make me go back, please, I can’t go back --”

“Cloud --” Zack began, before Cloud grabbed his arm tightly.

“Try again,” he demanded. “Please -- try again. I could get through the water if I tried, I just wasn’t pushing hard enough, I can get through --”

“What are you talking about?”

“Please! Take us back! Just -- pull me with you,” he demanded. “You have to try again.”

“Cloud, I don’t know if this will even work --”

“Just try!” he pleaded. “Just try to take me with you. Okay? Please. Just try.”

Zack managed a small nod and closed his eyes again. Tried to focus on the hand around his wrist as he pulled himself through, doing his best to visualise it -- that Cloud was real, and next to him, and solid, and here --

He opened his eyes again. Cloud clung desperately to his arm as the world shifted into place around him, flickering in and out of view, then vanished a few seconds later. At least this time he managed to keep himself shaped like Zack.

No -- Zack -- Zack?! Oh god -- oh god --

Zack braced himself again and pushed away once more.

Cloud reappeared, eyes wide, shaking uncontrollably. He staggered over to a piece of rubble and sat down. He was quiet for several moments.

“That’s it, then,” he said at last. “I’m not -- I’m not here. And She wins. Body’s already gone. And pretty soon, She’ll have all of me. Or -- or you will.” He turned to stare at the number on Zack’s wrist. “It’s you that started Reunion. I guess it’s you I’ll disappear into.”

“...I’m sorry,” said Zack. There was nothing else he could say.

“I can’t go back,” he said quietly. “I can’t. I don’t want to go back. Don’t make me go back, please, I can’t go back -- I can’t --”

There were tears streaming down his cheeks again, and the anguish on his face almost tangibly hurt to look at.

And then there were no more words. No amount of pleading would fix this, and they both knew it. He simply sat there and wept.

Zack sat next to him, and he flinched again, but didn’t pull away when he settled an arm around his shoulder. It seemed real -- warm and solid, the way it shuddered under his hand as Cloud hitched his way through another sob. As though the person it represented wasn’t little more than a voice in the back of his head in the real world, being slowly consumed by a relentless tide of music with each day.

Maybe he should’ve killed Cloud, when he’d asked. Maybe it would’ve been kinder than this.

He forced the thought from his head and pulled Cloud against him more tightly.

“I -- I want t-to see Tifa, before I forget her,” he managed to force out through the tears a while later. “Do you think I’ll -- do you think she’ll be able to see me?”

“I think so,” said Zack. “She could before, right?”

“Yeah,” said Cloud. “Yeah, she -- she could see me before.”

“...And she’ll remember you,” he added. “Even if you forget her, she’ll still care about you, right?”

“I wish she didn’t,” he said, a fresh wave of tears overtaking him. “I wish none of them did. If I was better at this, Mother wouldn’t -- I wouldn’t -- they s-said in the labs, it’s because I was too weak to -- to handle Her, that’s why it’s like this -- I tried, you have to believe me, I did -- they gave me a number, I tried --”

“I believe you,” said Zack. “I know you try.”

“They gave me a number,” he repeated. “I tried. I did good. They gave me a number.”

“I -- Cloud?”

Cloud was quiet for a moment, and Zack wondered if perhaps he’d forgotten how to speak again. Then he reached up to his ears and popped out his earrings. He offered them to Zack.

“Take them.”

Zack stared at the two chunks of pewter in his palm, the words not fully registering. “...What?”

“I promised I wouldn’t lose them,” said Cloud. “I promised. If -- if I disappear, then -- what if they go with me? It’s important they stay. And -- and you deserve them.”

“Cloud, I don’t know if this is --”

“You won’t forget me, right?” said Cloud. He looked as though he were in pain. “Please -- I want you to take them.” He was quiet for a moment, as though he were summoning up the courage to say something.

“...They’re just earrings,” was all that came out instead, apparently. “You deserve them.”

“I wouldn’t forget about you anyway,” said Zack. “I --” he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “...I think you’re probably the best friend I’ve ever had.”

“Please take them,” said Cloud softly. “You deserve them. Please.”

Zack stared at them for a while longer, before slowly reaching out and gently taking them from his hands.

“I’ll take good care of them,” he said firmly, pulling Cloud a bit closer.

Cloud closed his eyes again in resignation, and it was a long time before either of them stopped crying.

Notes:

*DROPS THE MIC SO HARD IT ERUPTS OUT THE OTHER SIDE OF THE EARTH KILLING MILLIONS*

Chapter 50: Mouths Work Best on the Front of Your Guy! ♫

Notes:

CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP

I lied a little bit actually, this chapter also has a segment that was written about two years in advance! And it's probably not the part you're thinking of unfortunately.

Thank you so so much to Belderiver, la_regina_scrive, and Denebola_Leo for helping this thing get off the ground. Couldn't have done this without you.

(The restaurant mentioned here is featured in Belderiver's own fic which you should absolutely go read because it's one of the best things on this site period just sayingggg.)

What you could also do is check out this fantastic fan art she drew of the car ride in the previous chapter that I feel appropriately captured the essence of this story.

Cloud closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed.

Nothing this time. He closed his eyes, tried again.

A flicker, like before. The longest he'd managed was five seconds. The strange, dreamlike feeling he'd experienced this entire time fell away completely -- and then everything went dark again as the body he'd imagined himself having, a separate person from Zack, disappeared.

Zack was still asleep, it seemed. He couldn't really "see" anymore, but light and colour still flashed through his mind's eye, along with waves of apprehension that weren't really his. It wasn't a good dream this time.

Wake up, he called out, for the fourth time. Zack didn't hear him this time either.

He was on the beach again -- the vast, empty, grey one, where things moved in the distance. He was alone here. The ocean beckoned to him, the whispering tide growing steadily louder.

He closed his eyes again, and made himself know that he wasn't here at all -- he was Cloud, who was himself, and not part of Mother, who was in the remains of a Zuu's Roost Hotel with the roof torn clean off with Zack.

He opened his eyes. Zack was awake this time, staring at him in surprise.

It startled him enough that he lost focus, and slipped back out of reality, barely managing to maintain a foothold on being here at all.

He could never quite get out all the way -- only mostly. There was a thin veil that seemed to separate him from the rest of the world, and it was all he could do to press himself through it from somewhere that he could exist.

Zack was talking at him. Mother was too loud to hear. He forced himself to listen.

"...seems like you're doing a lot better, right?" he was saying.

Cloud nodded uncertainly.

"Can you walk?"

Another nod.

"How about talking?"

"Mmhm."

"C'mon, you've gotta say more than that."

"Don't really have much to say."

"...Alright, good enough. Let's go."

Cloud nodded again.

The fog in his head was back. He hadn't even really noticed it returning at first, but everything seemed fuzzier in a way they hadn't since... maybe Soho? Or Nibelheim. It was difficult to say.

Zack stopped talking again. Cloud went back to listening to Mother.

Shinra Tower loomed over them. They were getting close: Though they were only halfway through the ruins distance-wise, the fact that this side of the city had been much more extensively picked through for supplies and usable metal meant that the path was much clearer and straightforward. Even without a bike, they could probably be back to Edge within a couple days.

"...Can we visit the tower?" he asked suddenly.

Zack stopped. "What for?"

"...There's something I need to do," said Cloud. "It won't take long. I already know the way up."

"Supply run?" asked Zack.

Cloud shook his head as he began walking around the base for the entrance he propped up. "...His name's Vincent," he explained. "We were in the labs together." He slipped inside, hand on the hilt of his sword.

"...I thought you were alone?"

"I was," said Cloud. "I didn't even find out his name until later. He was an ex-Turk that pissed off Hojo, or something. Hojo shot him. Kept him around to run tests on. Different ones from me. I don't really know the details."

The place was completely undisturbed, the floor still decorated in his own footprints from his various visits. He led Zack over to what was left of the stairwell and began climbing.

"I don't know why he stayed in the labs after Hojo left," he continued. "He could've escaped if he wanted to. He mentioned -- sins, or something. I don't know. I was really young when I met him, and I don't remember much from before the labs."

He abandoned the stairwell after the eighth floor, where he knew it was caved in. He reemerged into rows of cubicles and jumped through a hole he'd cut in the ceiling on a prior visit, and waited for Zack to follow him through.

"Later, when I was sent to the labs, he -- he knew I was there. He could've escaped then, too. He knew I was there."

Zack paused in the middle of hauling himself through another hole. "Why didn't he?"

"I don't know." He stared down the hole they'd climbed through thoughtfully. "I think he was mad at me. Because he told me to stay away from Shinra, and I didn't listen. I think he was punishing me."

"He sounds like a piece of shit," said Zack. "And we're visiting this guy? You think he can help?"

"His grave," said Cloud. "He died here."

"...Oh. Uh -- I mean --"

"It was my fault for not listening," said Cloud. "And -- eventually, he must have decided I'd been punished enough, because he rescued me then. But -- it had been years, and I was already sick. They'd shut down the project, and I was in storage for five or six months, I think. He decided to leave, and I guess he took me with him."

"Wasn't that nice of him," said Zack in a voice that didn't sound quite right, though Cloud couldn't place why.

Cloud nodded. "He could've left me in the dark. But he took me with him instead, and -- and tried to get me to eat. He tried to get me fixed, too. He thought the Director could fix me."

"...Could she?"

"I don't know. Maybe she could have." He paused in his climb. The whispering got louder. He willed himself not to listen to it.

"She threw me away," he said. "They both did. The Professor and the Director -- they said it was a waste of time, and they killed Vincent, and they threw me away."

It still hurt to think about. Everything seemed to -- felt like too much, making it harder and harder to think about anything at all. "Tifa found me later, in the Sector 2 landfill. She could've left me there too. She told me later she thought about it. Because I was in Soldier -- or, I looked like it anyway. She could've left me, but she didn't. She said... it wasn't fair. Or, it wouldn't be, if she killed me. There'd been too much death already."

Zack helped him up through another hole without comment, though he seemed to be still listening at least. Cloud led him back to the stairwell.

"But -- but Vincent... no one had ever come back for me before. Or -- or thought I deserved to be let out. And they shot him, and it was my fault. He only came in here because of me. If he'd left me in storage like he wanted to, he wouldn't have --"

"Cloud," warned Zack. Cloud went back to climbing in silence.

"I'd never had any friends before him," he said after a moment. "After the Professor put me in storage, he was all I had. I didn't even know he was real at first. I thought I was imagining him."

Zack made a noncommittal noise and looked away.

"He was real, though. And -- he decided I should live. So he took me with him, when he escaped." He swallowed. "...My family says it's because I deserve to be alive. And that I'm good to have around."

"They're right."

"I remember the day he died," said Cloud. "He wasn't doing it for me. He knew I could be useful to him. To -- to help with the Director."

Back out of the stairs. Back into the lobby.

"He was wrong. She didn't care who I was. It wouldn't have helped him. It didn't help him at all."

Another few holes, another few flights of stairs. The sixty-eighth floor was empty as usual, save for a pile of stones.

"...I forgot to bring a rock," he realised. "I should've..."

Something moved out of the corner of his eye. He drew his sword again.

There were no shadows this time, and no heaviness in his limbs. He could see faint images of people, appearing and disappearing, like the ones in Wutai. None of them had faces.

"Still not back all the way, I guess," said Zack, unconcerned.

"I guess not --"

"...prototype was discontinued six months ago," came a smooth voice from somewhere behind him.

He whirled around. Director Crescent was standing behind him, looking at him with an utterly inscrutable expression. Her voice seemed to drift in and out, like a poorly-tuned radio station.

"Was this the world you wanted to create?" said another voice, and he stepped out of the way to realise the Director wasn't addressing him at all.

Vincent Valentine looked just as he'd remembered. Admittedly those memories were questionable at best -- snippets recalled from his childhood in poor lighting, the whirlwind of gunfire he'd woken up to still barely cognisant of his surroundings. Vincent was sallow-faced and haggard and waxy-pale, and his red eyes had an almost hungry expression in them, and there seemed to exist a wall of glass between him and Cloud that he could never imagine crossing.

Laid out on the floor behind him was another phantom image, this one of himself.

His eyes were open, and his hand feebly grasped for someone he should have known was never going to reach back.

"...That's you," said Zack, a touch unnecessarily. "Is that --"

"Vincent," he called out, knowing he couldn't hear him. Cloud's thoughts were in a flurry. How were they seeing this?

"Is it such a crime, that I believe you are worth saving?" said Vincent, and Cloud felt a thrill of foreboding.

"I want to see," Cloud said to Zack, not taking his eyes off what was about to happen. "I -- I owe him that much. I should see."

"There is nothing to save us from. And certainly nothing you could provide deliverance from in the first place. You should have remained in storage. Goodbye."

He forced himself to watch. Waited for the first trigger to be pulled.

Instead, the image of himself on the ground cried out, and in the present day Cloud's head nearly split open from the pain as the world bent.

That was the best way he could think of to describe it -- it was what he, in the present day, had done in Soho, maybe even in the WRO, a desperate attempt to push the world away, to pull them to somewhere else -- and he saw for a moment the room filled with phantoms, years of people rushing past them, oblivious to their presence, the lights flickering on and off as they saw a thousand days compressed into one second, and Vincent was pulled from that one moment across all of them -- pulled from reality to every level removed on the way to nothing at all, looking almost solid enough to touch. Cloud raised his hand --

"What in the goddamn --?!"

"Barret?!"

This image couldn't hear Cloud either, even as the two of them stood there and gaped. He was much younger than Cloud had ever seen him, and he still possessed both arms, one of which was clutching a bright green materia.

Vincent lurched in pain through all the layers of the world, and Barret jumped back in shock, knocking a chair to the ground. The materia glowed, and Vincent was engulfed in a wall of flame.

"NO!"

He reached for Vincent, who was now screaming. His hands passed through him as though he wasn't there. Barret had long since left the room and flickered out of existence.

Then Vincent flickered out as well.

"VINCENT!"

"Cloud -- come on, it wasn't real, it --"

"You saw him! He's there, I can reach him, he --"

Cloud remembered his charred body on the ground -- had always assumed one of the guards had done it, or maybe even Hojo himself, but --

He sunk to his knees in front of the pile of rocks. Zack's voice was little more than a faint buzzing noise, deep underwater.

He watched with muted interest as the air seemed to ripple, warping the space behind it. It expanded out from the place Vincent had stood, shredding the floor as it went.

The world was thin here. He knew that because he'd made it that way. The music was spilling out again from in between.

"I just wanted to help. I just wanted him away..."

"I know. I know, cuz, but I don't think we should stay here."

Something was shining faintly on the floor where he'd stood. He picked it up.

A healing materia. He'd kept it all this time. He'd always wondered where it had gone.

He'd probably never made a wish on it. He wasn't stupid enough to try.

"I didn't bring a rock." His own voice sounded strange to him.

"I brought one, okay? I already put it on the pile, so let's go now."

That was good. It was good that Zack brought a rock already.

He didn't stand. The materia sat glimmering faintly in his hand. It hadn't done him a single bit of good. Not Vincent, not himself.

He'd been right. Pretending never helped anyone at all. Only stupid children thought it would.

Everyone probably knew that except him.

The static grew louder. Zack was still shouting something at him.

He didn't even realise Zack had hauled him to his feet and was half-dragging him out of the building at first until they were already at the sixty-fifth floor. He walked over to one of the shattered windows and hopped out.

He landed a bit roughly from the two hundred metre drop. His legs were still bothering him, it seemed.

It took a few moments for Zack to realise he could make the jump too, and the screaming on the way down telegraphed his presence as much as the loud thud did.

"Don't -- do that!" he yelled. Cloud flinched. He wasn't sure what he wasn't supposed to have done, but he was probably supposed to know. Zack would think he was an idiot if he asked.

"I'm sorry. I won't."

"I'm serious, man, I thought -- I thought you were gonna --" He let out a ragged, frustrated sigh, and Cloud flinched again as he approached him.

He offered a one-armed hug instead of the expected pain. "Forget it. Just... are you doing okay?"

Cloud nodded. The materia was a cold weight in his hand.

"Healing," he said. He stared at it for another moment before offering it to Zack. "You should have it. It's White."

"I -- where did you get this?"

"The Pale Man had it. I gave it to him when I was being stupid."

"Huh?"

"It's for you," said Cloud. "Take care of it."

"...Are you sure you're okay?"

Cloud nodded absently. Better that Zack had it anyway.

Had Tifa gotten her mako by now, he wondered? What would happen if she died for him too? If he got her killed? His family would make him leave, of course. They’d never forgive him. He wouldn’t ever want them to.

"We shouldn't stay here," said Zack, cutting off his train of thought. Cloud blinked and realised he could hear a faint rumbling coming from the tower as the world stretched and warped around it.

He ran. He could hear Zack behind him, inexperienced at quickly vaulting over railings, climbing walls, landing jumps in anything other than an awkward stumble. He stopped to wait for Zack, and watched as the remains of Shinra Tower began to crumble.

It went fast -- way too fast, and even as debris crashed into the street below, clouds of dust and chunks of detritus went billowing outwards from the base of the tower. He grabbed Zack's arm and ran faster.

It was grounding, at least -- the roar of the impact drowning out all other sound, the taste of dust on his tongue, the strain in his muscles. It wasn't hard to feel present for all of these things.

He realised at some point as the dust settled that he'd breathed in an awful lot of it, and he and Zack spent the next few minutes doubled over coughing. That was perhaps why they didn't notice the sky at first.

It was a deep, burnt red. Looming in the distance was --

"...I thought this planet only had one natural satellite," said Zack, frowning.

"We -- it's not real," said Cloud. "It can't be. We must not be back yet." But that couldn't be right, not with how he could feel the world actively fighting against his presence being even this close to reality.

Cloud blinked. The sky was the clear, faded blue of early winter.

"See?" he said. "It's gone already --"

The world flickered again. Meteor loomed in the distance.

Mother grew louder.

"Cloud?"

Zack was shaking him.

"I'm okay," said Cloud. "We'll..."

He'd stopped Meteor once, hadn't he? Someone had told him that. He wasn't sure who.

The white materia. That's what had done it, probably. He'd remembered summoning it.

Zack had been pulling him along for the last few minutes, and he realised he'd been walking without even realising it.

He let his thoughts drift again. It was nice to just be pulled anyway. This way, he could listen to Mother.

"Is that a helicopter?" asked Zack suddenly.

Cloud blinked as the words slowly sunk in.

They ducked into an overturned train car and watched it pass overhead from the shattered windows.

"They must have been looking for me anyway," said Cloud. "They'll be visiting the tower, then. Or what's left of it."

"Well, now what?" asked Zack.

"Hm?"

"Do we just... walk up to them, ask for help?”

Cloud shook his head. “They’re probably under orders to shoot first and ask questions later. And you can’t talk to them either, looking like you do. Your eyes,” he clarified, at Zack’s blank stare. “They’re like mine, remember?”

“No, actually,” he admitted, “I guess I kinda stopped thinking about it. Not like I can see them.” He sighed and leaned against the wall. “So -- I guess we wait for them to clear out.”

“Guess so.”

“We’re out of food, you know.”

Cloud nodded. “We’ll be okay for a few days. How much water do we have left?”

“Ran out yesterday.”

Cloud shrugged. “We can make do with ice magic if we need to.”

“Why didn’t we before?”

“You’re condensing water out of the air,” said Cloud. “It’s not the cleanest thing in the world, especially here. And I don’t have anything to purify it with. But it’s there if we need it.”

The sound of radio chatter in the distance had them both tensing up for a moment.

“We should move. Find somewhere with fewer windows.”

In the end they settled on an abandoned Midburger with a bunch of rubble piled around it. It would be harder to see from the air, they reasoned, and would offer more shelter from the elements than the train car would.

That last point turned out to be especially pertinent. Despite the fact that they’d been moving down from high altitudes this entire trip, the weather had been getting steadily colder. This was compounded with the fact that they could no longer risk building a fire with so many eyes searching for them.

“That’s nothing we can’t handle either,” said Cloud.

“Says you,” grumbled Zack. “Didn’t have to deal with this shit in Hawaii.”

Time passed. Cloud wasn’t sure how much -- he could still hear the buzz of walkie-talkies in the distance. The world surged in and out of focus again as he fought to maintain a presence in it, but at the very least he had managed not to lapse back into nonbeing again.

The sun began to set. Searchlights were brought out, and could be seen winking in and out of view as they were shone around.

Zack yawned and stretched before fishing a rubber ball out of his bag and beginning a game of catch against a cracked, peeling menu board proudly announcing a 149 gil value meal MADE WITH UP TO 50% ALL NATURAL INGREDIENTS without getting up. “Who knew imminent death could be this boring?”

“You’re bored?”

Zack stared at him. “You’re not?”

Cloud shook his head. “We get to sit down, and I have company. It’s nice.” He shrugged. “I don’t really get bored.”

“Not even once?”

“...I probably have been before,” Cloud said. “But I don’t know why I would be anymore. It’s nice to just…”

It was quiet. No noise but the sound of Zack breathing in time with Mother.

She wanted in. Wanted to be whole.

Cloud could understand that.

He listened.

“Cloud?”

Zack was staring at him, looking worried. It was darker out now than it had been before.

“...You with me? Maybe we should talk about something,” he suggested.

Cloud nodded. “Yeah. Let’s talk.”

“What do you wanna talk about?”

“Whatever you like.”

“Well…” Zack rubbed his hands, trying to restore their circulation. “You watch a lot of movies?”

Cloud shook his head. “I’ve only seen two.”

“Seriously?”

“We didn’t have a tape player at my house,” he explained. “I think someone I know bought one last year, but now tapes are kind of hard to get a hold of. Plus, nobody’s making any new films since Shinra went under. There was a movie theatre in Midgar when I was stationed there, but I could never afford to go.”

“Huh. Well… think I’ve seen either of ‘em?”

“One’s an adaptation of the play Loveless,” said Cloud. Zack shook his head. “The other is called Sword in Hand, a dramatic retelling of the story of Amaretto Cross, the first female Soldier. It was pretty bad.”

“Why’s that?”

“I mean, it was funded with Shinra money,” said Cloud, “so they left out the part where she killed over four hundred civilians in Mideel, and the part where she tried to retire and Shinra had her assassinated anyway.”

“...Why’d you watch it?”

“We thought it’d be funny. Barret’s technically in it.”

Zack raised an eyebrow. “No joke?”

“Not as in he acted,” said Cloud. “I mean, there’s a scene where she dies heroically fighting Avalanche, and they got a guy to play him. Never mind Avalanche didn’t even exist until ten years after her death.”

“Are you in it?”

Cloud shook his head. “It went into production years before I’d joined. And they hadn’t actually identified any real members of Avalanche, so they just made up a guy to be the leader in the movie. He had an eyepatch and a really fake Wutaian accent.”

“You’ve gotta show me if we make it out of this alive,” said Zack. “I’m serious. This sounds a hundred times more interesting than the movie I was gonna talk about.”

“What were you gonna talk about?” asked Cloud, sitting up straighter.

Zack waved a hand dismissively. “Nothing as good as that.”

“...I still want to hear anyway.”

“Alright, okay. Ever heard of Fight Club?”

 

---

 

Cloud was an excellent listener.

Zack had given his share of presentations in his time, enough to know whether someone was feigning enthusiasm or not. There was nothing fake about the way Cloud sat there, utterly enraptured by his every word.

He recapped the entire story in as great of detail as he could, and upon Cloud’s prompting, started to get into thematic interpretations (because it was Fight Club, and everyone and their dog had an opinion and Zack was no different). That conversation lasted a fair bit longer than the plot summary had, but every time he offered Cloud a chance to change the subject, he was asked to continue. So Zack continued, and Cloud kept listening.

“Y’know, it’s not like blowing up a bunch of buildings would actually erase credit debt,” said Zack, “but it’s a nice thought, I guess. And of course, you’ve gotta wonder if the movie knew that -- if it wasn’t deliberately talking about this kind of surface level action instead of addressing the system that created those companies in the first place, which is something Tyler’s unable to do since all he’s done is created another system of control, and...” He realised something else. “Hey -- you were an actual revolutionary or something, right? You guys took down a real megacorporation a few years ago, you’d know better than I would. I mean, how accurate does all of this sound to you? How would it really happen?”

Cloud paled.

“...You alright?”

He nodded. “It… yes?”

“Yes what? Yes to my theory, or yes to ‘it didn’t work like that’?”

“...Both?” His eyes darted away nervously. “Keep going.”

“Well -- I mean, I kinda wanted to know what you thought about it. This is your area of expertise.”

“Um. It’s good. Is what I think.”

Zack frowned. “Cloud, do you know what we’re talking about right now?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. What are we talking about?”

Cloud, instead of replying, began to hyperventilate.

“Jesus, man, if you were bored you could’ve just said --”

“I wasn’t bored!” he said desperately. “I wasn’t, I was listening, I swear! It just -- She’s so loud, and I had to listen to Her too, and then suddenly there’s just a blank spot, and I know you were talking, but -- I didn’t want you to be mad -- I was listening, I swear I was!”

“What’s the last thing you remember? I can pick up from there.”

“I…” The cornered animal look was back.

“It’s okay,” said Zack. “It’s not a big deal.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I said it was okay,” repeated Zack. “My fault for going on as long as I did. Anyone would zone out.”

Cloud did not smile.

“It isn’t your fault,” he added. “You should get some rest.”

“What about you?”

“We’ll take turns,” said Zack. “For today, at least. That way I’ll be able to wake you up if anyone comes this way.”

“You should go first, then,” said Cloud. “I can go for longer without sleep --”

“I know you can,” said Zack tersely, not particularly relishing the memory. He swallowed, trying to get rid of the phantom taste in his mouth. “Just get some rest, okay? At least a few hours.”

Cloud nodded, and without another word began setting out the bedding for the night. He must have been exhausted, to drop the argument that quickly.

Especially because this time there wasn’t even a disorienting whirlwind of colour and memory playing out behind his eyes this time.

He roused Cloud after what he was pretty sure was three or four hours so they could switch off. He handed Cloud a change of clothes and received a quiet “thank you” in reply, and after another round of crunching down dirt-tasting ice together he settled into an uneasy sleep.

When he dreamt it was of a run-down ice cream shop on the beachfront, the pattering, scratching, scrabbling of the rain drumming against the windows ever-present in the background, growing louder with each minute.

Zack awoke to Cloud standing over him, staring at him expectantly. It was already daytime.

“...How much did you let me sleep?” he asked, a sinking feeling in his gut.

“...Enough,” said Cloud, looking away. With how much daylight he could see through the cracks in the walls, at least seven hours.

“You should’ve woken me up sooner,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

“You don’t gotta apologise for it, I’m just saying.”

Cloud gave a stiff nod and continued. “...They’re moving the search closer to Edge. Which is good for us, that they’re not looking where we are, but bad because we’re basically cut off.”

“For how long, do you think?” said Zack. The hunger fatigue wasn’t catching up with him as badly as it would have with his old human body, but he was starting to notice its presence nonetheless. The atmosphere wasn’t helping things any, either: Twice now Zack had spooked himself by looking up directly into the leering plastic eyes of a logo-emblazoned cartoon rendering of Midgar, sandwiched between a couple faded foam buns.

“Don’t know. Not much longer, probably. This place is more dangerous for them than it is for us. Mother is close here. Mother is closer everywhere.”

“What?”

Cloud blinked slowly, in that way of his that reminded you, just when you were getting used to him, that he wasn’t human.

“Hm?” he said after a moment.

“...Nothing.” Zack cleared his throat. “We’ve got some time to kill, I guess.”

“Mmhm.”

“...Wanna play Fuck, Marry, Kill? Do you guys even have that?”

“I know what it is,” said Cloud. “Someone… someone taught me, I think…” He paused, his face painted with consternation. “I -- he said I could sleep on his couch. He’s important, I know he is.”

“Well -- it’s not a big deal, if you don’t remember right away --”

“Yes it is, Zack!” he snapped. “I can’t -- I didn’t want to forget. I didn’t want to forget them. I think it’s happening, I think -- I think I used to know more of them. There were more of them, I know there were.”

“Twenty questions,” interrupted Zack. “It’s something to pass the time, and we can see if you remember, okay?”

“Okay,” said Cloud, “okay. Okay. That’s -- yeah. Alright.”

“You know how to play?”

Another nod.

“Alright, I’ll start. Animal, mineral, vegetable?”

“Animal.”

“Great,” said Zack, marking a tally on the ground with a rock. “That’s great. Is it a man?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he tall?”

“I… I don’t…”

“Okay. That’s fine. Does he live close to you?”

“No.”

“Does he visit?”

“Sometimes, I think.”

“...Does he live somewhere warm?”

“No.”

“Somewhere cold?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it somewhere we’ve been?”

“...”

“Cloud?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t -- I don’t remember parts of it anymore, I don’t…”

Zack sighed. “...You know what? You should get some more sleep.”

“I’m not tired. I got plenty already.” An odd squirm of guilt accompanied his words.

“You’re lying,” Zack realised.

“I’m -- I’m not --” stammered Cloud.

“You are,” said Zack. “You didn’t sleep at all. You were pretending. What’s the point of even doing that?”

“What if I don’t wake up?”

The question caught him off guard. “Huh?”

“What if I don’t wake up again?” asked Cloud. “Aeris isn’t here to wake me up. I’ll have to do it on my own. When… when I had episodes before, that’s how they started. I’d be alone with Her, and She’s so loud now. Please -- please don’t make me sleep.”

“You’ll have to eventually,” said Zack. “We’re on the run and neither of us have eaten. You’re gonna make yourself sick.”

“I’ll take my chances,” said Cloud. “I don’t want to go back.”

Zack just shook his head. “Your decision,” he said eventually. “Hope you know what you’re doing.”

And though he didn’t exactly have any better ideas, he very much doubted it.

The next two days seemed to take an eternity to pass, made worse by a combination of a lack of food and an increasingly anxious Cloud as his only company. He’d tried a couple party games at first, but neither of them knew any of the same celebrities or political figures, or had seen the same movies, or had watched the same news. Which meant they had to start talking about themselves, and Cloud was remembering less and less each day to contribute with.

He grew quieter every time he failed to answer a question, whether it was something he couldn’t have possibly known, or something he would have known his whole life. Zack had therefore become extremely good at knowing whether Cloud was making the Deeply Ashamed and Avoiding Eye Contact blank face, or the I’m About To Drop An Upsetting Question On You blank face. Either way, it was an uphill struggle to continue to encourage him to speak out loud, to keep him present, and twice Zack had awoken from the cold to hear Cloud muttering to himself, eyes glazed, stubbornly refusing to sleep.

On day three, he woke to find out he wasn’t cold at all. There was something warm pressed up against his ribs, soft breathing being the only other sound beyond the faint echoing of voices in the distance. Maybe Jenova, maybe feds. Didn't matter.

He shifted against Zack and said something in a language he knew he understood but was too tired to puzzle out. The world was hazy around him. Something cold brushed his arm.

"...your hands are fucking freezing, Aaron," he muttered.

The warmth stiffened and pulled away. Zack's eyes snapped open to meet Cloud's carefully blank expression.

They both froze. Zack’s brain seemed to have stopped working.

Cloud found his voice first. “I’m sorry.”

“...What are you sorry for?” said Zack heavily. “I’m the one that…”

“I -- you miss your real family,” said Cloud. “They’re important to you. I understand.”

“I wasn’t trying to -- use you as a replacement or anything,” said Zack. “Not on purpose, anyway.”

“...You could,” said Cloud softly. “If you wanted to.”

“I what?”

“If you wanted to,” repeated Cloud, “you could call me Aaron, and -- and pretend I was him, if you’d rather be with him. I mean, it’s not -- of course you would, he’s your family, I didn’t mean to -- but if you wanted to pretend he was here instead, then that would be okay.”

Zack stared at Cloud, scarcely sure he wasn’t just imagining this conversation was happening.

“No,” he said hoarsely.

“I’m sorry,” he began again, “I’m sorry, whatever I did --”

“No. Cloud, shut the fuck up.”

Cloud flinched and fell silent immediately. He flinched a second time when Zack stood up. Zack stared at him, feeling more tired than he had in weeks.

“All this time, I thought -- I thought we were friends. I really did.”

Cloud swallowed thickly, his mouth opening and closing, clearly torn between wanting to apologise, and trying to honour Zack’s order to shut the fuck up. He felt more tired still.

“You were the first person ever that… that I really felt like -- I don’t know. I cried in front of you. I never thought I’d ever…” He shook his head. “I thought I’d finally done right by someone -- that they had an actual reason to care about me. That I had a reason to care about them.”

Cloud’s hands shook, but he said nothing, because Zack had told him not to. Zack’s eyes narrowed. This. This was the problem.

“This isn’t love,” said Zack flatly. “It’s fear. That’s all it ever was.” Cloud made a strained noise in the back of his throat.

“Fucking talk, then,” he snapped. “I’m not in charge of you. Stop fucking acting like I am.”

“I do care about you,” Cloud blurted, “you’re a good person, I wanted you to be happy -- I don’t know what else you want me to do, I just wanted you to be happy --”

"And you thought that was the way to do it?"

"If you wanted Aaron here. I could..."

"Did you seriously think I'd just fucking replace my brother because you offered?!"

"No! No, that's not what I was doing!" It was the closest he'd come to actually being angry in a while. "It's not about me! That's the whole --"

He froze for a moment as the voices in the distance seemed to grow a bit louder.

"...I want to make people happy," Cloud said quietly. "It's all I know how to want. Maybe if I was a person I'd -- I would..." He rubbed his neck nervously. "Maybe I don't know how to feel the way you want me to. Maybe Sephiroth was right, and I can't -- I don't have feelings the way real people do."

He sat there for a moment. Zack's ears were ringing.

"I guess that explains a lot," said Cloud, as though he were calmly discussing the weather, "now that I think about it."

"No, it fucking doesn't," said Zack. "Why would you even say that?"

"Because if you're right, and it's just fear, what I do, then that means I've never loved anyone in my entire life. I've never known how to love anyone any other way, besides trying to make them happy." He looked up at Zack, and while his voice was still calm, the look in his eyes was one of utter defeat. "Please, give me orders, and I can make you happy. I don't know what to do on my own."

"You want an order?" said Zack, his mouth still devoid of moisture. "You want me to give you an order?"

Cloud nodded.

"My order is never say any shit like that ever again."

"Would that make you happy?" said Cloud.

"And to shut up and go to bed," he added. "I -- I can't deal with this right now, Cloud."

Understatement of the century. Cloud took a deep breath, then lay back down, a couple feet away from Zack.

The plastic bench seemed so much colder than Zack remembered it, even as hot angry tears beaded at the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall.

 

---

 

A muffled wail cut through the air. Zack cracked a sleep-encrusted eye open, and after a moment he sat straight up, drowsy and disoriented.

It was pretty obvious where it was coming from -- Cloud was the only other person around for miles, and as Zack scooted himself out from under his blanket with a groan to get a closer look, he could see his face painted with the same distress prickling away in the back of Zack's head.

"C'mon, man, knock it off," he muttered, shaking Cloud's shoulder even as he tried to shut out the blur of silver and red and white playing out behind his eyes. Cloud did not rouse, his lips still mouthing a silent plea to someone.

"Hey. Wake up," said Zack, louder this time. "You okay?" He shook him again, a little more insistently.

Cloud's eyes snapped open, and he scrambled away from Zack's hand with a scream, his gaze wide and uncomprehending.

"You were having a bad dream or something," explained Zack. "Just thought you might... Cloud?"

Cloud was still trying to back away from him, terror etched into his face, his eyes flickering between Zack and the water-damaged walls and back down at himself without a hint of recognition.

"Hey -- look, it's just me," he said. "It was just a dream. Come on, you're gonna hurt yourself."

He may as well have been talking to a wall. Cloud's back was now pressed against the peeling drywall, his breathing shallow and uneven. Zack froze, trying to ignore the disorganised chaos in his head; Cloud seemed too panicked for words, and attempting to reach in and speak to him there had him curling up in a ball, clawing at his scalp, eyes just as unfocused as they were fearful. This was an episode. Had to be. It didn't match exactly with what he knew about them, but Cloud clearly wasn't entirely lucid either way.

He raised both his hands slowly, to show they were empty. "It's me," he repeated. "It's just me. It was just a dream." He backed off a few steps and waited. Had he been having an episode before, in their cell? It didn't seem like it -- he'd at least been aware enough then to yell at him.

The seconds ticked by, and Cloud didn't seem to recognise Zack or his surroundings yet, repeatedly stealing panicked glances down at himself as well. Zack counted to sixty, and by the end of it the shaking was accompanied by a steady stream of tears and a strangled whimper as Cloud fought down whatever noise was building in his chest.

Zack sighed and scooted himself closer again, causing one of the terrified sobs to actually escape.

"Do you... can you tell me where you think you are?" asked Zack uneasily. Cloud did not respond. He didn't seem to be able to understand him, even after Zack switched to his passable Standard. "It's okay. I'm not gonna Jesus Christ -- !"

Cloud had begun clawing at himself with manic energy, as though trying to dig his way out of his own skin. Within seconds he'd already ripped open several lines along his shoulders and collarbone, and Zack lunged forward to grab him, holding one of his arms in a death grip before it had time to make it up to his face. Cloud screamed again, even as Zack continued talking, trying to keep it as continuous as possible.

"It's okay. It was just a dream, it's just me, you're okay --"

Cloud continued thrashing in his arms, oblivious to the damage he was doing to himself. Zack continued to rock them slowly, unsure of what else to do. Aaron had never wanted his comfort, and he hadn't mingled much with... kids? Animals? Both of them seemed a little demeaning to compare to the delirious adult that had currently managed to squirm himself into a headlock, clawing at Zack's arm with one hand, the other one held at bay at the wrist in Zack's grip, weeping with fright.

"C'mon, it's okay... shh... you're okay, you're --"

And then it was his turn to let out a ragged yell, because Cloud had sunk his teeth deep into Zack's forearm.

"YOU FUCKER!" Blood quickly welled up around the wound and began trickling down his skin, mixing with the marks Cloud had already made on him with his nails. The pain was constant and searing and seemed to go straight to his bones as Cloud responded with another terrified scream of his own and continued to bite down as though his life depended on it.

"It's okay," Zack choked out through his own clenched jaw, forcing himself to take deep breaths, praying they hadn’t given their position away. "It's okay, you're safe, it's okay..."

He maintained his grip on Cloud, even as his arm burned, causing tears to well up in his own eyes. The thrashing continued. What little intact glass remained around them shattered like spun sugar, and the walls began to crack. Every second seemed to take hours.

"...it's okay. You're alright, it's -- it's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you, it's alright..."

Cloud seemed to notice that Zack hadn't retaliated for the bite. His struggling slowed, his breathing still rapid, eyes still darting between Zack's face and the walls. Zack let go of Cloud's arm and laced his hand through the shaking fingers instead.

"See? It's okay... you're safe... it's okay..." Zack's arm throbbed. Cloud's sobs slowly began to die down. Eventually after what felt like an eternity, he stopped clawing at Zack to escape and allowed himself to be rocked, his gaze still vacant. "Shh... it's okay... it's okay..."

He went silent for a little while, the only noises echoing around the room being Cloud's soft crying, and Zack's stifled groans as his arm continued to bleed. Then even that ceased, and eventually he felt Cloud's weight settle against his own, the both of them exhausted.

Zack sucked his breath in with a hiss of pain as Cloud finally, finally unclenched his jaw from his arm. They sat like that for another few moments in silence, both covered in ragged red lines in groups of three or four, waiting for the tremors to die down.

"...Can you understand me?" he said after a while, as softly as he could manage.

Cloud's eyes flickered to Zack's briefly, still somewhat apprehensive. He did not reply.

"Shoulda figured..." he muttered.

He healed them both as best as he was able with how exhausted he was. There were quite a few new scars on both of them. He stared at the white outline of the bite mark on his arm, rotating his wrist a few times. For someone that wasn’t real he’d left one hell of a mark. It was still pretty sore.

"Mother is here," whispered Cloud.

Zack's head snapped up to see Cloud staring wide-eyed at a spot ahead of them. When Zack looked as well, he found nothing but a blank wall.

He could sense Her, though. The way the air seemed to prickle, the way colour seemed to drain away around them, the way their surroundings seemed to blur and sharpen so subtly he wasn't even sure if he was imagining it or not.

She didn't seem to be moving towards them, that much Zack could tell. She simply stood there, waiting.

Cloud reached out a hand expectantly, his expression hopeful.

Zack grabbed his hand and forced it down again. "Are you crazy?" he hissed.

"She's here for me," said Cloud breathlessly. "I belong to Her."

"No, you don't!" He began to awkwardly scoot backwards as slowly as he could while dragging Cloud with him.

"Zack, let me go," he said, his eyes -- and it was so easy to forget until moments like this that they weren't human eyes -- still slowly leaking tears. "I need to go. I need Her."

"She'll kill you."

"I'll be part of Her. She can make me whole. I'm broken. Let me be whole, Zack."

Zack continued to scoot backwards until his back touched the opposite wall. Still, She didn't approach.

"Because if you're right, and it's just fear, what I do, then that means I've never loved anyone in my entire life."

He tightened his grip on Cloud's hand.

"I won't be alone," said Cloud, struggling feebly against Zack. "Mother will never leave me. I'll be part of Her --"

"What about your family, huh?" He was trying to sound encouraging, but it came out in a panicked plea instead. The music grew louder. "What about them?"

"I don't belong to them," said Cloud. "They won't have me. They don't give me orders, so I have to guess how they would use me, and I always guess wrong, and one day they won't want to use me at all. I'll always be useful to Mother. I can always make Mother happy. Mother wants to make me whole. Please --"

"There'll be nothing left of you!"

"There was never any part of me that wasn't meant to be used anyway," said Cloud simply.

The presence began to fade away. Cloud stared at it mournfully.

"...Mother?"

It disappeared entirely.

The whispering in their heads grew ever so slightly louder. Zack winced.

Cloud merely closed his eyes and listened.

He didn't understand how the hell Cloud could stand that awful, awful noise -- the thing he called music. It was just another testament to how alien his mind was at times, when it got right down to it. The way he'd rattled off all those numbers, he'd never understand. The incident with the guards, though it sickened him to admit it to himself, was actually understandable in its own way. But to suddenly want to throw oneself onto one's own funeral pyre, to let an endless tide of billions of voices rip you apart and shred every last part of everything that had ever made you a person, every memory, every feeling, every scrap of free will...

And for what? Because he was worried no one would like him? Because he claimed to feel "empty" somehow, despite being surrounded by a loving family, despite everything he'd ever done in life, everything he'd accomplished, and none of it meant anything because… because what?

He thought back to the conversation with Tifa he’d overheard. “It’s not right, that I haven’t…” Haven’t what? Earned it? Probably. With all the guilt he was writhing in just for existing, trying to justify it to himself. It was pathetic. It was --

It was...

"Ay, jue puta," said Zack heavily.

It was the same damn thing he'd been doing this whole time. The exact same.

How many times had he not felt anything but hollow with every accolade he’d acquired? How many times had he reassured himself that this project would finally be the thing that he earned the right to work on because he wouldn’t be able to breeze through it -- would finally be pitted up against an opportunity to fail, only to triumph anyway, because anything good he’d already had was just the product of good circumstances and better genes? How many times had he had to explain his mentality to baffled listeners, unable to understand why everything he’d accomplished beforehand amounted to nothing in his eyes? How many nights had he stayed up, determined to get accepted to the project just to prove to somebody that maybe he actually deserved it?

No. No, it wasn’t the same -- he knew that because he’d seen it in action. He’d seen Aaron actually earn what he had the hard way. Aaron wasn’t a math prodigy. Aaron didn’t get people kissing his ass for being six foot plus and good at landing half court shots. Aaron couldn’t instantly become the centre of attention at a party via good looks and a flashy display of card counting. Aaron knew what it was like to not go through life handed everything; to not spend every minute of his life earning commendations for the approval of his peers when he knew he couldn’t earn them anyway. Aaron had figured out how to try, and to try for his own sake, and to make that mean something for himself, because no one else would be caring about his accomplishments but him.

Aaron didn’t care about Zack’s approval. Aaron hated his guts.

Cloud lay against him, breath still hitching occasionally. He wasn't Aaron, that was for sure. It was ridiculous to even begin to think they were anything alike. But still, he'd thought...

The raw, tender thing he'd been asked to hold, and the way he could feel Cloud's pulse beating through his skin. This was what he'd always imagined he'd been missing.

And maybe he’d even had it before. Not in the way he’d imagined, but the anger and disappointment in his voice the last time they’d really spoken was a lot more alike the bony figure slumped against his chest than he’d thought.

He’d really, really thought it had been different this time. It was no wonder they were still talking past each other, even in the same language.

He’d just have to hope it was enough for him to just… be, if there was such a thing at all. For people to decide that was enough on its own. The prospect was terrifying. No wonder Cloud was a wreck.

He’d have to suck it up and try anyway. Aaron certainly had.

The chatter of radio had ceased, luckily, but in the distance he could still hear the whir of helicopter blades.

"We can't stay here," said Zack. "You're not gonna like it, but we've gotta get you help somewhere."

Cloud gave no indication he understood this either, and continued to stare at Zack, eyes wide. There was still blood all over his face.

"Gonna make me do all the work now?" said Zack halfheartedly, fetching a spare bit of cloth from their bags. "Typical. Guess this is what I asked for, though. Beggars can't be choosers, right?"

He reached for Cloud's face as slowly as possible and began wiping off blood, and felt somewhat accomplished at the fact he only flinched once. Mostly he just sat there, blinking slowly.

He didn't fight Zack as he was pulled to his feet, and seemed content to just follow wherever Zack led him. Which he guessed was an improvement from the screaming and biting, but he didn't think Cloud being this pliant was a good sign. He probably wasn't exactly awake enough to be stealthy either.

“Hey,” said Zack, not expecting much but deciding it was worth a try anyway. “When all this is over… I wanna try -- I want to be friends for real this time. Not -- not because you think you have to, but because you want it. I know I do.

“Maybe there’s not even a difference,” said Zack. Cloud stared at him in silence. “Maybe we’re always gonna feel like we’re not doing enough for each other, like you said. Because we want to do more anyway. I don’t know. Maybe if we make it out of this, you can help me figure that out.”

“...I want to make you happy,” said Cloud, uncomprehendingly.

“I know that,” he replied, sighing. “I do too.”

Zack buckled the oversized swords onto himself and picked Cloud up again before streaking off towards the city.

It took him a while to notice he'd actually left the ruins at first. The buildings were intact, true, but there was a shabby, skeletal look to everything in Edge. What he finally realised was his first glimpse of the city came later, as he turned a corner and hastily pulled back into an alley.

There was colour set in against the grey now -- laundry hanging from clotheslines; the faces of buildings painted bright colours in defiance of the colourless world around them. The buildings themselves looked strange, and after a moment Zack realised it was because they were cobbled together from the remains of the city he'd just left, looking newly built and run down all at once. Only a few in the distance were particularly tall and more akin to what he was used to -- the rest were short and squat, three or four stories at most, jumbled in together as though someone had thrown down a bunch of blocks and roughly scooted them together, houses and condos grouped together next to restaurants and corner stores. The whole thing was bright and tumbledown and vaguely claustrophobic, even amidst all the grey. The streets were mostly empty, and only one or two cars were parked on the side of the road. Above them, the sky loomed, unfettered by the skyline at last and flecked with stars.

A helicopter passed overhead. Zack ducked back into the alley.

It was certainly much cleaner than any alleyway he'd seen on Earth, that was for certain. He supposed having a planet that could literally decide to kill you if you pissed it off might help to cut down on littering, though.

He wandered aimlessly for a while, uncertain of where to go or which direction the hospital was even in. Nobody seemed to be out for him to ask except the authorities.

Cloud had been exceptionally still the entire time. He tried not to think about it.

He found his feet walking a path that seemed familiar, somehow, weaving through back alleys and sideroads as though he'd lived here for years. 25th and Reedgrass, he thought to himself absently.

He passed a boarded up bar with smashed windows on the way. 7th Heaven Bar and Grill, read the sign hanging over the door.

SHINRA'S GREATEST MONSTER, read a spray-painted message across the wall below it.

Cloud stirred in his arms. Zack set him down, and he stared up at the sign and said nothing.

"What the hell are you doing here?" said a voice behind him. Zack froze.

Gut instinct said to run, and he snatched Cloud up and sprinted off as he heard the crack of gunfire ricocheting off the pavement behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see a bald man in sunglasses shouting something into a cell phone. Zack turned a corner and streaked off into the night.

"Guess they thought of that, huh?" he said to Cloud. Cloud blinked slowly and said nothing.

So, the hospital was probably out. 7th Heaven was boarded up and abandoned, it seemed. He could take his chances with a hospital, maybe -- surely they wouldn't think he was dangerous like this? He glanced self-consciously at the white ring of teeth marks on his forearm. Maybe not.

He'd go to a hospital... and then what? Cloud didn't really have a body anymore, just this impression of one he'd convinced the world he had. There wasn't a cure for Jenova, and if there was it wouldn't do him any good anyway. He thought of the figure on the beach, about the sand crumbling away with each wave that beat against it, the steady rushing and whispering of the water growing louder and louder.

At this point, maybe all he could do was try and find a nice place for Cloud to slip away. Somewhere sunny. He'd like that, probably. Though with the winter chill that was beginning to settle in, there'd be less and less sun.

Even if he managed a way to rebuild the entire facility, Cloud wouldn't last long enough to see anything come of it. Aeris was probably an entire universe away. He was exhausted in a way he didn't think he'd ever been in his life, a bone-deep tiredness that seemed beyond his flesh.

"What the hell are you doing here?" said a different voice.

Zack looked up to find a child staring at him. Their eyes met, and hers narrowed in response.

"Soldier," she muttered.

"I’m just trying to get some help," said Zack. "I'm..."

She was still staring at him uncomprehendingly. Right. English. He tried again.

"...My friend is sick. I just need directions," he said slowly, adjusting his grip on Cloud. "Do you think you could get your parents for me?"

"Don't got any," said the girl, before her eyes landed on Cloud. They widened.

"...Rabbit Guy?"

"Huh?"

"That's Rabbit Guy," she said, more insistently. "I thought he made it out of the city. What's wrong with him? Is it Jenova?"

"I -- he did -- how do you know --?"

"We helped him get out in the first place," she said smugly. "He was bleeding real bad when we found him. He'd been stabbed. He'd have bled to death if it weren't for us." She nudged him gently. He glanced at her warily, as though he half expected her to tear his head off, and said nothing. "He looks like he's awake... what's he sick with?"

"Jenova," he confirmed, feeling more than a little unsettled at the fact that this random child happened to know about a top secret alien organism discovered by a multi-million dollar international project. He supposed it hadn't really sunk in that he was in another universe until now. "It's hard to explain. We need somewhere to hide. Someplace safe. He's -- I can't keep carrying him around like this, not if he has another seizure."

She stared at him appraisingly for a few moments.

"You with Shinra?" she asked.

"No."

"You got Eyes of the Dead, though," she said. She gave him another once-over. "...But Rabbit Guy does too, I guess. I don't think he'd be friends with a Shinra murderer."

She stared at him for another few moments, then shrugged. "Alright, but you can't tell anyone about this."

"I won't," said Zack. "Promise."

"Good enough," said the girl. "This way." And with that, she turned on her heel and set out briskly down the alley.

"I'm Aya, by the way," she said. "And I already know Cloud. Who're you?"

"Uh -- Zack. Zack Fair."

"Try and keep up then, Zack Fair."

He adjusted his grip on Cloud again and walked more quickly.

Hold on just a little longer, he told Cloud, unsure how much good it was doing anymore. Please? For me. Just hold on a bit longer.

Chapter 51: She is Driving A Car In This One Whoa

Notes:

Alright let's kick this pig.

A lot happened since this thing last updated! I got COVID, had surgery, there was a failed government coup, and most importantly, several major sequences of this fic have been written in advance, both to expedite update speed and allow for less shitty storytelling.

Also, apparently y'all were still reading this thing while I was gone? So there is roughly a metric fucktonne of fan content you guys produced for this fic! Which is fucking bonkers to me.

SO let's go down the line here:

Ash drew some absolute fucking bangers, including a couple of high quality memes that have absolutely no business being this good. As well as this incredible rendering of the events of chapter 1, and this mood piece that got put up literally yesterday (they both have sound!!!). Cloud can absolutely feel dorcelessness.

There's a second vibes piece here from Belderiver (who in addition to making incredible art was also absolutely instrumental in getting this chapter made, along with la_regina_scrive, Darth Tofu, and countless others).

EDIT 2: FUCK I FORGOT THE CAR RIDE I'M SORRY BEL

Very surreal drawing of Cloud and Zack by dante's-funky-inferno, this is so fucking good and Jesus Christ I'm so sorry it took this long to get to it 'cause hot damn.

Nayu drew SO FUCKING MANY holy shit bruh so I'm just gonna list them off here in brief or I'll run out of characters, please check them out because there is so much character in all of them. (EDIT: I ran out of characters, please check out the end of chapter notes, they're gonna have to go down there in their own section.)

I am absolutely sure I forgot some, there really were that many. (If I did please let me know so I can add them here, I am honoured beyond belief y'all made these!!!) Same goes with betaing, and also this is gonna be a nightmare to also post on tumblr due to all the links so I'll get that done later lol.

And of course, as always, this chapter contains some depictions of graphic violence and gore.

Good to be back.

Aeris seemed to be faring better than everyone else in the car, but then she was the only one that had a cat to pet at the moment.

Tifa was sitting on her left, quietly seething at the man on her right. Sephiroth seemed entirely unconcerned with this, and was staring curiously out the window at the empty countryside. Every now and then the sky would ripple like fabric, lights dancing and melting through space itself, like oily fireflies, and while Cissnei was used to them enough not to swerve wildly when she saw them, her hands still clenched painfully around the steering wheel each time. Angeal looked tired and grey and exhausted, and he too seemed preoccupied with drinking in the countryside flying past the windows.

This project had gotten an awful lot of people locked up.

Cassiopeia let out an impatient mmrp and Aeris reluctantly let go to allow her to sniff Tifa's legs curiously. There wasn't exactly a lot of room in the car, and the sudden absence of the warm fur under her fingers was enough to get her to realise that they'd been sitting here for quite a long time with nothing else to do. The monotony was broken up with the occasional stop to switch drivers and the occasional tree, and little else.

Sephiroth tore his gaze away from the window to watch Cassiopeia claw her way up onto a second lap and begin demanding attention from Tifa as well. Aeris watched him curiously.

"So. You like cats?" she said.

"I suppose," he said, not bothering to look away from Casseopeia.

"Is it... do the eyes have anything to do with...?"

"That's reductive," he said shortly. He regarded her shrewdly for a moment. Aeris really thought she'd be used to the pupils by now.

"I have to say," he added disdainfully, "I was expecting more."

Would that technically be a compliment, given who it was coming from?

"What were you expecting?"

"More military involvement, for one," said Sephiroth. "Knowledge of what your own project was being used to do. Although, I'll admit I'm rather curious now: What were you hoping to accomplish?"

There was something in Sephiroth's tone that Aeris did not particularly care for, but she supposed she owed him an explanation, given the whole broken spine bit.

"It was for my parents," she said, bracing for more smug ridicule. "My mother. This was her legacy."

To her surprise, Sephiroth nodded sagely and waited for her to continue.

"She and my father put their entire careers into this," said Aeris. "The world wasn't ready for it. They died trying to prove everyone wrong. It... didn't feel right, letting it all be for nothing. Someone needed to finish it."

"...It being what, exactly?"

Aeris blinked. "The project, of course."

"Yes," said Sephiroth impatiently. "An honourable motivation, certainly, but -- what was the point of the project? What was it meant to accomplish?"

"Scientific exploration and knowledge for its own sake has inherent value," she began repeating, before Sephiroth cut her off again.

"I don't want to hear your philosophical justifications," said Sephiroth. "I am asking you very simply, what did you intend to do?"

"I don't... I'm not sure I understand your meaning."

"You have imprisoned a god," said Sephiroth, "knowingly or not. You have torn a hole in the universe itself and tapped into an entity you cannot possibly hope to comprehend, and tunneled your way through it into another reality. And you did all this to do what, exactly?" He stared at her silence in disbelief. "Were you really just finishing for the sake of completion? No goal? No thoughts, ideas, intent of your own? You offer to further shape your mother's legacy and are content to let it shape you instead, as though mere obedience would make you worthy of --"

"Yeah, 'cause you'd know all about that, right?" interjected Tifa venomously. "No one made you slaughter everyone.It was just easier for you to pretend it was all for some grand, higher cause that us stupid humans could never hope to understand. What you did to my father, to Cloud’s mother, to Cloud -- everything you did to him, to all of us -- what ‘purpose’ was that for?"

"Ah, but I forget," said Sephiroth. "You have a soft spot for manipulable drones, don't you, Tifa? Do you enjoy it? The kind of power you have over a creature that has nothing to live for but the orders you give it? And you have the gall to criticise me for using it for my own purposes when you just as readily --"

“You’re awful mouthy for someone with a zero to three score, but if you think you’re up for round four -- !”

"All of you better knock it off or I'm stopping this car," said Angeal sharply from the front seat.

“I am the one driving,” said Cissnei quietly.

“I’m going to have Cissnei stop this car,” he amended just as forcefully.

Tifa and Sephiroth fell silent. Aeris had scooped up Shithead again and traced little circles into her fur, doing her best to ignore Sephiroth’s self-satisfied smirk.

It was another few minutes before Cissnei began asking Tifa about her universe's My Bloody Valentine, and as fascinating as it would've been any other day, Aeris found herself only half-listening.

Would Tseng have pushed so hard for this project if he had known how it would end? Would Lazard? Would her parents?

A while later, the lurch of the car finally slowing before pulling into the gas station snapped her out of her reverie. She passed the bag with their money in it up front to Cissnei, taking care not to look at her as she did.

Aeris heard her knees audibly creak as she carefully eased herself out of the back seat, and she made a beeline for the convenience store, Shithead tucked up under her arm.

"I thought you were going to pump gas," Cissnei called after her.

"You're the only one who speaks French here," she replied, "and besides, I'm not going to spend our money when no one's here anyway." She waved to Tifa. "Come help me pick out lunch."

"...Alright," said Tifa uncertainly, following her into the store.

She had no idea what she actually wanted, now that she was actually looking at the shelves. They weren't selling any allsorts, and there was a bunch of white noise and cotton where her opinions about cheap, sugary foods normally would have been.

She set Shithead down, since she was now starting to squirm unhappily, and watched her dart through the shelves to sniff at a grate on the floor by the drink machine. Across from her, she watched Sephiroth stroll through the automatic door and stare out across the rows of chips and prepackaged sandwiches and drinks, his eyes lingering a bit too long on the lighters, before settling on a can of wasabi peas. Seemingly as an afterthought, he picked up a can of tuna and strolled out of the store without another glance at either of them.

"You okay?"

Aeris jumped. Tifa had come up behind her dead silent, holding a bag of tomato crackers and some sort of crepe-inspired biscuit.

"...Dunno what to pick out," she said noncommittally. "I suppose it doesn't matter much. None of it's a proper meal."

"So you might as well get what you like, right?"

"Maybe."

Shithead wandered back over to her. Aers sat down and let her climb onto her lap, and she sat there for several long moments, scratching her behind the ears.

"Good girl," she muttered, as Shithead began to purr. "You're not having much fun here, are you?"

“...Did you have any other jobs at any point?” asked Tifa suddenly. “Before this one, I mean?”

“No,” said Aeris flatly, not particularly keen on hearing Tifa rub it in either.

“You’ll find something,” said Tifa. “I sort of lucked into a job I actually like, you know?”

“After the bit with the bombs?”

Tifa shook her head. “Actually... before that, I worked as a mountain guide.”

Aeris looked Tifa up and down and decided she could believe that easily enough. Then she realised Tifa was actually looking at her, too, something registering in her expression.

Tifa sat down next to her.

“Did I ever tell you how Cloud and I met?” she said suddenly.

“You said you grew up together,” said Aeris uncertainly. She heard the door slide open and closed as Angeal headed past them. They'd have to go soon enough.

“In a way,” said Tifa. “But we weren’t really close. We just lived in the same town. I didn’t even really know his name, but apparently he’d been trying to work up the guts to talk to me for a long time, and never could.”

She paused to cough a few times, grimacing as she swallowed away the taste.

“Mama died of cancer when I was eight,” said Tifa, “since we lived so close to the reactor and all. They didn’t catch it until it was too late. Kept saying it was stress. So… I really only had a few weeks to realise she was gonna die, and to say goodbye. And I guess when the time came, I still wasn’t ready.

“You know… up north, it’s said that Mount Nibel is where the dead pass through, on the way to the afterlife,” said Tifa. “And I thought, if I just went after her….” She smiled. “This is just a guess, of course. I don’t actually remember any of it. Cloud had to tell me years later.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well, what else happens when little girls run off into dangerous mountains unsupervised? I fell off a cliff and brained myself on a rock. Didn’t wake up for a while. It was a whole mess. Cloud went in after me, got blamed for it, and it took me a little while to relearn how to walk after the coma. But even after I did, I still felt like Mama was there, waiting for me. And if I’d just… just been a bit more careful, if the bridge hadn’t broken, if a thousand other things… maybe one day I’d find the path through the mountains, and see everyone I’d lost waiting on the other side. By the time I was old enough to start guiding tourists around, I knew I never would. But there’s still some part of you that always hopes, right?”

Aeris was quiet. After a moment, she nodded. “I suppose so.”

“I know you lost your mother, too." She paused again to cough for a moment, but when she spoke again, her voice sounded steady.

"It's okay that you weren't really looking for us either," said Tifa, "in whatever mountain you decided to go through."

"I don't know," said Aeris, "I didn't think I'd really find..."

"I think, if you found who you were looking for," said Tifa, her tone gentle, "you'd know the answer when someone asked you why you were looking."

She curled and uncurled her fingers. A nervous habit, Aeris had realised.

"Maybe you found it anyway," she added. "At least... a little. If you wanted to."

"What do you mean?"

Tifa fidgeted with her hands for another moment, mulling over her words.

Then, she reached over and gave Aeris's hand a small squeeze.

Aeris went still, and did not reply right away.

"...That sounds nice," was all she said.

They sat there for a moment. By the time it occurred to Aeris to squeeze back, Tifa had already gotten up to leave.

Aeris looked over the shelves again before grabbing four bags of sour gummies.

The bathrooms were empty, at least, which meant they finally had time for Sephiroth to change into some of the nondescript clothes they'd originally gotten for Zack while Aeris finished up "shopping". It made him stick out a lot less than the disposable scrubs he'd been wearing, though there wasn't much to be done about the hair. She was surprised they more or less fit, actually. She hadn't realised before, what with all the exhausted slouching, but Sephiroth was very tall.

He also hadn't bothered to button his shirt, and when he emerged from the bathroom Aeris swore she actually heard Tifa's blood pressure ratchet up another notch.

"Is modesty a human weakness, too?" Tifa said once they were all back in the car, clearly unable to help herself.

"One I’m not given to," said Sephiroth without missing a beat.

"I'll bet," said Tifa. "You know, I still don't really believe you, about why you waited until now to escape."

"In what way would lying benefit me?"

"Cloud says he saw you," she continued, ignoring him, "when we were in Soho."

Sephiroth blinked. Whatever answer he'd been expecting, apparently it wasn't that.

"Because as we all know," he replied, "his observations have been long-noted for their accuracy and groundedness in reality."

"A hallucination didn't implode half the city."

"Ah... well then. She has been drawing nearer."

Aeris gave him a questioning look.

"We are all part of Mother," said Sephiroth, rather unhelpfully. "Why would She not manifest Herself as those she has fully claimed?"

It sounded like the same nonsense to Aeris, but Tifa began to frown. "But then..."

Sephiroth raised an eyebrow. Tifa did not elaborate, and went back to quietly seething.

A moment later, she broke the silence anyway. "Being smug in my brain is also off limits," she said shortly.

Angeal sighed. "How much further?"

"Eight hours, perhaps," said Cissnei.

"Oh!" Aeris dug into her own plastic bag of ill-gotten goods and withdrew an adult colouring-book and a cheap pack of coloured pencils. She offered them to Sephiroth.

"They had them by the register," she explained with an encouraging smile, "and they're quite popular, I hear. Something for you to do on the ride. You don't get motion sick, do you?"

Sephiroth merely stared at her disdainfully, before accepting the book and ignoring the pencils entirely.

Aeris sighed in defeat and reached across him. She rolled down the window a crack, then frowned. There wasn't a breeze coming in. In fact, she discovered as she stuck her fingers out through the gap, there didn't even seem to be any wind whistling past the vehicle either.

She withdrew her fingers and rolled the window back up, perturbed. Beside her, Sephiroth had begun slowly, methodically ripping the pages to shreds whilst absently gazing out the window. He shot her a look as she reached across his space, and went back to ripping the colouring book apart without another word.

Whatever. It had stopped him bickering with Tifa, at least.

"Would you mind putting on the radio?" asked Aeris. "Maybe we'll have news about the others."

"Doubtful," said Sephiroth, as Angeal began to fiddle with the dashboard. "It would be a simple matter to sense them, even for someone new to Mother's gifts."

"You don't know that," began Aeris, but she was silenced by the beginning of a broadcast in French.

With Aeris's rusty French, she caught bits and pieces that did nothing to ease her nerves: "stay home"; "martial law"; "fugitive". And then a long segment that she didn't catch at all, but that had Cissnei screwing up her face in confusion.

"Cela ne peut pas..." Cissnei turned the volume up a bit louder, the sound of the alarmed broadcast causing Shithead to yowl in protest.

"They're saying there are mass hallucinations," said Cissnei, "of faceless people, and lights in the sky. They're telling everyone it's a chemical weapon..."

"They're lying," said Tifa indignantly. "People have already died, they may as well tell the truth."

"What else would they tell everyone?" replied Angeal. "It's not as though they can do anything about it themselves."

"No, but... people should know the truth. Even if it's the end of the world, then --"

"Then throngs of dumb, panicked livestock will take to the streets and riot," said Sephiroth. "Better to keep them out of the way while someone actually capable of coming up with a solution does so."

Aeris frowned. "What if one of those people could've helped?"

Sephiroth scoffed. Tifa clenched her fists more tightly.

"We're doing something about it, are we not?” said Angeal. "Take solace in that, at least."

Twice more they stopped for a break, once for gas, once to throw out the bag of cat treats Sephiroth had obtained for Shithead and his own empty can of Wasabi peas. Which was odd enough since Aeris certainly hadn't remembered him walking out of the store with them. She quietly decided it wasn't worth the time or energy figuring out how in the world Sephiroth worked. It was enough work as it was keeping the shredded remains of the colouring book out of Shithead's mouth.

“...Think we should pull over for the night?” suggested Cissnei eventually.

Tifa didn’t seem to understand why.

"We don’t have that much longer left," she said. Aeris stared at her. So did Cissnei and Angeal.

"It's four hours," replied Cissnei in disbelief.

"Yeah," said Tifa.

"...It's four hours," tried Aeris, this time in Standard, in case she hadn't understood.

"That's not even a day."

"Tifa, you're going to make yourself sicker if you keep pushing yourself like this --"

"It's not pushing myself!" she objected, rolling her eyes. "I only drove once. It's still only four hours. Haven't you ever driven anywhere before?"

"As humans," said Sephiroth, "they are incapable of handling even short voyages away from the comfort of their homes. Endowed as you are with Mother's gifts, you finally begin to see --"

"Actually, you're right, I'm dead tired," said Tifa in a chipper voice. "Let's stop for the day."

Just as bizarrely, Tifa and Sephiroth didn't seem to have any problems dropping right off to sleep while crammed in a car with four other people and a cat. Some weird alien thing, maybe.

That still left all three humans lying awake in a stolen car next to a dying woman and a ticking timebomb.

“Do any of you have any regrets?” asked Cissnei suddenly.

Aeris sighed loudly and heavily so Cissnei would get the point.

“None,” said Angeal, saving her from having to answer.

“Not a one?”

“Not a one,” he confirmed. “Or rather… I regret many things that happened during this project, certainly, but I don’t know what I could have done better. Not much of it was within my control.”

“Doing the project at all was,” replied Aeris.

“...Perhaps,” said Angeal. “But then, how were we to know how this would have turned out? Would we have had any good reason to refuse?” He turned stiffly in his seat to look at Aeris. “You especially.”

“What about me?” said Aeris sharply.

Angeal hesitated before answering. “In a better world, yes, none of these terrible things would have happened. But we aren’t in that better world. So what now?”

So what now? Aeris thought to herself. So what now, now that everything was ash around her?

Aeris stared out the window at their grey surroundings, the earth beneath them dry and cracked, like charred wood, the sky the ugly red colour of an open wound. She kept staring long after everyone had fallen asleep but her.

What now?

 

---

 

Aeris almost didn’t recognise Tifa when she woke the next morning. She’d actually yelled when she had sat up and discovered she’d been sitting next to a strange woman with long, white hair.

Tifa herself had taken one look at herself in the mirror and gone pale. She didn’t say a word about it, but she did tie her hair back without comment, and politely excused herself from driving this time around.

Aeris drove instead. No one had spotted them thus far, and Cissnei and Angeal were still exhausted from the day before. Sephiroth seemed to be doing marginally better in exchange, no longer stopping periodically to cough or gasp for air. He was also, from what little Aeris knew of him, uncharacteristically quiet the entire time as shapes wove past their car outside, keeping pace with their vehicle. Aeris, on the other hand, went back to not looking.

Eventually, he tensed up. "We're close."

Aeris didn't bother asking how he knew. Tifa had gone still as well.

"How close?" asked Cissnei.

"Difficult to say. Half an hour, perhaps." He frowned. "We should get out and walk. There is significant military presence. I can hear the airships."

"Won't that make getting back out harder?" asked Angeal.

"Not if we remain where we are," said Sephiroth. "And should we fail to, it is much easier to hide two people than a vehicle."

Aeris frowned. "Two people?"

"Yes. You and the other two humans cannot not accompany us."

"You didn't mention that before," said Tifa hotly. "Why not? She's done it already."

"Through your machine?" replied Sephiroth. "They made many attempts to build one during my imprisonment. No wonder they finally gave up...."

"Because I succeeded," began Aeris. Sephiroth wasn't listening.

"But no," he continued, "we will not be using a machine, and I cannot bring those that are not a part of Mother. You'll see."

Aeris sighed and pulled over at last. Overhead, the sky was writhing like a million fingers behind a projector screen. Ahead of her was, at best, a heavily-armed military outpost, and at worst, a whirling maelstrom of death.

"...We still need to retrieve your data anyway," she said. "So I'll come with you as far as we're able."

"And you'll need Cissnei and I to help look," said Angeal, "assuming they haven't found it already."

"It might be dangerous," said Aeris. "And..."

He raised an eyebrow. "And?"

"It's nothing," she said. "Only, if anything happens to me..."

Aeris reached into the back seat and hugged Shithead -- Cassiopeia -- a bit closer. "Mummy has to go for a little bit," she said, scratching behind her ears. Cassiopeia purred and drooled onto her sleeve. "Be good. Don't pee in the car." She planted a kiss on top of her head and set her down. If anyone was judging her, they were polite enough not to say so.

"Alright," said Aeris. "Alright, I'm ready."

Being "one step removed" meant that Aeris didn't start to notice when they were drawing near until the little red radio began to buzz with static, though she was certain she'd turned it off. She removed it from the back and turned it on properly, uncertain of what it would even do, and turned the volume up.

Voices started crackling through it. Soft and faintly distorted, but still unmistakably human, flickering in and out of audible range, occasionally drowned out by the sound of a motor. Beneath it all was a persistent layer of static.

Strewn about in the grass were the remnants of their last encounter with the barricade. In the distance, dark, hulking figures moved on the horizon, deep and slow and deliberate, flickering in between being another part of the landscape, or something just barely out of view.

Occasionally, she would see something moving a bit closer to her: A flicker of something flesh-coloured, a ripple in the air she could've sworn looked like a hand. Out of the corner of her eye, trees and rubble took on human likenesses and leered at her, their eyes tracking her movement. She did her best not to look back.

"Can you hear it?" said Tifa dreamily, an absent smile plastered on her face.

"...I don't think so," said Aeris, swallowing. "Let's just -- let's keep moving. You'll be home soon."

"Mm." Tifa turned away, unblinking.

Aeris looked at Sephiroth in an accusatory manner, but he didn't even seem to be paying attention. He was looking around the field with an inscrutable expression on his face, taking interest in the way the dried leaves beneath his feet crunched.

"Are you certain I can't come with you?" she asked him.

"It is not up to me," said Sephiroth. "You lack a soul --" Aeris bristled "-- and you are not a part of Mother. Why do you care?"

Aeris turned away. "You know why."

"I do not," said Sephiroth. "I asked you, and you were unable to tell me, so why should I know?"

"...Well, then -- then if you needed to come back, then just --"

"We cannot come back," said Sephiroth. "Bringing people here was your world's doing. Not ours."

Aeris turned towards Tifa. "Is he telling the truth?"

Tifa blinked. "...Hm?"

Aeris snapped her fingers in front of Tifa's face. "Is Sephiroth telling the truth, when he says he can't bring anyone back?"

She watched as Tifa frowned, though focusing seemed to take some effort. In the distance, the remains of the facility loomed over the wreckage strewn about it. "...I don't know. We don't even know how he plans to get us back." She shot a look at Sephiroth. "We're nearly there," said Tifa. "Just tell us what we're going to do already."

"...I would rather we made it into the building first --"

"There's something in there," said Angeal shortly. "Or... around it. Jenova, perhaps. I'm not sure. We already lost a few colleagues to whatever it is."

"All I hear is Mother," said Sephiroth unconcernedly. "She is all around us already, trying to pull us closer. All we need to do is let Her."

"...I went into that thing, I think," began Cissnei hesitantly. "When I'd been shot. There was this noise. Static, mostly...." She trailed off, staring up at the facility with trepidation.

"But you were merely displaced," said Sephiroth, growing impatient. "You did not have the means to reach through on your own. I have not lied to any of you --"

"I'm with Tifa," said Aeris. "You should at least tell us what the plan is before we potentially risk our necks. It's better we know what the plan is now so we can leave quickly if things get bad in there."

Sephiroth looked out across the group staring at him expectantly before sighing in resignation over the crackle of the radio, which had been gradually getting louder.

"Very well," he said.

He raised his hand, and a nondescript-looking black glass pyramid appeared in his palm.

Aeris peered at it curiously. "What's --"

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Tifa seemed to have fully snapped out of her stupor. She was also completely, thoroughly, utterly livid.

"How long have you been sitting on that? The entire time?!"

"The entire time," he confirmed smoothly. "Four years, in fact. Not that it has done me much good."

"What is it?" asked Aeris, glancing nervously at the paperweight-looking thing. "What is it?"

"The Black Materia," said Sephiroth simply.

"...Oh." Aeris stared at the unassuming chunk of materia in his hand; the one that Cloud had said had nearly wiped out their entire planet four years ago. "Where were you hiding that?"

"One more step removed," he said, smirking. "I have significantly more mastery over these things than your acquaintance does."

"How does this get you home, exactly?" asked Angeal.

"It doesn't," Tifa spat. "He was lying the entire time. He --"

"I did not lie," said Sephiroth more firmly. "I withheld information, but I did not lie. The Black Materia will allow us to return to our own world."

Tifa crossed her arms expectantly.

"Surely you've noticed how much more difficult magic is to perform here," said Sephiroth. "We must reach across the entire width and breadth of nonbeing to tap into the Lifestream. We are still connected, or we would not be alive -- or rather, you wouldn't be.

"We reach for it, it reaches for us. We are not part of this world to begin with, and our connection to Mother further ties us to the places in between. We simply allow it to pull us through."

"If you've had that the entire time," asked Cissnei, "why did you not try this before?"

"I did try it before," he replied, his mouth thinning into a displeased line. "Even at the pinnacle of my strength, I could not cast Meteor at will. I had to be situated in the Planet's largest open wound, near the source of the Lifestream itself. Crippled as I was until now, I was unable to establish a strong enough connection with lesser spells, and was unable to summon Meteor on my own so far from the Lifestream." He nodded to Tifa, who now looked positively apoplectic. "This is no longer the case. I have another experienced caster with me to contribute, and the world is much thinner here. Mother already wants to call us towards Her. Can you hear it?"

"You want me to help you summon Meteor," said Tifa flatly.

"You've no choice, if you wish to return home," said Sephiroth. "Of course, we needn't complete the casting. But it will need to be attempted at the very least, yes."

"...Is that why Cloud...? But... but he shouldn't have... you said normal spells weren't -- why was Cloud --"

"We can discuss the rest of this when we have returned to our own planet, if I know the answer at all," said Sephiroth, glancing behind them. "How long, exactly, do you think you will be able to maintain our presence here?"

Tifa gritted her teeth and resumed walking. "Fine. Let's get what we need here and go."

Aeris sprinted to catch up with her, clambering over chunks of concrete and broken glass.

"Wait," she puffed, gasping for air as she tumbled down a particularly large chunk and made a concerted effort not to land in the twisted metal below it. "Hold on -- a moment --"

"...Is everything okay?" asked Tifa.

"Yes, fine..." she panted. "just... moment..." She straightened up, unused to climbing, and continued clambering further in along with Tifa. "I just wanted to say -- I'm going to miss you."

"You too," said Tifa. "I'm sorry, I wish I'd known..."

"It's alright," said Aeris. "At least this will be over quickly enough. We just have to get you home, and find that data, and... and everything will go back to normal."

Tifa sighed. "I hope you're right," she said. "I barely even know what normal would look like at this point. But... what about you?"

"...I've got Cassie," said Aeris. "And Cissnei's alright -- we've worked together on a few projects before this. And Angeal, he's... he's been very kind this whole time, and he believes me. After this, I'll just..."

"Down!" shouted Angeal, "everyone down!"

The sharp twang of a bullet ricocheting off concrete had Aeris scrambling further into the wreckage to hide.

"I’m sorry," Tifa began, clutching her head. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise -- I'm so sorry --"

"We're close enough," said Angeal as Tifa took a deep breath and "desynched" them again. "It's certainly better than the rest of us could do."

"Now what?" said Cissnei. "What do we do? They know we're here? What do we do now?"

"We keep going," said Aeris. "We came this far. Let's get what we came here for and get out."

Aeris sprinted down the hallway, turning a corner into what was left of the second ring...

...and realised she had no idea where she was anymore.

The halls of the facility no longer made sense. For one thing, there were a damn sight more of them than she could remember there being, branching off in different directions, some of which should have led back outside. For another, she distinctly remembered the roof getting torn off the place, but above her were simply more hallways and more doors, leading upwards into infinity.

"Well," she said slowly, "at least they'll have trouble finding us in here. No one go off on your own. We can't risk getting separated."

She picked a tunnel that she thought might have been roughly where the airlock to the third ring was and motioned for the rest of the group to follow.

They had only been walking for a few minutes when she began to hear the voices of soldiers echoing off the walls. She had no way of knowing how close they were, and walked a little faster, not daring to speak out loud.

On the way in, they passed a doorway smeared rust red. Behind her, she heard Cissnei draw a sharp breath.

"...We know we're going the right way, at least," said Aeris quietly.

One way or another, at least this entire nightmare was almost over. No one else would have to suffer for this mess after she'd fixed it.

"How are you doing?" asked Angeal, keeping his voice low. "You seem tired."

"Of course I'm tired," she replied. "We've been running all over the place right after a cross-country car trip."

"...For what it's worth," said Angeal, "I'm sorry you haven't had a chance to take much of a break. I suppose none of us have, but..."

"We can have a break once we've fixed this," said Aeris. "And when there isn't half an army behind us in an endless death labyrinth."

"Well, yes," said Angeal. "I meant it more broadly though. It's been rough on all of us, hasn't it?"

"...I suppose it has," she replied.

Angeal gave her shoulder a wordless squeeze and went back to travelling in silence.

After several more minutes of alternatively jogging and walking to allow Sephiroth to recover, they reached another branch in the building, this one halfway caved in. To their left, the wall was missing, revealing the shifting, undulating sky. Aeris carefully reached for the floor to her right, and landed on it with a jarring thud. On the other side of the room was a broken airlock.

"See?" said Aeris, as the rest of the group detached themselves from the wall (Sephiroth and Tifa neatly stepping onto the floor, Cissnei crashing into it sideways, Angeal getting to his feet with a loud groan). "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

"We don't know how much time we have left until they find us," said Cissnei, brushing herself off and adjusting the collar of her shirt delicately. "Where is it?"

"It'll be down below," replied Aeris. "Anything we've thrown out that hasn't been processed yet would be." She knelt below the counter and popped out the hatch leading to the floor below the facility before shimmying through and proceeding down the stairs to the maintenance area.

The generator was silent next to them, as they wove their way past several tubes. Aeris followed them with her eyes, craning her neck to see where they led.

"What are we looking for?" asked Cissnei.

"We need the one that goes sort of... left and up."

"Do you remember which chute you put it in?" asked Angeal.

"The one by the desk," she said.

"Are you certain?"

"...Yes," said Aeris, immediately feeling much less certain.

"What if the pipes are messed up, too?" asked Tifa. "Any of these could lead anywhere."

"...We can start by checking to see which ones are hollow, and which ones have liquid in them," replied Aeris. "Then we can follow it up and check down the chute. But we'll have to be careful, since some of them might have pressurised --"

Several of the pipes on the left side suddenly began wrenching themselves to pieces. Bits of metal, compressed air, and crumpled paper went flying everywhere. When the last piece finished falling to the group, Sephiroth was the only one who hadn't bothered covering his ears, and was watching them all with a very bored expression on his face.

"...Thank you," said Cissnei nervously.

"Someone will have heard that." Angeal frowned disapprovingly at Sephiroth. "Let's get what we need and get out."

"What are we looking for?"

"Angeal and I will know," said Aeris. "Just keep an eye out for anyone else."

Aeris sat down against the tank as she began to sift through the pile for anything that looked like her notes on Sephiroth's waypoint. It was empty now, and Zack had put his fist through one of the computers that controlled it. Even if she got this data, how was she supposed to use it?

Later. She'd figure that out later.

“You’ll say hi to everyone for me when you get back,” said Aeris, looking up from sorting at Tifa. “Won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

The crinkle of paper was the only other noise besides Tifa’s quiet wheezing.

Say something, she told herself. You’re never going to see her again. You’re already never going to see Cloud or Zack either. You’ll never pet one of those birds or have magic lessons or anything. It’ll be all over soon, after this. If you have anything to ask, now is the time.

She couldn’t think of a single thing. She continued to sort through papers in silence.

That wasn’t quite accurate. She wanted to ask Zack what she should tell his family. She wanted to ask Tifa how long she had left without access to anything “stabilising” her. She wanted to show her what a horse looked like, and take her to the zoo, and explain to Cloud about all the different types of flowers she had in her garden.

She found herself gradually slowing as she shifted through each paper. She really shouldn’t. They were on a tight schedule. She shouldn’t be drawing this out.

She hadn’t found it yet, though, so maybe it wasn’t here after all. Maybe she’d have a bit more time to figure out another way to fix this, and maybe she hadn’t ruined everything, maybe her mother hadn’t ruined everything --

"...gone through here... know what they came back for..."

Everyone froze. Voices conversing in French echoed around them, along with the shuffle of booted footsteps. Lights flickered around the room, projected from nowhere.

Aeris slowly turned to look at Tifa, who had frozen up completely. Had she hidden them properly? Could she even tell?

The chatter grew louder. Someone radioed for a thorough search to be conducted of the premises.

She barely dared draw breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sephiroth's own gaze dart frantically around the room, though what he was looking for, she couldn't tell.

The papers on the floor around them fluttered in time with an unseen wind. One set of footsteps stopped.

"...went through the trash...?" came the half-audible inquiry.

She watched as one of the papers shuddered, then rippled as the words scrawled onto it slowly began to peel off the page and into the air, leaving a blank sheet behind. Another one next to it quickly followed suit.

She heard Angeal draw in breath sharply. Their eyes met, and he looked quickly down at a particular sheet of paper she'd missed earlier. On one corner of it, she could see her own handwriting, and part of a familiar formula neatly printed out by the computer.

He slowly, gingerly sat up and began to edge his way towards it. Aeris gave her head a small shake no, but either it had been too small of a movement, or Angeal didn't care.

More and more papers were vanishing, faster and faster. The smashed computers, too, were leaking broken glass onto the floor, the light glancing off of it making it glitter like water.

Angeal lunged for the paper.

What little remaining intact glass shattered as gunfire rang out, echoing off the walls. The shouting grew louder as well, and suddenly they were surrounded by ten or eleven men in camo holding very large guns. One of them holding a handful of crumpled printer paper.

Aeris dove for the cover behind the generator as a hail of bullets rattled around her. There was a flash of silver and white that flew past her, and a series of awful wet noises, followed by more alarmed shouting in French. She looked up in time to see one of the men get vertically sliced clean in two by Sephiroth, now wielding a massive odachi. It would have been comical if there hadn't been so much blood. She'd never realised people had so much blood in them, and it was spilling all over the floor as Sephiroth made short work of the next soldier, his body crumpling next to Angeal's --

Aeris scrambled over to him as the gunfire started to die down. Clutched in his fist was the paper they'd come here to pick up, rapidly staining dark red but still legible.

He tried to speak, but his mouth was filling with blood. Any magic she knew was locked away in a different body she'd once spoken to about birthday presents. She took the paper from his hand and replaced it with her own.

It went still a moment later.

Notes:

OKAY SO ART FROM NAYU (AND OTHERS)

This excellent comic that is 100% canon.

Doodle of Cloud and Vincent plus thrilling sequel.

Cloud and rat friend.

Not one, and not two, but three renditions of Cloud and Hojo.

Diary of a Guy Who Ate Four Dudes

A couple collections of doodles.

I lied here's more.

Missed a spot.

Some extremely choice cross sections of things that also 100% happened in the fic.

Weird dude in scrubs.

Cloud, Aeris, and Zack ngl I think this might be my favourite one lol

And last but not least, quality memes.

Denebola Leo also made me a meme thank you.

Chapter 52: The One With The Title Drop

Notes:

Been looking forward to this chapter for a while! Partially because it's got some good-ass shit in it that's been written for like a year at this point, partially because people will stop interpreting the I in the title as a roman numeral.

This chapter contains brief depiction and mention of gore and self-harm.

Thank you so much to Tofu and Billie for helping me get this thing out the door finally.

For someone with a muzzle, Nanaki was awfully good at looking smug and reproachful.

Yuffie's cell phone buzzed with yet another missed call and voicemail. She must have been up to thirty by now. Maybe forty. It seems she'd ruffled more than a few feathers by walking out on everyone with the only functioning nose they had left to them that could also talk, and wouldn't fly into a panic upon actually smelling what it was they were required to track.

Well, fine. They could be mad at her. She'd be the one laughing when she actually showed up with Cloud in tow while they wasted their time.

When they'd finally arrived, Edge was deathly quiet.

Nanaki's fur immediately bristled, whatever condescending retort he'd been saving up for her forgotten.

"You smell him already?" she asked him.

"I can smell Her, yes," he replied shortly. He began to trot away without another word. Yuffie followed.

The sky had gone dark, and she could see things moving in the distance, slowly descending, the motion against the darkness looking like boiling ink, muted light glancing off its surface. She tried not to look up at it.

She turned another corner, and was greeted with a burning sky, a streetful of tumbledown buildings, and a hastily-erected barricade. Nanaki's fur was still on end regardless, a low growl rumbling out of him.

"What's wrong?" asked Yuffie.

Nanaki did not answer right away.

"...It's not right," was all he seemed able to get out.

"Oi! Oi, you! Get away from there!"

Yuffie turned and realised she recognised the woman now approaching her, intent on dragging her away from the barricade.

"...Jensen?"

Jensen stopped dead. "Do I know you?"

"Friend of Tifa's," she said quickly, and resumed putting distance between her and whatever was on the other side of the street.

Jensen huffed. "She could've at least given us warning before just closing down Seventh Heaven without another word. Everyone had to get new jobs. Though... I guess it doesn't matter much anymore, right?" She finally stopped walking a good ways away. "No way of knowing if you're on the side of town that's gonna get voided. Haven't heard from Johnny in weeks. Eli says he's going back to Mideel, but they say it's hitting other places too."

"'Voided'?"

"You know, the..." Jensen gestured vaguely. "Where've you been?" She glanced nervously behind them. "Sorry, I gotta leave. All the stores are shutting down, and I have toilet paper to buy."

"Wait -- you haven't seen Cloud around anywhere, have you?"

"Cloud?" repeated Jensen. "He's the whole reason this is happening, right? If there wasn't any Jenova left --"

Nanaki growled a bit louder.

"...I haven't seen him, no," said Jensen.

"Then how do you know it's his fault?" asked Yuffie.

"Look," she amended, "I worked with the guy, I don't have anything against him, even if he was only there due to nepotism. Was on time for his shifts, worked fast, agreed to deal with the annoying customers, didn't hog tips. I kept quiet about the Soldier thing, didn't I? I don't think he'd do it on purpose, but... come on. What else could it possibly be?"

"I --"

Nanaki suddenly stopped growling and trotted off down the street.

Thank god.

"I gotta --" Yuffie gestured to Nanaki, who was already half a block ahead of her.

"Whatever. Try not to die. Or... whatever else that's been happening."

The streets were nearly empty, save for a couple stragglers running errands, anxiously looking over their shoulders from time to time. The stalls in the market were being hastily packed up. The clatter of claws on cement from chocobos pulling carts, or the loud sputtering of vehicles winding their way through the packed roads, was conspicuously absent.

"He's here," said Nanaki as Yuffie finally caught up to him.

Yuffie's train of thought immediately ground to a halt. "You're sure?"

"I -- I think so, yes."

He began to trot faster, nose wiggling furiously. Yuffie jogged to keep up with him. After months of this nightmare, not even knowing if Tifa and Cloud were still alive, and here they were within a stone's throw of answers. They got a few odd looks as they ran due to Nanaki's presence, but he'd been around the city often enough for them to become accustomed to him.

And, as they turned a corner, it was nothing compared to what everyone else was staring at.

There was a small crowd gathered outside one of the last stalls available, but a space had cleared in the centre of it to make way for the man at the front trying and failing to look unassuming.

He wasn't Cloud, that much was obvious (and in fact, Cloud was nowhere to be seen). He was entirely too tall and too broad, and was presently engaged in openly flirting with the shopkeep in a manner that probably would have come off as very charming if it weren't for his eyes.

"Soldier," Yuffie breathed. The word was already making its way uneasily around the crowd.

"I could have sworn, though," muttered Nanaki in confusion. "It smelled just like him."

"Must have been Her," she muttered back.

The man continued chatting up the shopkeep, oblivious to the stares he was drawing.

"I mean, if you aren't interested that's fine," said the man. His Standard was lightly accented, but she couldn't for the life of her place where it was from. "But I'd love to come back later if you can point me to a pawn shop or something."

"I-I -- there might be one further down Reedgrass," they replied nervously. "I'm sorry, but I just -- I don't really need healing materia for anything, a-and --"

"Hey, no, I totally get it," he said with an easy grin. "It's a weird thing to ask, yeah?"

"Yes," said the shopkeep nervously, unable to keep themselves from staring at his slitted pupils.

"Well, take it easy then!"

He peeled off to allow everyone else to crowd in around the stall, as though he weren't the very thing scaring them off, slipping a materia the size and colour of a robin's egg into his pocket.

Yuffie slipped into the crowd and followed him.

"What are you doing?" Nanaki called out from behind her.

Yuffie didn't reply. Soldiers had excellent hearing, and it wouldn't do to explain out loud that them tracking a Soldier halfway across the city might as well yield something for their trouble.

She did pretty good for a while, too, unobtrusively keeping pace with him over the next couple blocks. At least, until she reached into his pocket and realised all too late that there weren't exactly a lot of people out today masking her own footsteps. She could have sworn...

"HEY!"

Yuffie, who had already made it several paces down the street away from him, immediately bolted. Nanaki gave her a long-suffering glance and stayed put as the Soldier tore past him.

The other problem with Soldiers, beyond them being nationalist scumbags, was that they were fast. She had already managed to scramble her way up a fire escape onto a roof, and it was only him apparently hesitating before every single leap after her (that he should've easily managed) that was giving her any kind of edge.

Well, if she could outrun Cloud, she could outrun this idiot. She dove off one of the buildings, grabbing a clothesline on the way down and scattering laundry everywhere. There were piles of broken beams and hastily-stacked chunks of concrete, erected as a makeshift blockade. She vaulted up the wall and over it, still hearing the Soldier behind her muttering angrily.

It took her a few moments of sprinting through the streets to realise they were completely empty. She stopped dead and looked around.

The ground under her feet was pitch black, and despite the fact that it still felt like concrete she had the awful feeling it was moving beneath her.

"Nanaki?" she called out. Her voice didn't even echo off the buildings.

She began running again. In the distance, she could see the lights of a clothing store still on, and burst through the doors.

The other occupants turned to stare at her, then immediately went back to their shopping. Or maybe it was looting. It was a little hard to tell at this stage, since a few of them weren't bothering to clog the checkout line, and were instead just heading for the doors.

At the other end, she saw a tall man angrily trying to fight his way past them. She immediately turned on her heel and began wading through the aisles.

Yuffie clambered up one of the shelves and made her way across the tops of them to reach the skylight in the ceiling and let herself up onto the roof. This time, the Soldier didn't hesitate on the jump, and hauled himself through after her before grabbing her leg. She lost her footing and tumbled off the roof with a scream, dragging the man with her.

They never landed. The world had gone dark again.

Yuffie turned and realised she was standing on solid ground again, in front of a vast crowd of silhouettes. They were pulsing in time with one another with blue light, or human-shaped ripples behind a projector screen, the way she'd seen in Midgar long ago.

"...They won't acknowledge you if you don't acknowledge them," said the Soldier quietly. "Just keep walking. The exit's out about fifty feet."

"How do you --?"

One of them twitched and pivoted its head towards her.

"And keep quiet," he added. Yuffie swallowed.

She walked on. As she passed each one, they stopped to watch her, but did nothing to halt her in her path. Occasionally they would turn to speak. With what, she had no idea -- she knew they must have had faces, was convinced that they did, but when she tried to actually remember what was on them it was the same indistinct static that had issued from their mouths in place of words.

"What are they?" she asked.

Her phone rang again. Yuffie fumbled with it, trying to shut it off, but before she could it stopped ringing. Thousands of voices, each one too distorted to make out, crackled through the speaker. She popped open the back and ripped out the battery.

Once or twice, she could've sworn she saw Cloud, throat split open, black tar spilling from his open mouth -- but if she had, his face was just as indistinct as everyone else's. How would she even know it was him?

In the distance, someone's engine backfired. A young man hurried past her with a crate of groceries in his arms.

Nanaki was now sprinting to catch up with her from the other side of the street, his fur looking dishevelled, and his eyes promising a Lecture with a capital L. She glanced around for another out.

Before she could, a hand clamped around her arm threatening to rip it clean off, and the Soldier was now staring down at her with glowing inhuman eyes, and that was that.

"I know you don't have any way of knowing this, but you can't possibly comprehend how really, really not in the mood I am to deal with this shit," he said coldly, the glow from his eyes emphasising the bags under them as he glowered at her.

"I'm sorry!" Yuffie blurted.

"I'll bet."

"I am, I swear!" she said, as Nanaki finally caught up to her and issued a warning growl at the man. "I just --"

Hours of practice for situations exactly like this one had Yuffie easily tearing up -- not too much as to be uncomfortable, but not just a glisten, either. Exactly the right amount to garner sympathy.

"It's for my friend," she said, sounding the exact right amount of reluctant. It technically was true, which made it the best kind of lie."He's really sick, and I just... I saw you had that materia, and I thought..."

The Soldier looked a bit more tired than he had before, and he let go of her hand. Nanaki had stopped growling, and had gone back to gazing at Yuffie reproachfully.

"It's fine," he sighed. "Just dealing with a lot of things right now." He scratched his neck. "I can't give you the materia, though. I'm sorry about your friend..."

"No," she said, heroically fighting back a sniff, "it's alright. I shouldn't have tried to take it."

Nanaki huffed in irritation.

"I..." The man looked over his shoulder nervously. "Look, maybe we can help each other."

"...What?"

"I'm pretty good at healing," he said. "I don't really want the materia anyway, I'm just trying to get something to eat."

"Oh, no, I really couldn't --"

"Please," said the man, now sounding slightly desperate. "I don't have any money. I just need some supplies for my friend. He's not doing too hot either. And... if you've got any money to spare, I'll heal your friend, and I'll forgive the fact that you tried to rob me."

"...What's your name?" asked Yuffie.

"Er -- Arrun," said the man -- or something that sounded like it, anyway. "You?"

"Yuna," she said. "So, 'supplies'?"

"Yeah," said Arrun. "Food. Maybe a blanket. Something soft might help..."

She was in too deep, that much was obvious as she began directing Arrun to the few stores that hadn't closed in a panic yet. She'd just have to ditch him as soon as he got distracted. Although, that was easier said than done. Could regular Soldiers do the vibrations thing, or just Cloud?

She certainly wasn't giving him the slip in here, she realised, as Arrun hovered over her shoulder asking questions about how their money worked, and what certain well-known foods were entirely. At one point he'd come up to her with a single krakka from the produce section. Who the hell only bought one krakka?

When she'd given him a look and exchanged another one with Nanaki, he'd nervously looked down at it, before saying, "Yeah, I mean, of course this one's no good. I'm no good at picking out vegetables."

She stared at him.

"...Fruit, I meant. I'm bad at picking out --"

"It's a vegetable," said Yuffie, fighting to keep her face straight. Nanaki made a strangled huffing noise and busied himself looking over the raw chicken.

Tch, Soldiers. Probably never actually went shopping on his own in his fancy upper plate penthouse.

He insisted they pay for what they'd picked up like a sucker instead of just taking it.

"I don't want people looking for me, if they aren't already," said Arrun. "You drew way too much attention in the first place."

Once they'd gotten out of the store, he stopped by the door and pulled her off to the side.

He glanced around again.

"...You can't tell anyone about this," said Arrun. "About where we're going, and... and what you see when you get there. And if you do, I'll tell them you tried to rob me."

"I said I was sorry! And I bought you all this shit already, so --"

"I don't care. You can't tell anyone. I'm serious. I'll..."

He swallowed, and lowered his voice further.

"...If you rat us out, I'll... I'll kill you. Okay? I mean it. I'll kill you if you try to tell anyone."

There was a waver in his voice when he said it, but the look in his eye told Yuffie that at the very least, he wanted to be serious about it.

"...It's just groceries, guy," said Yuffie, raising an eyebrow.

"Wouldn't tell a soul," said Nanaki. Arrun jumped.

"That -- you -- um -- you talked."

"Did I?" said Nanaki airily. "Well, imagine that."

"You'll really help my friend, mister?" said Yuffie, hoping to god Arrun still hadn't decided if she was 12 or not yet.

"Yeah, I promise," said Arrun, suddenly looking deeply uncomfortable. "Uh... what's with your dog?"

"I'm not a dog," said Nanaki immediately. "Do you intend to lead the way?"

Arrun sighed heavily and resumed walking.

So, what now? Stab him in the back and run for it? He'd probably be fine, and in the meantime she was wasting time. This wasn't supposed to be a time investment, it was supposed to be a quick score on the side, since he was here and she really might as well. It wasn't her problem that his friend was sick too. Somewhere in this city, Tifa was probably barfing up her own kidneys. She'd just have to give him the slip when it was her turn.

That was looking increasingly more difficult as time went on. He was getting further out of the city now -- the bit of it they'd built near Edge's namesake, but still technically part of the city itself. He pushed aside a bit of rubble to allow her through, and began fiddling with a hatch on the ground that Yuffie realised with a shock she recognised.

He stopped halfway through lifting it. "...You gotta promise you won't tell anyone about this place," he said quickly. "I wasn't even supposed to tell you, but... y'know." He frowned. "Plus, I'm not letting you out of my sight. Ladies first."

Yuffie rolled her eyes and dropped down into Midgar's abandoned service tunnels.

She could see the remnants of her previous visit to this place etched all along the walls: pockmarks from stray bullets, places where the paint was scraped away by pursuing robots. There were even still a few abandoned fission bombs down here, from when that sort of thing was practical to use. Curiously, the dried blood she'd expected to be here as well seemed to have been long since worn away, which was weird for a place nobody had set foot in for four years. The tunnels ran underground for miles all around the city and outward from it, like some sort of fungus, but any of the entrances would've been long abandoned now that the reactors they served had been stripped completely of valuable resources.

"The kids here are... kinda scary, to be honest," said Arrun. "They only let me hide out here because of my friend. I guess they go way back." A shadow passed across his face. "Either way... they don't really trust grown-ups, and the ones they do -- maybe they died, maybe they're just missing. But they need food now, I guess."

He paused at last in front of a side room and winced. They watched as the door opened a crack, and a young girl perhaps Marlene's age wriggled her way out before slamming it shut again.

"He's being weird again!" she said. "You an' Reuv can deal with him." She took off running down the tunnel once more.

Arrun quickly turned to her. "He's not dangerous," he said immediately. "No matter what you see. Just... he's really sick, and he doesn't understand what's going on. And -- if you tell anyone he's here, I'll kill you --"

"You have made your point," said Nanaki. "We aren't here for either of you, regardless of what actions some people chose to take earlier."

Yuffie nodded absently as Arrun opened the door again and let himself inside.

She knew these tunnels better than he did, could probably shake him off if she could get a moment to herself. Still, she couldn't resist just having a peek. Just for a moment.

The room was cosy, but barely furnished. There were blankets and cushions spread out on the floor, and a small lantern propped up on a table being the only other source of light in the room beyond the cheap bare bulbs overhead. The room only had one other occupant, who the Soldier's hulking form was covering.

She didn't need to see his face right away. She'd recognise that stupid sword against the wall anywhere.

Cloud looked bad.

He'd lost weight, and his hair was matted with filth. There were the remains of several new injuries all over his arms, and it looked like someone had tried to cut his throat and failed.

The look on his face told her he was in the middle of some sort of episode, and when he did respond to his surroundings it was to try and pull away from whatever was touching him.

Yuffie slammed the door behind them. Nanaki yelped, barely managing to whip his tail out of the way in time.

"The hell are you playing at?!" she shouted.

"He's not dangerous!" Arrun repeated frantically. "Look, whatever hangups you've got about us being 'infected' --"

"He's sick," she said coldly. "How long have you had him stuffed down here?"

"A few days? Why? It's not like you care."

"I care a hell of a lot more than you!" snapped Yuffie. "And you expect me to help you just 'cause you --!"

They were both silenced by the lightbulb above their head flickering. The three of them looked down at Cloud, who now had his hands clamped over his ears, knees drawn up to his chest, eyes squeezed shut, his breath coming in rapid pants.

Arrun winced and swore in a language she didn't recognise before diving for Cloud, knocking his chair to the floor with a clatter, preemptively grabbing his arms and holding them out of the way. Cloud cried out and began to thrash against his grip, his breathing becoming even more frantic.

"What the hell are you doing?!" shouted Yuffie.

"He starts -- clawing at himself if I don't," explained Arrun, as he fought to maintain his grip. "He's done it three times now, and the last time he caught himself in the eye. I can't keep healing it. I barely even know how it works." Yuffie looked at Cloud in the dim light and saw the marks on his arms. It was always hard to tell on him, but Yuffie thought they looked fresh. Most of them, anyway. How had she not noticed...?

Cloud began thrashing harder, making more distressed sounds as the lights began flickering in earnest. One of them popped. The table began to rattle. It had been a long, long time since she'd seen him this far gone.

"He's a bitey bastard, too," he added with a grumble. "You should probably stay back, he's -- uh -- he has a medical condition. It's pretty contagious, so, uh --"

Yuffie rolled her eyes.

"Uggghhhhhh, god, will you move?" she groaned, shoving him roughly out of the way. Arrun lost his balance from where he'd been crouching and toppled onto his back. Cloud frantically scrambled away from the both of them into the corner with a fearful whine, and -- disappeared? No, that couldn't be right, he was clearly still there and it wasn't as though he'd vanished or anything, but... perhaps she'd imagined it.

"Hey, don't -- !" Arrun called out in warning. Nanaki growled loudly and took a threatening step towards him as he tried to get up, hackles raised.

Yuffie ignored him. Desperate times, stupid measures, she thought. She quickly dug through her pocket and fished out her cell phone, before dropping it to the ground and stomping on it as hard as she could, crushing it. Hopefully the hard drive would make it through, at least.

She crouched in front of Cloud and scooped up the remains of her phone as Arrun stared at her in bewilderment.

"Hey, shit-for-brains," she said, snapping her fingers in front of him to get his attention, her voice gentle. The tone was the important part, Cloud probably couldn't understand what she was saying anyway. He flinched and looked up at her, pausing midway through digging his fingers into his own arms. "Got a present for ya."

Yuffie dumped her smashed phone in front of him. Cloud stared at it for a moment, then hesitantly let go of his shoulder to reach for it. He began absently picking it apart into even more pieces with clumsy, childlike movements. His hands still shook, but the table had stopped rattling.

"...You know him," said Arrun.

"We should be asking you how you know him," replied Nanaki without missing a beat. Cloud was now disassembling her phone in earnest now, even the parts that hadn't been smashed. The lights stopped flickering. That was probably what was making her head hurt when she looked at Cloud. Already it was getting better.

"That's your management solution?" asked Arrun, ignoring his question. "Give him broken glass?"

"He's fine," said Yuffie, waving dismissively. "What's your deal? You're definitely Soldier, and you definitely know what's wrong with him, so don't think you can pull one over on me. You one of his guards or somethin'?"

"No!" snapped Arrun, sounding genuinely disgusted and outraged. He clammed up as Cloud flinched behind him, but he quickly returned to picking at tiny screws. "No, it's..." he sighed. "Let's start over. Who are you and what are you actually doing?"

"Lady Yuffie Kisaragi of the Golden Kingdom of Wutai," said Yuffie, "so don't try anything if you know what's good for you. I've fought off Soldiers way tougher than you and come out of it without a scratch." Technically true, though not singlehandedly, but he didn't need to know that. Even doing it with help was still one hell of an accomplishment.

"I'm not Soldier," said Arrun. "I'm not even military, I'm a fucking cosmologist. I -- you're Yuffie, then? Cloud's friend? The --" he frowned, his eyes unfocusing. "...The one that told him he couldn't keep using dish soap to wash his hair?"

Yuffie's mouth fell open in surprise. "What's it to you?"

"...My name's Zack Fair. I'm a doctor with the Gainsborough Extraplanar Research Team --" more words from a language she didn't recognise "-- and Cloud and I got melted together, like for real melted, because of Jenova or Reunion or something, and She's been messing with his head, and he's been getting worse and worse, and I think maybe he doesn't even exist anymore? And we have no idea where Aeris or Tifa are, or if they're even still alive, we got separated back in Reading – I think it was Reading anyway -- and last time I saw them they were being arrested and some dragon was blowing everything up and people were shooting everywhere, and even if he doesn't die from his brain shutting down Jenova's still absorbing him or something, and I don't know how to stop it, and we ran out of food ages ago, and I've been hauling him across the entire goddamn world for -- fuck, I don't even know anymore, weeks, and I kind of hoped I could maybe talk to the WRO or something, or get in contact with one of you guys, but I didn't know how, and maybe Lazard or Tseng or someone could've helped him or something but my whole team's dead and I think Jenova killed most of them and half a city imploded and Angeal's probably dead too and I think it's getting worse and we're stranded and I don't know how to get back to the compound anyway and I don't know how much longer Cloud's gonna last in the first place," blurted Arrun -- or rather, Zack, apparently. He now looked more haggard than she'd ever seen a person look ever, which was saying something given how often she hung out with Tifa.

"You two seem acquainted, then," said Nanaki obliquely, still watching Cloud as he lashed his tail from side to side. Cloud was working faster now, his movements more coordinated, his hands no longer trembling. He began arranging the components in front of himself in some inscrutable order.

"Your turn," said Zack. "Who's your friend that needs healing?"

"You're lookin' at him," said Yuffie. "I didn't actually know where he was, though. Nanaki thought he smelled him on you -- sorry, that's Nanaki," she added, gesturing at him.

Nanaki nodded politely. "A pleasure, certainly."

"...You too," said Zack faintly, still looking drained.

"Anyway, by the time we figured out it was just Jenova he was smelling, you'd already figured out we were stalking you. We were gonna try and give you the slip later on."

"...How does pickpocketing me fit into that?"

"Added bonus," said Yuffie with another shrug, still watching Cloud. He held two bits of broken circuit board, frowning at them, before uncertainly fitting them together and creating a spark at the tip of his thumb. Something seemed to clear in his gaze as he did. Yuffie gagged slightly at the smell of melting plastic. Cloud didn't seem to even notice.

"Anyway, turns out it was Cloud he was smelling on you after all," said Yuffie. "So, you're part of this whole Aeris mess. Just tell it to me straight -- what the hell happened? We lost track of Cloud months ago, after the WRO hauled him in."

She continued to watch Cloud work as Zack recounted his half of the story, and she recalled hers. His movements were practised and methodical, as though he'd done this a thousand times, soldering minute wires and melting glass together with a steady hand, reassembling the smaller components into bits recognisable as phone parts.

During a lull in the conversation, Yuffie realised he was actually staring back at her.

"...Was this a P340i or an SA6?" he asked quietly.

"No clue. It's from 5759, though," replied Yuffie, and she could practically see the gears in his head turning as he was forced to actually consider what year it was presently. He returned to work a moment later.

"So... I guess he's been like this for a while, huh?" asked Zack, watching him continue to reassemble the phone.

"Ever since I've known him, anyway. He's on and off," said Yuffie. "We've got a whole system to help deal with it. This is the worst I've seen him in a long time, though."

"That so," said Zack, the bags under his eyes more pronounced than ever.

"Yeah. But you're not doing too bad, I guess. For an amateur."

"Sure doesn't feel like it," said Zack. "When he was awake he mostly just shouted at me."

"Sounds like him," said Yuffie. "Don't take it too personal."

"I broke his nose."

"And I stabbed him in the leg, you ain't special." Cloud was staring at the phone he'd just reassembled, still frowning slightly. The paint was almost completely chipped off, and it was a little lumpy in places, but it was in one piece. It was probably even still usable.

Which was what she'd been banking on from the beginning, obviously. Hadn't doubted him for a second. Yuffie held out her hand for it expectantly. It no longer hurt to look at him, though he still looked off in a way she couldn't place.

He looked from the phone to her hand, then up at her face before handing it back. He slowly blinked.

"...Yuffie?"

"In the flesh," she said, as Nanaki dropped his head into Cloud's shoulder. Cloud dug his fingers into Nanaki's fur like a lifeline.

"I told Tifa," said Nanaki. "I told her you were too foolish to die."

"How did you...?"

"Tracked you down myself," said Yuffie casually. "...With some help," she added, as she caught a sour look thrown her way from both Nanaki and Zack.

"I'm --" Cloud paused, letting go of Nanaki and staring down at his hands. Then he closed his eyes, seemingly concentrating on something.

And then he actually did vanish. Next to her, Zack jumped to his feet again in alarm.

Cloud reappeared a moment later, looking badly shaken. "I thought -- I thought I could --"

"It's fine," said Zack quickly, seeming just as spooked. "Look, this is really, really good progress. You don't have to push it, it's fine."

"I just thought..."

"You mentioned earlier something about Reunion?"asked Nanaki, licking his nose nervously.

Cloud and Zack exchanged a glance.

"Cloud's --"

"I should tell them," said Cloud shortly. Zack nodded and fell silent.

"...Tell us what?" asked Nanaki. "What -- why can't you just...?"

"You know I love you, right?" said Cloud. He looked up at Yuffie. "You too. You're --"

"You're dying," said Yuffie flatly.

Cloud didn't reply. The air in the room suddenly felt thick.

"No," Zack said sharply, "he isn't. He -- we just need to get him help."

"Help with what?" asked Cloud. "I'm not even here anymore. It's only a matter of time --"

"No, it's not!" Zack turned to Yuffie, his face forced into a manic grin. "You have no idea how bad he was before you two showed up. But he's gotten better, right? So that means --"

"What do you mean, you're not here anymore?" said Yuffie. "You are. I'm looking at you."

"I'm not here," said Cloud. "It's -- it's like, how Sephiroth... his real body was at Gaea's Cliff, but he would manifest other places too." He took a deep breath. "...My body's -- gone now. Zack and I went through Reunion, and we sort of..."

He made some sort of motion with his fingers. It looked monumentally unpleasant.

"I was smelling you, then," said Nanaki. "At the market, when I smelled him."

Cloud nodded. "Probably."

"So -- so then make him spit it out," said Yuffie.

"I don't think we can," said Cloud. His jaw was set, and the words were stiff, as though he were forcing each one out individually after a great deal of thought. "And besides, it's not just... sooner or later, Zack will assimilate me, and I won't be able to be here anymore."

"But you Jenova guys -- can't you copy memories and stuff?"

"The memories aren't enough," said Zack. "It's kinda like Descartes, you know?"

Zack received three blank stares in response.

"Do -- do you guys not have Descartes?" said Zack. No one replied.

"Okay," said Zack, taking a deep breath. "Okay -- Descartes is this famous mathematician and philosopher on Earth. He came up with all kinds of ideas about -- about the nature of the self, and individuality, and what makes you you. His most famous idea was, 'I think, therefore I am'."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Yuffie.

"Exactly what you'd think it does," replied Zack. "He thought the only thing he had concrete proof of existing was himself, because he was aware, and thinking. If he didn't have his own free will, there'd be no proof he existed at all." He gestured towards Cloud. "And I guess that's kind of what Cloud's been doing all this time."

"It's what Sephiroth was doing, more or less," said Cloud. "But... it keeps getting harder." He rubbed his neck nervously. "...Not just the thinking part, either. It's -- it's hard."

"But that's a load of crap," said Yuffie. "Cloud's stopped thinking loads of times."

"He had a body then, right?" said Zack. "Before, that's all it was. Now it's like...he's here because he's here, yeah?"

"I'm not certain I agree with the philosophical principle either," said Nanaki. "It might apply here literally, of course, but in principle it seems to leave out a lot of factors about what the person doing the thinking --"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," said Yuffie. "Does he say anything about reversing it?"

"It was just a teaching aid," interjected Zack. "You weren't supposed to take it literally."

"Ahhhh, a teaching aid," said Yuffie, wiggling her fingers dramatically.

"He's good at it," objected Cloud. "And they help."

"Guys..."

"This 'Descartes', is he also working with you and Aeris?" asked Nanaki.

"No, um -- he, uh -- he's been dead for like three hundred years."

"That's a shame. I should have liked to meet him."

"Hey," said Cloud suddenly. "The others. Do they know I'm here?"

There was a pause. Yuffie grinned widely.

"Not yet they don't," she said, as Nanaki heaved another heavy sigh. She flipped open her cell phone and switched it on, watching it boot into the factory reset screen. "Nice job on the repairs," she said to Cloud, as she began configuring settings. She heard his breathing go a bit funny and ignored it. Weirdo.

"...So, Tifa isn't with you?" asked Nanaki. "Yuffie was certain that we'd find her if we found you."

Cloud shook his head. "We were kind of hoping she was with you. I guess we left her and Aeris back in Reading..."

"'Reading'?"

"Where Aeris lives," said Cloud. "It's beautiful there. There's flowers and grass and trees everywhere. She grows fruit in her yard."

"We do that at Cosmo Canyon," said Nanaki.

"It was beautiful there," he repeated. "There were flowers everywhere."

"Shh," hissed Yuffie. "I wanna savour this." She began dialing.

Barret picked up on the second ring.

"I want an apology," she said, the split second he inhaled to bite her head off, which actually made him pause in stunned silence at her audacity. "And I want you to tell everyone how smart and cool and sexy I am, and how I'm right and all of you were wrong. And I want you to buy me lunch at that one Mideelan cafe. Ooh! And I want two orders of that fried chickpea stuff. They never give you enough with just one. And one of those fancy lemon drinks." She looked at Nanaki. "You want anything? Barret's buying."

"The meat on the stick."

"Nanaki wants the beef koftas," she added.

"You got ten seconds 'fore I come over there and knock your damn teeth out, you lyin', backstabbin' --!"

Yuffie switched the call to speaker mode, holding it out to Cloud. "Say hi!"

"Can I have a kofta too?" asked Cloud. "I can pay him back for it."

"...Cloud?"

Cloud swallowed. "...Barret?"

"You're still alive?" His voice sounded strained suddenly.

"I'm sorry."

"You fucking should be!" came Barret's voice, now back at full volume. "Didn't even say goodbye! Tifa worrying herself half to death! Makin' everyone think you -- you'd --" He broke off, and they could still hear angry muttering as he'd apparently taken the speaker away from his face.

"I'm gettin' real sick of all these 'close calls' of yours, you hear me?"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I --"

"Knock that shit off," said Barret. "And stay on the line. Hey, Jessie! Get over here!"

"Where are you right now?" asked Zack.

"Who's that?"

"That's Zack," said Cloud. "He's Aeris's friend. We're in Edge."

"The hell you in Edge for? You tryin' to get caught?"

"Ahem," said Yuffie sweetly.

"I'll deal with you later," said Barret. "Your old man ain't happy with you."

Yuffie groaned. Barret pressed on.

"Where's Tifa, then?"

"...We don't know," said Cloud. "Does Reeve have mako for her yet? She wasn't doing so hot, last time I saw her."

"Cloud, Reeve's gone rogue," said Barret. "Just like --"

"You mean, 'You're welcome, Yuffie!'" she interjected.

"So you lucked out of not ruining the entire mission for everyone," said Barret. "This time. Doesn't change the fact that that daughter-stealing scumbag threw us all under the bus in favour of his cushy office job."

"No he hasn't," said Cloud, looking utterly unconcerned. "He knows what he's doing. I bet he's just working on something that --"

"Cloud," said Nanaki gently, "he left the search to work at the WRO under the current head."

"There's more," said Barret. "They've moved up the schedule on the government thing, in light of recent events. Everyone's clamouring to just install the WRO, since they're here already."

"He always said he was planning on running for public office," added Nanaki. "But the stigma surrounding his work on the Shinra Board of Directors would've kept him out of it. But if he turned in someone seemingly connected to Shinra, and more importantly Jenova --"

"You guys are overthinking it," said Cloud. "He's just doing his spy thing again."

"Speaking of," interrupted Barret. "You know he bugged your damn room, right?"

"...I'm sure there's a reason for it," said Cloud. "We know Reeve. He's our friend, and he wouldn't just sell us out for his job. I trust him. He's our friend."

"Cloud, for fuck's sake --!"

"That's Cloud?" A new voice on the line. Cloud's face broke into a grin.

"Jessie!"

"You're alive! Holy shit you're alive, holy shit...! Oh, man, wait until we tell Cid -- and we'll have to tell Shera, too, of course, since we had this whole thing --"

"Is he not there?"

"No, they're still back on the airship," said Jessie. "We've been looking all over for you!"

Cloud merely swallowed.

"Tifa, too, obviously, but -- gods, it's good to hear you're actually still alive. I thought for sure... Is Tifa okay?"

"I don't -- I don't know. It's already been weeks."

Cloud squeezed his eyes shut and began rocking himself. "It's been weeks, she still doesn't --"

"Look, I gotta cut the conversation off," said Yuffie. "You need to tell the others, and -- things are kind of messy here. Not a lot of time to explain. Cloud's... I dunno, it's a Jenova thing."

"What do you mean?"

"It's not your fault," she heard Zack muttering to him in the background. "Hey -- c'mon, look at me -- she's a tough lady, and Aeris will take care of her -- "

"I'll call you back," said Yuffie. "Be sure to spread around the good news! And also that I want an apology!"

She closed the phone and stuffed it in her pocket as Zack turned to her. "So -- you can help him, right? This is the most awake he's been in ages."

"...What?"

"Huh?"

"What do you mean, this is the 'most awake he's been'?" asked Yuffie.

Zack merely grimaced. Nanaki yelped as Cloud dug his fingers into his fur, harder this time.

"Perhaps lunch would help," said Nanaki.

Yuffie wound up cooking over a little paraffin stove that one of the kids produced. Nanaki was left to supervise Cloud, who had buried his face in the former's fur, occasionally muttering to himself.

Zack watched her like a hawk the entire time.

"Don't trust me?" she asked.

"Not that," said Zack. He paused. "Just never cooked on a little stove like this before. Never really been camping."

"You know, you're like... weirdly jacked for a scientist that never leaves the house."

Zack just rolled his eyes. "Hey, I didn't get on your ass about what you do with your spare time."

"You don't even know what I do with my spare --"

"Rubble catapult."

"...That's really creepy, you know?"

"Tell me about it," said Zack. "...Cloud thinks about you a lot."

Yuffie went bright red. "Gross! Ew! Ewgross!"

"No! I mean -- you guys seem to like each other, and it's really --"

"God, it was one time, and of course I knew he was gonna say no, it was just a joke, he said he wouldn't tell anyone, and I was like, sixteen, all sixteen year-olds are idiots, it doesn't count!"

"What..?"

"So, this philosopher guy, Deckard!" she said loudly, stirring faster. "I bet he's super interesting!"

"Descartes," said Zack. "Uh... I mean, he's mostly known for the 'I think, I am' thing. I don't know, I didn't -- most of the stuff I had to study him for wasn't really into the whole philosophy thing. I guess he popularised imaginary numbers. On accident, anyway. He wasn't really a fan."

"What numbers?"

"Come on, someone had to introduce the number i for you guys to get where you did, technologically speaking."

"Imaginary numbers," said Nanaki. "We have them, yes."

Yuffie blinked, then went back to cooking.

"How much school did you get through?" asked Zack, glancing back at Cloud momentarily.

"I had the best tutors the Kingdom of Wutai could offer," said Yuffie dismissively. "I just don't care about nerd shit."

"It's not nerd shit, it's basic math," said Zack. "It's the square root of negative one."

"Oh, right, that stuff. That makes no sense."

"It makes perfect sense. They're still numbers."

"It's a number that has the whole point of not even being a number. Negative one doesn't actually have a square root. They just had to throw something in there so mathematics as a field would still work."

"Well, sure," said Zack. "But something's there, or it wouldn't work, would it?"

"You can't just make up numbers."

"It's all made up," said Zack. "That's what makes it exist in the first place. It's a valid solution. You plug it into equations as an unknown quantity and do math around it. You multiply it by itself and get real numbers out of it. You can't count to it, sure, but it needs to exist because we're capable of recognising it. We might've made it up, but the number i is still real."

"Numbers are numbers. I can punch you in the face five times. I can't punch you in the face 'i' times. I agree with Declan. "

"Decartes," corrected Zack, as Yuffie turned off the stove and began spooning soup into cups. "Guy didn't like arbitrary hypotheticals anyway, from what I hear. The whole thing started because he had what we think was probably a temporal lobe seizure. Said some divine spirit showed up and revealed the whole thing to him -- about math, and who he was, and how he knew who he was..."

"Perhaps he was a Cetra," said Nanaki.

"They don't have those on Earth," said Zack."Don't make me explain the no souls thing, or we'll be here all day." He took a swig from the cup and raised an eyebrow. "This is good," he added. "You do a lot of camping?"

"A master ninja needs to be able to survive on her own in the wilderness," said Yuffie. "...It's Tifa's recipe, though...."

"That'd explain it, then," said Zack.

They ate in silence for the next few minutes. Cloud sat there, warming his hands on his cup until Nanaki managed to convince him to have a few bites. The first attempt he nearly spilled it all over the both of them, and no longer seemed to be paying attention to his surroundings at all.

"...Did he zone out again?" asked Yuffie.

"No, I'd know if he did," said Zack. There was a pause as he, too, stared off into space for a moment. "...He's okay," he said eventually. "He just -- can't see right now."

"He what?"

"It happens," said Zack. "He can still hear us, at least."

"What do you mean, 'it happens'?! Why doesn't he just tell us himself?"

"I mean," said Zack, "it happens. His brain is shutting down on top of everything else. I told you, why do you think he's like this?"

Silence resumed. Yuffie scooted a bit closer to Cloud and gave his hand a small squeeze, and it took him a moment too long to squeeze back.

"So, I was thinking Junon," she said eventually.

"...What about Junon?" said Zack.

"Well, since it turns out we were both after the same thing, there's really no reason to stay here, right? And this place is crawling with feds. So -- we're leaving, right?"

"We just got here," objected Zack. "I can't keep moving him around, and we're out of food. We've been living off the good graces of a bunch of homeless children."

"We don't have to make it the whole way," said Yuffie, rolling her eyes. "What do you think that phonecall was for, idiot? We make it out of the city, and Cid will pick us up in the airship."

"He really has nothing else to do but come after us; Yuffie certainly saw to that," said Nanaki.

"Yeah! Plus, you guys can do that Reunion thing, right? Can you tell where Tifa is now?"

"I don't know," said Zack. "I'm not great at this stuff yet..."

There was another eerie silence. Cloud frowned, then opened his mouth. He struggled for a few moments to get words out, as though he couldn't place what he wanted to say no matter how hard he tried, then went back to sitting still.

"Cloud says... he thinks she's still alive," said Zack, "but it's hard to tell. He says something doesn't feel right about her, and 'it's all getting closer'."

"Most likely because she's unwell," said Nanaki. Cloud made a noise of unease.

"He says he couldn't sense her before, but now he can," relayed Zack. "He says that's really weird. And he said..." Zack frowned. "We don't really use words to talk like this, so I don't know the right one. It's... hungry? Fuller?"

Cloud shifted uneasily.

"Well -- that's good news, right?" said Yuffie.

"Yeah, definitely. You'd think he'd be happier about it." Zack frowned. "Unless... do you sense Aeris, maybe? Do you think she got melted in there after all? ...Alright, just thought I'd ask."

"Help is coming," said Nanaki. "We have that at least. Everyone's been looking for you."

"You hear that?" said Zack, shaking Cloud slightly. "Your family's here. We made it."

Cloud nodded, hugging himself and digging his fingers sharply into his own arms, sucking in his breath in a sharp hiss as a bit of red trickled out from beneath his fingernails. He did not let go. It got easier to look at him again.

It was awful to see.

"Came back for me..." he mumbled to himself.

"I'm letting the kids know we're leaving," said Zack, as though this was a perfectly normal thing for someone to do. "Probably sick of us squatting here anyway. Did you know there's nukes down here?"

"'Nukes'?" asked Yuffie.

"I know, right?" said Zack with a short, frenzied laugh, now looking positively unhinged. "Just -- get him ready to leave. We made it. I did it..."

He left, still muttering "I did it" to himself.

Well, it was no wonder Cloud seemed to like him, at least.

Yuffie hurried forward and set about trying to pry Cloud's fingers out of his own arm.

"Leave it," he said sharply, causing her to recoil. "It helps. I'm here. It helps."

"You can find some other way to be here," said Yuffie. "We're leaving."

"We're going home?"

"We're going home," confirmed Nanaki, nosing at his leg.

 

---

 

There was a checkpoint at the edge of the city.

Getting in had been a simple enough matter of Yuffie flashing her ID, and even Nanaki had easily proved ties to Cosmo Canyon. It was fairly hard to lie about being Nanaki, regardless of what Nanaki thought about it.

Cloud, on the other hand, had no papers documenting his existence beyond lab reports, and Zack didn't even have that much. It was four years after Meteorfall: most people at the very least had some sort of temporary ID proving who they were.

"We could try and go back through the ruins instead," said Nanaki.

Zack shook his head. "That would take ages, and there's people stationed in there, too."

"I have diplomatic immunity," said Yuffie. "I can cover for most of you."

"They're looking for me," said Cloud.

"They're looking for a short blond guy with mako eyes," corrected Yuffie. Ignoring Cloud's murmured, "I'm not short", she continued: "All we need is some sunglasses or something. Did you ever get new ones?"

"Aeris has them, I think," said Zack. "All they'd have to do is ask you to take them off.” He set down his bag on the pavement. “How many bandages do we have left?”

“They can take bandages off, too,” said Cloud. “I can just cut them out –”

“Cloud, gross!”

“No. Not again,” added Zack. “I’m not healing them again.”

“They’ll grow back!”

“I don’t care. You just had eye surgery, so you’re wearing bandages. That’s our story. Who the hell checks under bandages?”

“What about Zack?” asked Nanaki. “He’s very obviously infected, and they can’t both have had eye surgery.”

“Well, obviously, you’re in Soldier,” said Yuffie.

“What?”

“You’re big and beefy and you’ve got the eyes,” said Yuffie. “They’ll buy it. It’s not illegal to have been in Soldier, just, y’know. Widely hated.”

“...Can we come up with some other idea?”

“No. Now get the bandages ready and follow my lead.”

There were four or five people manning the checkpoint. Only two were armed, that they could see.

"Lady Kisaragi," one of them said, nodding respectfully as she approached. "You're leaving?"

"Yeah, just came by to grab some people," she said, fishing out her own ID card. "You guys already called home about Nanaki, right?"

The guard in the booth nodded uneasily. Even if they had seen him around, Nanaki was still over 500 pounds of apex predator.

Zack approached the checkpoint, Cloud's hand hooked onto his belt to lead him.

"ID?"

"Zack Fair," said Zack. "I won't be in your system. Former Soldier First Class."

"Shinra never unsealed his records before the collapse," said Yuffie.

"Well, we're going to need something," said the guard. "I don't know if you've heard, but we're meant to be on the lookout for someone with Jenova contamination."

"Mine's stable, though," said Zack. "So it's fine, right?"

"I saw him in Wutai myself," said Yuffie. "He was there committing war crimes. It was very traumatic."

"Yeah, this is a plea bargain," Zack added. Credit where it was due, she supposed, he was pretty good at making it look like he didn't want to strangle her. Though the mako eyes and Cloud's sword obviously helped sell the whole thing.

"You're not gonna find him on the records," said Yuffie. "This is currently being handled by Wutaian officials, myself included."

"I don't know..." began the guard. Her attention turned to Cloud, and she frowned.

Maybe Nanaki was right and they should have used some shoe polish to dye his hair or something.

"ID?" she asked.

"He's with me," said Yuffie.

"That's perfectly fine, but he still needs to show ID. Why are his eyes hidden?"

"I had surgery," said Cloud. "They're all cut up."

"Good luck on your recovery. ID?"

"Here, look," said Yuffie. She shoved open the window a bit wider and leaned in through it.

"Ma'am -- ma'am, you can't do that," began the guard, as she began trying to shove her back out. Yuffie shoved back harder, her legs dangling out the other side of the window, and fumbled around inside. The other guards rushed over to grab her legs and began trying to pull her out. "Ma'am!"

She managed to snag a small notepad shaped like a rabbit and a pen (and one of the hard candies from a bag on the desk) before being hauled back out.

"Ma'am, if you do that again I'll have no choice but to have you detained," said the guard wearily. Yuffie ignored her and began scrawing a note onto it in the most flowery Wutaian script she knew. With any luck, they wouldn't be able to read it anyway.

By the power invested in me by the Golden Kingdom of Wutai, this is a legal document representing Cl

"As a representative of the sovereign nation of Wutai, I'm allowed to issue passports," she said, trying to think of a name.

Claud

A better name.

Claudothy

"Ma'am, please --"

Claudothy Shen. He can go where he wants.

"This is legally binding," she said, handing it over.

The guard stared at Cloud's "passport" at an utter loss for words.

"You gonna tell me you're an expert on Wutaian law?" challenged Yuffie.

"This can't..." The booth guard looked back at Cloud, who was surreptitiously rearranging the bandages around his eyes.

"Sir, I'm going to need you to remove those bandages long enough to see your face."

"Are those bedsheets?" Yuffie heard another guard say quietly.

"Hey, don't --!" said Yuffie, but they were already approaching him, and Cloud was lifting the corner of the bandage.

The guard closest quickly recoiled in thinly-veiled disgust and waved his companion away.

"Checks out," he said. "It's -- it's not good under there."

Yuffie shot a look of disbelief at Cloud. Cloud, who had bandages over his face, and apparently had just gouged out an eye when they weren't looking anyway, did not see.

"Great! So, is that all settled?" said Yuffie smiling sweetly.

"Yeah," said the guard in the booth shortly. "Fine. Sure. Have a wonderful day."

They were let through. Everyone seemed to have forgotten she pocketed the notepad in the chaos.

"...I told you," said Cloud shortly, as he began pulling off the now-bloodied bandages. "I told you they'd look."

"Shut up, Claudothy."

Zack mutely shrugged off the Fusion Swords and the harness and placed a hand over his maimed eye and began healing.

"Thought you said you weren't gonna do it again," said Cloud.

"...Just glad you're awake," he muttered."You seem -- better."

"...I guess I feel better," said Cloud.

"I really wish you hadn't," said Nanaki, anxiously lashing his tail from side to side, staring at the blood Cloud had wiped off onto his pants. "I really wish you hadn't. You and Tifa. Why are you two like this? Why are all of you like this?"

"Like what?" asked Yuffie.

Nanaki just trotted off ahead, ears flat against his skull.

It took less time than she remembered it did to start hitting greenery once they were out of the city. Not much -- just scraggly weeds and bushes -- but still more than she thought she'd be seeing this close. Perhaps she was just remembering incorrectly.

Nanaki hopped up onto an abandoned combat drone and tucked his paws up under him, still in a state of distress.

"And now we wait?" asked Zack.

Cloud sat down against the drone as well and began readjusting the straps of his sword harness.

Yuffie flipped open her phone and began texting Cid their location. "And now we wait," she confirmed.

Chapter 53: Aeris Takes A Selfie

Notes:

I misremembered what the Shera looked like and when I went to look up a reference it was just a stupid cock and balls with a swirly bellend so just pretend the Shera looks different, because I sure am. Do it for me.

So, here we are, at arguably the last breather chapter before things pop the fuck off nonstop. I have scenes coming up that I have been sitting on throughout the entire sixteen month hiatus, and some moments/exact sentences in those scenes that I've been sitting on for the better part of five years, and I am fucking vibrating through my goddamn chair right now at the realisation that this is actually fucking happening.

BUT FIRST MORE FANART!

Nayu once again having an impeccable eye for vibes and drawing some choice moments from chapter 52. I don't know how she keeps fucking nailing it like this but I hope she keeps at it. Honoured and flattered as usual.

Hahaha this story is too fucking long.

Thanks to DarthTofu and la_regina_scrive for making this chapter (and the next few) even remotely possible.

"Aeris..."

There were people being stabbed to death around her right now. It was loud. There were guns. The floor was growing wet and red.

All of those things sounded equally ridiculous in her head, but here she was.

"Aeris, I -- I'm sorry, I really am, but we have to go --"

"We can't leave him here," she felt herself mumble. Angeal Hewley's dead body was in front of her. That was another thing that sounded fake.

She reached around to his other side and tried to pick him up. He was too heavy.

"Can you help?" she asked, turning around for the first time to see Tifa.

"I -- Aeris, we have to go --"

There weren't guns anymore. The floor was still sticky.

"There will be more coming," she heard Sephiroth say.

"We can't leave him here. He just got out."

"If you perish before you have a chance to close the hole you made, all this effort was wasted," said Sephiroth coldly. "Move."

"Aeris, I'm really, really sorry, but we have to go now."

Tifa's hand closed around Aeris's shoulder. Somehow, she managed to convince her legs to start working again.

The sound of gunfire did not pick back up as they ran. The hallways made sense again, although the gaps in the walls and ceilings opened up to places in the facility she knew they shouldn't.

After another few moments, Sephiroth stopped dead and held up a closed fist to the rest of them. Tifa stopped immediately, so Aeris and Cissnei followed suit as well.

They were no longer moving, but the sound of footsteps continued, growing steadily louder. Sephiroth readied his sword.

The other set of footsteps stopped as well. A voice called out in French.

"They want to know if anyone else is there," she said. "They mean no harm."

Sephiroth did not un-ready his sword. Aeris stepped forward.

"Hello?"

"Anglais --"

From around another corner approached several more soldiers. These ones looked haggard and filthy, and had their guns slung over their backs. Several of them startled upon seeing Sephiroth, and then Tifa.

"...You can see us?" asked one of the men.

"Vous êtes tous déplacé," said Cissnei with a shrug.

Aeris didn't know nearly enough French to keep up with the rapidfire conversation now taking place. Even if she had, noises seemed to rattle around between her ears for several minutes before actually sinking in.

"More people that got caught up like I was," explained Cissnei. "They have been in here for days. Some of them have not come back."

"We are wasting time," said Sephiroth in Standard. "Leave them here. We have bigger concerns."

"We might need them," said Tifa. "Once we both leave, that still leaves Aeris stranded here, and she won't be 'one level removed' anymore. Cissnei could get out, but that still leaves Aeris. You said it yourself -- if she doesn't make it out of here with the waypoint, this was all for nothing." She turned to Cissnei. "Ask them if they'll help you and Aeris back to the car if you get them out."

I don't want their help, she thought, as she watched Cissnei translate. They killed Tseng.

It would be risky, they said. Riskier still if they were to try to use the heavily damaged equipment in the fifth ring. In the end, making the data work would be entirely on Aeris. There was a very real possibility she would be shot. No one else had any better ideas.

They began splitting supplies. Tifa insisted Aeris and Cissnei take most of them. She kept the gun as well, though she still didn't know how to comfortably hold it. The snack food would be enough to tide them over until they reached civilisation, and the soldiers had some leftover rations as well, largely scavenged from the facility itself at this point.

"What about the camera?" asked Tifa, holding it up.

"Give it to me for a moment," said Cissnei.

Aeris barely had time to react as Cissnei began taking photos of her, and then Tifa, and then the soldiers. Then she shut the camera off.

It took several minutes of swapping around memory cards between her SIM-less phone and the camera, copying files to both.

"They'll try to bury this whole thing," she explained, handing the camera to Aeris. Her own Polaroid sat useless at the bottom of her bag. "I wanted to have backups. Est-ce que quelqu'un d'autre a un appareil avec un slot SD?"

"I guess this is goodbye," came Tifa's voice suddenly.

Aeris nodded numbly. It would be fine. She had a job to do.

The tight hug Tifa gave her did nothing to distract from how thin and cold it felt, and how her hands were like ice.

"I'll miss you," said Aeris. "Maybe -- maybe one day I'll see you again. We'll set up another project, and..."

"Yeah," said Tifa. "Once I'm stabilised, you'll be able to say hi directly. I could show you around."

Aeris nodded. Tifa pulled away and nodded to Sephiroth.

He held out the Black Materia, and, looking as though she was about to be sick all over him, placed her hand on it as well.

The world grew unnaturally quiet. The air smelled of burning ozone.

Tifa began to slump forward, still struggling to keep her hand on the materia. Aeris rushed forward to catch her. It began to flicker with a black light -- which should have been impossible, that wasn't what light even was, what was she looking at right now -- and then flash. Tifa's breathing grew laboured again, and Sephiroth's jaw seemed to tense, the two of them reacting to stimuli the rest of them couldn't see.

A high pitched noise tore through the room, causing her to flinch. Tifa's eyes had rolled back in her skull, and she was gripping the Black Materia so hard her nailbeds had begun to bleed. The taste of metal permeated the room. The lights above their head popped one by one. Sephiroth did not react, and did not open his eyes. The glow emitted by the materia suddenly peaked, and arced around their heads in jagged motions.

Aeris? came a voice.

Aeris didn't have time to reply. The world around her vanished.

She was sinking somewhere deep, and no direction seemed to be up. Instead she drifted further and further away from the surface, wherever that might have been. Nothing was there to catch her this time, and there was no facility to pull her back.

"Cissnei?" she called out in alarm. "Tifa?!"

No one answered. There were hands around her in the dark, pulling her further in. The roar of the wind around her was growing louder.

If this was Jenova -- if it was wherever Zack had gone, wherever she'd been passing through on the way to Cloud -- then that meant there were still contact points on the other side. If the facility couldn't send her, she could send herself. She already knew what it felt like to pull herself through. If she could just...

"...Aeris?"

No one was there, but she heard him, she reached out, and one of the hands clasped back. Pink ribbon burst from the nicks and cuts around her skin and wrapped around the both of them.

As though it were the most natural thing in the world, she felt herself surround him. She blinked.

She was standing outside. The ruins of Midgar loomed large in the distance. There were multiple people staring at her, as well as Tifa and Sephiroth a few feet away. None of them were Cissnei.

But -- she wasn't supposed to -- she couldn't do magic, she wasn't participating in the spell, she hadn't...

Aside from the sound of radio static in the distance nobody made a sound. She opened her mouth to fish around for a word. Maybe "how".

Far too many things happened at once. Zack was squeezing all the air out of her lungs, in near hysterics. There was a loud snarling noise coming from somewhere to her left. She fought down the urge to throw up as a wave of vertigo hit her.

"I knew it," rambled Zack. There were deep bags under his eyes and a sunken look to his face. "I knew you weren't dead, you couldn't be dead, I fucking knew it --"

"Zack?!"

"-- I knew it --"

"You've both been here this entire time?"

"Yeah, I guess we got pulled through via some magic bullshit. But you guys -- I guess you weren't dead, which is great, I knew you weren't dead --"

"You look awful," said Aeris in disbelief.

Zack let out an unhinged laugh. "Hey, you should see the other guy." He grinned. Aeris wasn't sure if "completely off-kilter" was an improvement from "punchable".

"Are you okay?" asked Zack suddenly. He seemed to have registered the fact that she was still covered in fresh blood. "What --"

"Sorry," blurted out Yuffie in a panic, "but am I the only person that notices fucking Sephiroth is just standing here?!"

"No, you aren't," added Nanaki, his fur on end.

"We have a truce," said Tifa tersely.

Sephiroth made a disinterested noise.

"What the hell did you offer him?" asked Cloud. Behind Zack, Aeris could see Cloud hauling himself to his feet. Zack was right. He did look worse. "He's a murderer that never cared about anyone but himself."

"He gets off on it, I think," added Yuffie. "It's the Jenova, probably. They're all just like that."

"...Hey, thanks," came Tifa's voice. "Shall I go while you all get caught up?"

"Who are you?" asked Yuffie. The resentment in Tifa's face was abruptly replaced with shock.

"You -- I --"

"Wait... Tifa?" asked Cloud suddenly. "Is that you? You're alive?"

Tifa, her hair white, an extra eye already having grown below the left one, looked away. Cloud stumbled over to her anyway.

"I didn't recognise you."

Tifa blanched. "Oh."

"HEY! Sephiroth! Standing here!" barked Yuffie. "Guys, c'mon, focus up!"

"You're dead," said Cloud. "She's right. You're dead. The Planet destroyed you. How are you here?"

"I'm supposed to be here," said Sephiroth. He turned to Aeris. "You, on the other hand --"

Tifa turned to her as well, doing a clear double take. "...Aeris?"

Aeris stared down at the bloodstained paper in her hands and remained silent.

Cloud still had his hand on the hilt of his sword, exchanging an uneasy glance with Yuffie, who had already readied her shuriken.

"Aeris? Do you wanna explain?"

Tifa's words sloshed around the inside of her head for a bit while she tried to remember what they meant. By the time they registered, Tifa had already sighed and begun speaking.

"The Planet purged him from this universe, and someone on Earth went and fished him out of nowhere. Which was where he was, because he didn't exist. I think."

"...Like that incident with the White Materia?" asked Nanaki. Tifa frowned.

"I -- now that you mention it..."

"You're welcome, by the way," said Sephiroth, "for bringing her back."

"Yeah, and that's great and all, but now that you're here..." refrained Yuffie, tightening her grip on her weapon.

"Don't," said Aeris. Her mouth seemed to have started working again.

Cloud frowned. "Aeris, this man --"

"I know who he is," said Aeris. "We had an agreement --"

"He killed my mother. Tried to kill Tifa and me, too. What's stopping him from doing that again?"

Sephiroth spoke up, cutting across Aeris's reply.

"I am tired."

"...You're what?" asked Tifa.

"I am tired," said Sephiroth. "Of this Planet. Of humans. You continue to infest this world like a cancer, and now I am tasked with helping ensure the destruction of both of those is averted in order to prevent the collapse of existence itself. I spent the better part of yesterday regrowing my lungs and parts of my spine. I am tired."

He tossed aside the Black Materia. No one moved to pick it up.

"There," said Sephiroth. "I've fulfilled my end of the bargain. Once this ordeal is over, we will have no further business with one another."

Silence washed over the group.

"Of course," he continued, "now that Aeris is here, we may yet still all die."

"...How are you here?" asked Tifa, looking at her as well. "He said -- you didn't have a soul, so you couldn't..."

"I did not lie," repeated Sephiroth, sounding thoroughly annoyed at this point. "She should not be here. And now that she is, she cannot use that information your companions went to so much trouble to retrieve."

"'Companions'?" asked Zack. "The -- others?"

"Cissnei, and Angeal," began Tifa.

"They're alive?!"

"Angeal is dead," said Aeris softly.

Zack went quiet again.

"He died getting this." She held up the paper. It was still damp. "I don't... I don't know how to use it like this... there aren't any contact points left on the other side that can get us back."

Zack looked it over, frowning. "...Another waypoint? How long have you had this?"

"The day before you arrived in quarantine," said Aeris. "I threw it out, it truncated too abruptly to be usable.” She wiped a bit of blood away from her eyes. “We went through the trash. The military caught up to us. I don't -- I don't know if Cissnei got away...."

"You missed a lot," said Tifa softly. "I imagine we have as well."

"You did," said Yuffie. "Reeve's a traitor. There isn't..." she scratched her neck nervously, "there's still no mako. He went back to work for the WRO."

"We'll just have to find some somewhere else," said Nanaki quickly.

"He's just --" began Cloud.

"No. We're not doing this right now," said Yuffie, finally striding towards Sephiroth and picking up the Black Materia. "I'm smashing this," she told him, looking him dead in the eye. "It's gonna be a cool matching jewelry set."

"I no longer have any use for it, now that it has served its purpose in creating a link to this world. It is too inefficient to cast effectively, among other deficits."

"Whatever. I wanted you to know." She pocketed it, smirking slightly. "So. What's the plan?"

Zack wound up helping Aeris translate most of their theory about the time paradox involving Meteor, to make sure none of the more complicated concepts were lost to a language barrier. It was a little weird how quickly he'd become fluent in Standard. Cissnei had only been able to teach them so much.

Sephiroth had gone from smug and suspiciously knowledgeable to as out of his depth as the rest of them and completely disinterested in the discussion, aside from the fact that no one had any workable solutions, or any guesses as to how Aeris had been dragged through with them.

He, along with Cloud, Zack, and Tifa, seemed adamant that she still smelled completely human, with Tifa once again asserting that the opposite was true: she had some bizarre natural immunity to Jenova; but she'd still been dragged through when the world had thinned to the breaking point, hadn't she? She'd lacked a "soul" to pull her through to the other side, but then she'd managed to use Cloud as a waypoint -- as though the pattern they'd punched into the machine were second nature for her to feel her way through.

Now that she was here, though...

Cloud spent much of the discussion zoned out, presumably once again acting as the living dictionary Zack was referencing telepathically.

Nanaki nudged Cloud's leg.

"You should tell them," he said.

"...Tell us what?" said Aeris.

"I -- I don't..." mumbled Cloud.

"We have some time before the airship arrives," said Nanaki. "You should tell them privately."

Cloud managed a stiff nod. Aeris smiled at him. Her face felt strange; she wasn't entirely sure if she was doing it correctly.

"We should..." He stood, gesturing Aeris to come with him some distance away, on a fallen tree trunk.

"You too, Tifa," he added. "It's... it's important. You'd want to know. You said so yourself."

"I did?"

Aeris barely noticed when her feet started carrying her after Cloud. She was sure whatever he wound up saying wouldn't sound like real words, either.

 

---

 

Tifa was here. Aeris was okay.

It was what he'd asked for, he supposed. He'd imagined the part where they smiled at him. He never bothered to imagine the part where he had to tell them why he needed it. It would have gone badly either way.

Cloud had seen Tifa's face like that before, two years ago, sitting in front of the window watching bodies pile up in the rain. He hadn't been able to help her then, either.

"I missed you," said Cloud. He turned to Aeris. "You too."

Aeris frowned. "Did you?"

Cloud nodded earnestly. "I didn't think I'd get to see you again."

Aeris was still frowning. Cloud looked away nervously.

"I..." he swallowed thickly. "I'm sorry. I can't -- there isn't a good way to say this, and -- I'm sorry. You deserve to have it said better than this."

"...Say what?" asked Tifa. "I'm sure whatever you have to say will be fine." Beside her, Aeris offered him an encouraging smile, with her grey, blood splattered face. Tifa's breath continued to rattle in her lungs.

Cloud took a deep, shuddering breath. "You know how Zack and I went through Reunion?"

Aeris nodded uncomfortably. Tifa had gone stock still.

"We never... he won."

"What do you mean, he won?" asked Aeris.

"This body isn't real," said Cloud. "At least... it's only real as long as I'm able to push through from places that aren't real, into here. Right now that's easier than it used to be."

"Then..." Tifa said quietly, "...where's your real body?"

Cloud glanced at Zack, who was still standing some distance away with Yuffie and Nanaki pretending not to hear. Aeris looked faintly green.

"In the real world, I'm just a bunch of cells Zack absorbed, plus whatever's left of my soul. I think he took that too, I don't know. But... when you start moving further away -- you must have seen it; ideas start becoming less distinct. Things blur together, or break apart. There's still something left of me, I guess, so... I'm still a real person there. I just have to -- it's hard, but I can push through. It's just -- it's hard. It's only gotten easier because everything else is blurring together, too. Like -- like the soy sauce."

"Soy sauce?"

"Well -- you're here, aren't you?" said Tifa. "So... it'll get harder maybe, once we fix everything, but..."

"I'm still part of Zack here. And Mother." He swallowed again. "I've been trying to fight, I swear I have. It's just -- it's hard, and I can't... I'm all that's keeping me up now. Once Mother claims me again, I won't... I'll..."

He glanced at Tifa again. He imagined that even Aeris must be able to hear her struggling for breath by now. Her hands shook.

He was seized by a powerful urge to grab one of them and feel the warmth of her fingers. He fought it down with the image of her recoiling in disgust the moment he'd dare to try, after everything he'd just said. He looked away.

"Your friend, Reeve," said Aeris. "He's finding mako for Tifa, right?"

Cloud nodded emphatically. "Yeah. Everyone else thinks he went rogue again, but --"

"Again?" croaked Tifa.

"--but you just watch. He wouldn't sell us out like that. Any day now he'll be back. It's just hard to get ahold of."

"Well... if it'll help stabilise Tifa, then why not --"

"Mako doesn't work that way," said Cloud quietly. "Especially not for me. It would make things worse. And I'm already ruined with the stuff." He swallowed. "You -- you need a strong will, to make it through mako treatments. A-and I can't -- they took -- I don't have most of those parts of me anymore. But it was never very strong before in the first place, so it's..."

My fault, he thought. He didn't say it out loud. Not when they were already thinking it.

Tifa still hadn't said anything to him. Hadn't even looked at him once. Spat in his face for abandoning her when she was sick. Screamed at him for letting this happen. Anything.

"I'm sorry I don't have anything to leave you," he said. "You could sell Fenrir, if she's still there. And -- and that jacket Cid bought me, you could --"

He had nothing that anyone would care about. The clothes were already their clothes. It was her bar. It was Aeris's project, and he couldn't even teach her magic anymore.

"I'm glad I got to see you again," he said. "I -- I wanted to."

"You're awfully up front about all this," said Tifa in a monotone voice, as though she were commenting on the weather. She still hadn't looked up.

"The last time I was sick and I left," said Cloud, "it upset everyone. Is this... is this better?"

Tifa nodded. It didn't look very convincing. Cloud remembered something that Zack had shouted at him.

"Thank you for coming back for me," he added. "I didn't really -- thank you last time. I just said sorry. I want to say thank you, too."

"You shouldn't," said Tifa shortly.

"Why not?" said Cloud. He turned to Aeris. "Thank you for coming back for me."

"You shouldn't be thanking me either," said Aeris. "I had to, whether you wanted it or not."

Cloud said nothing. That was all he'd had to offer, anyway, and no one had wanted it.

Tifa's rasping deteriorated into a wet cough. The scent of blood filled the air.

"You should find Zack," said Cloud. "He's good at healing. I taught him."

Tifa wiped her hand off onto her pants and nodded. With the black material of the fabric, one couldn't even tell there was anything wrong just by looking.

She stood unsteadily and stared at him with an unreadable expression on her face. Her hands twitched. She chewed the inside of her lip.

She turned and left, then, presumably to go find Zack.

Aeris remained where she was, looking pensieve.

"You're good at healing too," said Cloud. "But I didn't know if it would work --"

"That's alright," said Aeris. "It's fine. Really."

"I'm glad you're okay," said Cloud.

"You too," said Aeris. "I mean --"

"I'm okay," said Cloud. "...Angeal. he was the older one, right?"

Aeris nodded.

"I'm sorry about your friend."

"It's alright. There's -- we can have a service for him later, once we've fixed everything. To be honest... I -- can you keep a secret?"

Cloud nodded.

"There are all these people -- good people I cared about, and they're dead, and... the only thing I can think about is how I'm never going to see my cat again." She gave a nervous, strained giggle. "Can you imagine? What kind of awful person -- there are people dying everywhere, and... maybe my feelings are just -- broken now. Or they've locked up, and I need to unplug them and plug them back in."

"It's okay," said Cloud. "I still..."

He remembered something else Zack had shouted at him, among many other things, and every single one of them had been correct.

He glanced around nervously. He could hear the others some distance away, preoccupied with other conversations. "Can you keep a secret?"

Aeris nodded as well.

"So are mine," he said. "I don't -- I've never loved anybody before. I don't think I can."

"That's not true," said Aeris immediately.

"It is," said Cloud. "I thought I loved Tifa, but I don't. I don't love you, or Barret -- I don't even know what love feels like." He smiled. "So, it's okay if you aren't -- feeling correct. I think maybe some people aren't... we just can't. And it's not fair for other people, but they keep talking to us anyway."

"That isn't true," said Aeris, undaunted. "I've felt firsthand --"

"You might not know what it is, either," said Cloud. "When you were inside me, I would've just... it was just fear. That's all it was. I never cared about you."

Cloud didn't quite catch the next thing Aeris said, but the next thing he said was, "Ow," because she had slapped him across the face.

"You're an idiot," said Aeris, her eyes welling up with tears. "And a liar."

"But -- you said --"

"What the hell are you playing at?!"

"You're like me," said Cloud. "And -- and it's okay if we're too --"

She was crying harder now. This wasn't how it was supposed to go at all. She was supposed to be happy she wasn't the only one leeching off the people around her, that she couldn't even manage to care about properly.

He didn't know what else to do, and his thoughts seem to take longer and longer to chug their way from one end of his brain to the other. He put his arms around her. She began to cry even harder.

This was all wrong. She hadn't shoved him off yet, but nothing was helping.

If he were a real person like Tifa was, maybe the hug would've actually meant something. Maybe Aeris knew that, and that was why it wasn't doing anything.

"You shouldn't be sitting here," sobbed Aeris. "I ruined your life! Why are you hugging me if you were still afraid of me this entire time?"

"I don't know," said Cloud. "I -- I don't know what else to do."

"I violated you."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not!"

"I've had worse," said Cloud. "And -- you're very kind. And maybe it doesn't mean anything, coming from me, but -- I thought, for a while, I appreciated it."

She kept crying. That was another way they were the same, he noted. They might not have figured out emotions, but they'd figured out crying. He wished she would stop doing it, if she wasn't even properly sad, but even for something like this it was hard to stop, and it was even more shameful knowing it was undeserved but one couldn't shut it off no matter how hard one tried. He let her keep going instead.

"...I wish you were still there," said Cloud. "In me, I mean."

"No, you don't!"

"I liked having you there."

Aeris huffed in disbelief in between the tears. "Tifa didn't."

"Tifa likes you now," said Cloud.

"She knows," said Aeris. "She knows we're not doing this right."

"If it kept happening," said Cloud, "if you kept visiting, I mean, I would have been okay with it."

"It isn't right," said Aeris. "Maybe there's something wrong with us, but we're still people. We deserve our own lives."

"You do," said Cloud.

Aeris just shook her head and sighed. She'd stopped crying, mostly.

"So -- I said it at least. I miss my stupid cat. She's all I had for years. And everyone else that's died is just chopped liver, I suppose."

Aeris did not say anything else. Cloud remained silent as well.

She finally stood up with a tired huff. "Pathetic," she mumbled.

"I'm sorry."

"Not you. Me." She rubbed her temples, dragging the blood on her face across her skin.

"Why you?"

"I don't know what to say to you."

It took Cloud longer than he would have liked to respond. He wasn't sure which parts of what she'd said were in English or Standard. It was as difficult to parse either way.

"You've said lots of things to me."

"I shouldn't have," said Aeris. Looking at her felt strange.

"It's weird that you have a face," Cloud said absently.

"What?"

Cloud blinked hard to clear his head. It didn't help, and his vision stayed dark when he opened his eyes again.

"Cloud? Are you feeling alright?"

Just a voice in the dark, like he remembered. "That's better."

"Cloud?"

"I felt the things you felt," said Cloud, "and it felt like... like how I feel, when it's me. So... maybe -- you were born without a soul, and I had most of mine removed. So maybe this is just what we act like, if we're like this."

"I really don't think that's the answer," said Aeris, her tone disapproving.

"No," said Cloud confidently. "I remember what it felt like. And it was just like whenever I'm sad -- oh. But you're here now, aren't you? Like you wanted."

"I didn't want this," she said.

"You did," said Cloud. "When we first met properly, and you helped me. You wanted to meet my family, even though we all hated you."

"You remember that?" She didn't sound happy about it.

"Yeah. I think you'd have wanted to meet them, even if you never met me. I bet they wouldn't have hated you then."

"...Let's go wait for the airship with the others," said Aeris uncomfortably.

Someone grabbed his hand, and that meant someone was holding his hand and that was all he needed to pay attention to and someone was holding his hand and he was moving and he couldn't think right anymore but that didn't matter because someone had decided to touch him and they were holding his hand.

There were more voices he recognised. He couldn't understand what they were saying. He heard-felt someone waving their hand in front of his face.

Cloud? Are you okay?

Tifa. Good. She was here. Everything would be okay.

Cloud, the airship is gonna be here soon, and I don't... I feel kind of funny. Is it okay if I leave you with Aeris for a while so I can lie down?

He nodded. You don't need to ask me to do things.

Tifa did not reply. His hand kept being held.

The world moved around him, slowly, and steadily, to the rhythm of the music.

Let me in. Let me in. Let me in. Let me in. Let me in. Let me in.

His body washed in and out of the world in time with the music as well. He was swept out, and the world would sharpen, and he would be filled with clarity of purpose, and Mother's song, and fear at what was happening to him. Then he would wash back in, and the fog would claim him, and he couldn't think hard enough to remember why he was supposed to be afraid.

The roar of the airship drowned out the static momentarily. There were more loud noises, being made by hot wet scurrying things. Someone must have told them everything was dark now, and he didn't know their words the right way, because they all took turns pressing their hands into his body as well along with Mother's. He managed another smile.

They all smelled like home.

Let me out.

 

---

 

The Shera arrived in a deafening drone of propellers and engines. Airships, apparently, did not truly "land" so much as they hovered low enough to the ground to allow boarding. As Nanaki could not properly climb a ladder, and Cloud was too out of sorts to, a platform for loading and unloading cargo was dropped down instead.

She'd gotten a glimpse of it as Tifa, of course, but Aeris hadn't really had much time to take in her surroundings. There was something about the brightly polished pipes and the industrial plate-metal interior furnished with homemade banners and the yellow light of the halogen bulbs that was strangely comforting.

"Put 'er together with what I could salvage from the Highwind," Cid told her on the way in. "Ain't much call for a battleship these days, though, so I had to refit her to haul supplies."

Any other day she'd have spent hours looking around the place, but as soon as the tour had hit the bathrooms, she became acutely aware of how stiff her clothes had become.

The fresh clothes were Tifa's, and didn't fit, and were devoid of cat hair or traces of potting soil. Her hands were clean. The paper was still stained red.

She exited the bathroom. No one stopped her from wandering around.

An "airship" in this universe seemed to be a high-powered dirigible, as near as she could tell; but in the place where there would normally be a balloon, there was just more ship: more engines, more cargo, more living quarters. The whole thing was shaped somewhat like a whale, with the back half largely taken up by thrusters and what she could only assume was the engine. She hadn't the faintest idea how it actually stayed in the air.

Someone could live on this thing for weeks at a time, and Aeris realised maybe people did. Cloud had vaguely mentioned doing that, but she hadn't really been able to picture what that would even look like.

No one had necessarily wanted Sephiroth on board, least of all Sephiroth. In the end he snuck off to the engine room without making eye contact with anyone. It was probably for the best.

On the underside of the airship near the back, there was a deck with rails you could go to get fresh air. Cloud didn't seem to care which way he was led, so she let herself outside and sat them both down against the wall to listen to the wind roar around them.

Ahead of her, Zack was leaning out over the railing.

"Sorry, I can go," began Aeris. Zack startled and turned around before she had a chance to finish. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.

"Didn't realise you were here," he said. "I can go --"

"I was going to --"

"Are you sure? I thought you'd want me to leave but --"

"No," said Aeris, "no, it's fine, I just thought you were..."

"If you're fine with it," he said. He left the railing and sat down next to her. "...Cloud doing okay?"

"I don't know," said Aeris. "He hasn't really said anything in a while."

Another pause. "He's... out of it. Won't talk to me either. Just impressions and feelings. Still better than he was doing, I guess."

"How bad was he?"

Zack said nothing for a moment.

"I'm glad there are people he wants to stay awake for," he said eventually.

She nodded.

"What are you doing up here, anyway?"

"Just wanted to think. First moment to myself I've had in a while." He smiled wryly. "Never gonna be completely alone in my head anymore, though, yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

Zack huffed. "Nothing to be sorry about. Not like you could've known." He frowned slightly, sizing her up. "...Though, it's pretty weird you've been through that place four times now and you still haven't... y'know."

"I think I'm immune," said Aeris. "Tifa bit me at one point. I didn't get infected."

Zack burst out laughing. It kept going for entirely too long.

"...What's so funny?"

"Nothing," said Zack, still grinning. "Truly nothing. This is completely fucked up."

He sighed, the empty smile still playing about his lips.

"It figures, though, right?" he said. "If you had gone, you'd have met Cloud normally and none of this would've happened. You'd have gotten to see this world like you'd always dreamed, and you'd have met all the people here, and I'd have... this serves me right... when you think about it."

"You'd have what?"

Zack grimaced.

"You would have what?" probed Aeris.

"I don't know. A lot of stuff. I'd go back to my family, having actually accomplished something for once." He turned to look at her. "I'm never gonna see them again, am I? Not if you're here."

Aeris didn't move.

"You can say it," said Zack. "We're both thinking it. There are no more waypoints, the facility's toast, the technology to build a machine to send us back isn't here and maybe never will be, given how little we know about how different the laws of physics are here. It's... it's all gone now."

"...I'm sorry," whispered Aeris. She didn't bother asking how Zack heard her over the sound of the propellers.

"You don't know how fucking sick I am of that word," said Zack matter-of-factly. Aeris didn't know how to respond to that. "It isn't your fault. It's mine."

"I got pulled through," said Aeris. "I'm the reason you can't go back."

"You can't go back because I'm not over there," said Zack. "And I'm not over there because Cloud was halfway into the space between before the Planet started dragging us back over, and I got dragged back over because I set off Reunion with Cloud in the first place."

Cloud remained completely indifferent to his surroundings. Aeris reached over and shut his eyes so they wouldn't dry out.

"It's all gone now," said Zack. "I've ruined this for the both of us. That life -- my parents, my brother, everything we worked for, everything you tried to do for us, it's all..."

"...You're the one that should be upset with me," said Aeris. "You have a family."

"They won't miss me," said Zack. "I wasn't exactly on good terms with my brother before I left, and I was supposed to... I don't know. I guess we'll never know."

"They will," said Aeris. "And I -- I took that from you. And I'm sorry. I am."

"Aeris..."

"You lost more than I have," said Aeris. "You didn't deserve this. I did. At least with me... my family is gone. Nobody will ever come looking for me." She laughed. "So, I didn't even lose anything I hadn't lost weeks ago anyway. So -- it's fine. No one will even know I'm gone."

Zack sat there for a moment staring at her. Then he did something peculiar she never thought he'd have done in a million years, and pulled her into a hug.

It was quiet and warm and cautious, and it didn't suit the grinning camera magnet she'd first met in the second ring at all. By the time he pulled apart, she realised she couldn't even imagine him as that man in the first place, when it so clearly looked nothing like him.

"I..." Zack rubbed his neck nervously.

Aeris stared at him.

"...Thank you for thinking my family would miss me," he said eventually.

She nodded. Neither one of them moved from the spot.

"It really is beautiful here," said Aeris.

Zack nodded. "It is."

As though compelled, Aeris reached into her bag and pulled out her Polaroid camera.

"Should've taken more pictures when I had the chance," she said softly. "Say 'cheese'."

It was hard to angle the camera so all three of them were in the shot and still press the button with the wind as fast as it was. She only barely managed to catch the resulting photo in time to keep it from blowing away.

The man in the photo, with the strained smile and haunted eyes, looked nothing like the Zack she had known, and the man slumped to the other side of her didn't look at all like Cloud.

She wondered, faintly, if anyone else still recognised her as Aeris.

Chapter 54: "lol" said the scorpion, "lmao"

Notes:

EVERYBODY GETS ONE AND I'M CASHING MINE IN

ART

first unlocal man awed by poor pavement maintenance in soho, more at 7 thank you DarthTofu it's perfect

also a tifa, courtesy of Denebola_Leo. she's fiiiiine

bonus meme from billie this one is also canon how are y'all so good at this

EDIT: SHIT PISS FUCK I FORGOT ONE SORRY TOFU.this is admittedly from the workshopping stage and does not strictly happen in the actual chapter but i love it anyway

thank you tofu and la-regina-scrive for the extremely last minute day-of beta

Anyway THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS MULTIPLE GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE, GORE, AND BODY HORROR kthx

The medbay alternately felt too hot and too cold. Tifa knew from experience it actually was one of those, but her head was too muddy to accurately remember which one it was.

A small, clammy hand grabbed onto her shoulder and shook it slightly.

"Tifa?"

Tifa groaned and forced herself to roll over to face Marlene, who shrank away slightly as she saw her face.

"O-oh..."

"Hey, sweetie," she slurred. "Not feeling too great right now, okay?" She frowned. "...What are you doing on the airship?"

"Papa said Corel's not safe anymore, so I'm gonna stay with him until it is." Marlene was leaning in closely again, this time to examine the eye she'd grown curiously. "Does it hurt?"

"...That part doesn't, no. Honey, I'm really not feeling good. We can talk later, okay?"

"But I haven't seen you in forever! They wouldn't even let me help look for you. Where were you the whole time?"

Tifa took a deep, rattling breath. "A lot of places. Another planet, for a little while."

"In space?"

"...Sort of," said Tifa. She wished she'd asked when she'd had the chance, but it had seemed so trivial in the face of everything else. She'd wanted to ask more about the tiny, matchbook-size computers. She'd wanted to ask Aeris what she'd expected from their world, before meeting her and Cloud.

When Zack had been trying in vain to heal her, she'd wanted to ask about Cloud's number, now printed onto his wrist as well as though they had always been there. She'd wanted to ask about the fact that Cloud now had his own wrist bandaged again nonstop.

"What do you mean, sort of?"

"Marlene, honey, please --"

The world lurched sideways.

Marlene screamed as she was thrown to the side, and Tifa was unceremoniously tipped out of bed and onto something hard.

Tifa forced herself to sit up with a groan, and found she and Marlene were both sprawled out on the wall, which she slowly began to float away from as she realised the airship was in freefall. She reached out and grabbed Marlene, holding her close, as the contents of the room were tossed about.

She was forced to twist around midair to avoid landing on Marlene a moment later as the ship righted itself and the two of them dropped back to the floor, her bed now lying mattress-side down.

Tifa groaned and forced herself to sit up, then looked out the window to see how far they had fallen. A wall of ocean water greated her.

"...Tifa?"

"Let's go find Papa, okay?" she replied forcing a smile.

She immediately forced her way to Sephiroth's mind. What the hell did you do?!

Why would you assume this is my fault?

Everything is your fault.

I am sitting next to your engine. If I wanted the ship destroyed, I would not waste my time with other methods.

Tifa did not bother to reply. Cid would be able to explain what he'd done.

As it turned out, Cid did not need to explain. The view from the bridge clearly showed the Junon Sea, now oriented to one side, the sky to the other on the right.

"We're gonna have to call in to air traffic," said Cid. "We're still fifty-three klicks out from Junon, and I don't know what's gonna happen to my ship if we land it sideways. If we even can land it sideways."

"In the meantime?"

"Just... hold 'er steady. But be ready in case we flip back again," said Cid. He pulled up the ship's intercom and sighed heavily. "Folks, this is your captain speaking. We hit a pocket of turbulence, on account of the world being all fucked up, which has delayed our landing. In the meantime, if you look to your left, you'll be able to see the Junon Sea. If you know how to get it to stop doin' that, you can come find me on the bridge. Highwind out."

He switched off the intercom and lit himself a cigarette. "...Hey Tifa."

Barret frowned disapprovingly as Marlene latched onto his leg. "Ain't you supposed to be sleepin'?"

Tifa gestured vaguely at the ocean. "What's the plan?"

"The plan is for you to go lie down," began Barret.

"Wait around for another half hour or so," said Cid. "If it's still like this by then, we'll go ahead and land. Better the fuck not be, though. That asshole have anything to do with this?"

"He's in the engine room," said Tifa. "He said if he were going to crash it, he'd just blow that up instead."

"Because he's an asshole!" said Marlene.

"Language!" barked Barret, shooting a glare at Cid.

"Wait 'til she finds out how bad you are."

"So -- we just wait?" asked Tifa. "That's it?"

"Just for a little while," said Barret. "It'll be okay."

Tifa nodded. It would have to be.

Everything hurt. Everything hurt, but in the meantime, there were still people that needed her.

 

---

 

Cloud felt himself drifting again. The list of anchors he could find grew shorter each time.

The memories he hid in weren't his, but they were nice all the same. Flowers, and sun, and the smell of fresh laundry during a storm.

Foreign thoughts drowned out his own. He felt tears on his face. Aeris probably hated him. His family was gone, and Cloud would be, too --

...That was him, wasn't it? Wasn't he here, listening to these things? Thinking them?

His family wasn't gone, it was here. It was...

He couldn't remember their faces anymore, and even his mind's eye had gone dark. The space around him, crowded on all sides by the sound of laughing and celebration and hollow laughter, was completely dark and empty.

Until it wasn't.

It came through Mother, and at first he reached out eagerly to it. Mother wouldn't leave him alone --

"She would if She were able," came a voice suddenly. "She would never choose to be part of you."

He flinched away. He knew that voice. It was a bad voice.

He backed away slowly. His family was close by. They wouldn't let him.

"Why are you here?"

"You are the one that sought to reach more deeply into Mother. If I could sever you from Her, believe you me, I would."

"I'm not afraid of you," said Cloud quietly.

Because he wasn't, really. Not anymore. He had other things to be afraid of now.

"So you aren't," agreed Sephiroth disinterestedly. He did not have to lie. He could not hide his thoughts from Sephiroth here any more than he could hide them from anyone else. "This is what's left of you, is it?"

"I joined the Reunion," said Cloud. "It felt good."

"Did it now?"

Cloud nodded. "You were right. It's -- good. To be part of Her. It's like... you weren't really alive before then, and what you called being alive was -- was small, and it hurt." He scratched his neck. "But... if I'm part of Mother, then I won't see the rest of my family anymore. Do you think I'll get to see my family when I'm part of Zack?"

“No. You would not even have such false desires, insomuch as you supposedly ever had them in the first place.”

"I thought so. I don't know what to do."

“...Unsurprising. This is why braindead puppets are not suited to having opinions.”

He blinked again, and found himself seeing through Zack's eyes once more. He was talking with Aeris now, concerned about something. Did she know Sephiroth was there? Did Tifa? Did Zack?

If they wanted to, they could reach inside of Cloud and look. Unlike Mother, they were fully capable of leaving.

But then, perhaps Mother was, too. She certainly didn't seem to have much interest in Zack or Tifa.

"...I don't think you really care about Mother," said Cloud.

"I would not expect you to understand --"

"I don't think you know how to care about people," said Cloud. "I don't think it would matter to you if Mother did love you."

"Oh?" Sephiroth raised an eyebrow, clearly amused in spite of himself.

"You were never grateful for how much Hojo loved you."

Sephiroth stared at him, looking thunderstruck. Of all the things he'd been expecting Cloud to say, that apparently hadn't been on the list.

"He -- he loved you more than me," said Cloud, "and he shouldn't have. I was the one that was good for him. I didn't try to escape. I let him cut me apart. I didn't scream. I let him do punishments. I let him give me a number. You don't even have a number." He swallowed. "...I was the one who was good for him, but he still loved you more. And you don't even care. So why would it matter to you if Mother cared about you, anyway?"

"Grateful," repeated Sephiroth in disbelief. "You think I should be grateful? For him?"

"Yes."

"Mother's greatest gift to me -- to both of us, though you were too frail in mind and body alike to receive or appreciate it -- was freedom from sharing the same genetic sludge as people like him. What, in your mind, would I be grateful for?"

"It isn't sludge," said Cloud. "He -- I saw how much he loved you --"

"And what of you? He treated you like a dog, and you were content to beg him like one."

"He was mad at me," said Cloud. "I was bad. He was mad at me for killing you. Lucrecia, too."

"Of course he was," said Sephiroth. "I was the only worthwhile accomplishment in their entire meaningless lives."

"...They made me."

"Case in point."

"Hojo was proud of me," said Cloud. "I know he was. I worked hard for him, and he --"

He was so sure. He was sure Hojo loved him, but if he was wrong -- if he said it out loud, and he was wrong...

"...Lucrecia never cared about me the way Hojo did," said Cloud. "She doesn't even know what I look like. She still loved you." He paused. "...Did you have any half-sisters?"

"...What?"

"Never mind," mumbled Cloud. "Just... guess it was me, then. But -- even if she didn't care about me, Hojo gave me a number. I had to work for my number, and he -- he just loved you, anyway. Even though you never gave to him what I did. You didn't even care about him, and he still loved you. That's not... that isn't fair."

"We both very well know what that man was like," replied Sephiroth, still looking thoroughly unconcerned. "And though he didn't dare take a blade to his magnum opus, he was still monumentally underwhelming as a father."

"He was good," said Cloud, scowling at him. "He was good, and you just didn't care. He gave me a number. He -- he would have given you one too, if you asked. He loved you. But... you didn't ask, did you?"

“I would never have asked him for anything. He was the one desperate for my approval, as you are desperate for his, and I never deigned to do so.”

"...Well -- did you ever find anyone else, then?"

"Is that really all you have to live for?" asked Sephiroth. "Pathetic, that this is all you've done with the gifts you've been given; you know nothing of having to claw your way to glory --"

"Not for numbers," corrected Cloud. Words were hard to make happen when Mother was so intent on drowning them out. He tried again anyway. "I meant -- did you have anyone else to talk to?"

There was a long pause. “What are you playing at, exactly?”

"I tried asking you before," said Cloud. "Lots of times. Remember?"

"No."

"Well... did you?" His surroundings swam briefly. "...I guess you didn't," he said, "or you wouldn't have done the things you did."

Sephiroth actually let out a cold peal of laughter. It felt sharp against his skin. "You truly believe that? That I was lonesome, and did this for company?"

"No, not for company. But... yeah, because you were lonely." Sephiroth continued to stare at him through the fog. Far away in the real world, the voices continued. He still couldn't really understand them. "I'm sorry. I know what it's like."

Sephiroth still looked utterly uninterested. "You could not possibly comprehend what it is like. You were a stunted mistake that should have been put down long ago. I am a god that had the misfortune of believing myself beholden to idiots."

"No," said Cloud again, more certain this time. "I know what it's like. Not just being alone in a cell for a while, and only Mother is there to listen to, but -- when you just throw yourself into the project -- into killing, into what they've made you, because it's all you have, and you don't even know what something else would look like. You don't know where you'd go if you left, what your life would look like... and it isn't fair, because you didn't get to pick the life you have now, but... you can at least be good at it. You can at least learn to be good." He smiled. "I know what it's like."

Sephiroth said nothing. Cloud didn't have a name for the expression on his face.

"...I hope, wherever you go to after this," said Cloud, "things are better for you there. I don't... I don't want you as part of my family, because you -- you stabbed Tifa, and you killed my --"

Pain. Mother seared through him.

No -- this was important, it was an important word --

"...my mother," he concluded, tremors slowly subsiding in the aftermath, "and Tifa's father, and a lot of other people, too. And I know you're not sorry. But -- even though you did that -- you're right. You're right that Hojo -- he was bad, too. And I hope you find someone else that isn't him." He turned back to Sephiroth. "If -- if someone will have me, even, then they'd have you, too."

Sephiroth was quiet. He vanished from his mind a moment later.

Cloud was shocked awake on the observation deck by the overwhelming presence that washed over him. It was unmistakable and foreign and cut him from the music, the way a shadow was made more distinct in a floodlight, and it occupied all of his senses, blotting out all thought, leaving him shaken in its absence. He'd only experienced it once before, four years ago.

It was rage.

 

---

 

Zack barely had time to recover from the massive migraine that hit him seemingly out of nowhere to realise Cloud's eyes had snapped open, and he had jumped to his feet.

"Oh -- you're awake!" said Aeris, smiling. Her cheeks were red from the cold. "We've arrived, technically. They're just trying to find somewhere safe to land. Gave us a bit of a scare a while back, but from there we can taxi --"

"What the hell was that?" said Zack hoarsely.

"I fucked up," blurted Cloud. "I think I said something wrong, and it --"

There was a loud clang coming from somewhere distant in the airship, then another.

"Oh," said Cloud. "He's coming up here, isn't he?"

Zack's world disappeared into fire and noise as the door was blasted off its hinges. He had a split second to look over and see Sephiroth burying a blade in Cloud's stomach before he realised he was falling, along with the wreckage of the gondola they'd been standing on, and a screaming Aeris already plummeting past him.

He fumbled in the air, managing to catch himself on a broken pipe now jutting from the wreckage of the ship, which juddered with the blast. Time seemed to slow for him as he saw Aeris’ bag, containing Sephiroth's data, fly through the air, and without thinking he reached out for it. It stopped and hovered there along with a few bits of wreckage that had been nearby. The ship gradually stabilised, leaving Zack hanging there, holding an object in midair that he was terrified he'd drop if he tried to will it closer to himself.

Aren't I supposed to be able to fly or something? he thought numbly, as he realised he was going to fall to his death over -- who even knew what. This high up and oriented the way they were, it was too hard to tell which he was positioned over. He tried to pull himself closer to the doorway, now perhaps fifteen feet above him, and the metal he was hanging onto creaked and groaned and sagged a bit further.

"Give me your hand!"

Zack looked up and saw Tifa and Barret, leaning out through the doorway.

"Get the bag!" he shouted. "I-I don't know how to move it!"

Barret lay down and began carefully edging himself out over the doorway towards Zack. Tifa raised her hands, and a sudden massive gale bludgeoned all three of them and sent both the bag and several bits of debris hurtling in through the doorway. Zack's grip on the pipe slipped a bit further.

"Watch it!" snapped Barret.

"Sorry! I'm sorry, I wasn't --"

"And make me a hammer!" he added. Tifa nodded and closed her eyes, and Barret turned his attention back to Zack. "This gon' feel a little weird, alright?"

"What's gonna feel --" Zack began to ask, before Barret placed a hand on the wrecked hull of the airship and a green light travelled through it and sunk into Zack.

It felt as though he were being electrocuted without the accompanying pain, but it was still vastly unpleasant. Without even meaning to, he let go of the pipe.

He barely even had time to realise how badly he had screwed up before something slammed into him from below -- he barely even had time to look and see what it was beyond "some rocks maybe" -- and he too was flying back upwards to the ship, where Tifa was ready and waiting to catch him.

It took the two of them to haul Zack in without them being dragged over with him. The unpleasant tingling sensation had vanished, and the blow somehow hadn't even hurt, but his legs still felt like jelly the minute he set foot inside the airship.

"You felt that too, right?" asked Tifa. "I should've known --"

"Cloud and Aeris," blurted Zack, "they were here with me, I -- I couldn't catch them in time --"

Tifa immediately jumped to her feet again and ran for the doorway.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" shouted Barret.

"I -- I have to go after them," she stammered.

"Cloud knows how to handle these falls! You don't!"

"Sephiroth --"

"We need to tell the pilot," said Zack, "we've gotta -- you're not gonna catch up to them just by jumping. Acceleration is constant, it's not like you can just 'fall faster' --"

Something appeared to register for Tifa. She leapt from the doorway without another word.

"...Tifa?"

"I don't know what the hell she got outta that," said Barret, "but this is your fault."

"I -- you said Cloud can handle falls, right?"

"Sure," said Barret, "if that asshole doesn't kill them both first."

Zack let out a shaky sigh of relief. Cloud would be fine, then, and he could catch Tifa like he'd caught Aeris. That was good. Then -- they said they they had a while to go to get to Junon, and even falling at terminal velocity that was still maybe ten minutes, time enough to grab Tifa, so everything was fine --

And as the air began to smell of burning ozone, Zack was treated to his first view of what an actual, full scale fight to the death between two Soldier Firsts looked like.

 

---

 

The world hadn't once yet had a chance to right itself since Cloud had caught Aeris as the two of them hurtled over the waves in a bizarre parody of flight, pieces of wreckage still raining around them. He'd barely had a chance to touch down on the ice shelf he'd created before Sephiroth had lunged again.

The tip of his sword whistled through the air like a whip as Cloud raised a hand to counter it. A shimmering barrier appeared midair, and Cloud barely managed to bring up his own sword to block before Sephiroth's second blow smashed through it, sending them flying again.

This time Cloud created another barrier midair and kicked off it, springing past him the other way.

"I can't fight while I'm holding you," said Cloud. "And I can't find Zack anywhere, I didn't see him fall past us --"

"So then put me down," said Aeris, "or -- or to the side, or whichever, I can tread --"

Cloud barely managed to alight on another sheet of ice before Sephiroth came hurtling towards them again, and again it was all Cloud could do to block and run.

"This is Junon in the winter, the shock would kill you in seconds if the chemicals didn't get you in the long run," said Cloud. "Just gotta reach the city."

Far below in the distance across the waves and a dense wall of forest, Aeris could see a massive wall of metal and light, the city built right into the side of the cliff.

The ice they were standing on lurched, and spikes of it began to jut out from under the sheet they were standing on, shattering it into pieces. Cloud dug his sword into one of them as it jutted from the sea, his other hand latched onto Aeris's. Sephiroth was descending at them from above, his sword reflected in the ice.

Cloud kicked out, swung back, and then flung her into the air as he let go himself.

She tumbled end over end, screaming, and then suddenly the wind was knocked out of her as a blur crashed into her and latched onto her middle.

"I'm so sorry I'm late, I had to get all the way down from the medbay, and then I had to get Zack, and it took me a second to figure out the gravity thing -- you're really not supposed to use it like this, but --"

"Tifa?"

"I'll explain later --"

Sephiroth came flying at the two of them, sword drawn, and Tifa gestured to the side with her free hand. Sephiroth immediately hurtled sideways and plunged into the waves. Cloud grit his teeth and thrust two fingers into the sea as he fell past it, throwing up a massive spray of water in his wake from how fast he was moving.

Aeris heard the lightning he channeled into it tear through the water. She did not see Sephiroth come back up to the surface.

Cloud held his hand near the waves as he fell and repositioned himself to plant his feet firmly on the sheet of ice he'd created below himself. He reached for Tifa with his free hand, and she allowed him to pull them both onto the ice he was now creating in his wake as the waves tumbled around him and they continued to fall.

"Why are you here?!" he shouted.

"You're welcome --" began Tifa.

"Whatever. Fine. We need to get Aeris out of here."

"Can you do the thing you did with her house?"

"I -- I don't know, what if she just hits the ground?"

"Why can't I just wait to land with you?" asked Aeris.

"What, and get killed in the crossfire?" said Tifa. Aeris stared at her.

"But -- but you just killed him, I thought... I mean, you know magic, and -- "

Cloud did not look away from the waves he was navigating, but he grimaced at her comment. "Aeris, everyone here can do magic. What do you think makes someone qualified to kill with it?"

The water above them began to rumble, and Cloud only barely managed to kick off the water and back into freefall in time to avoid the swell of gravity that was now amassing an enormous tidal wave now covering them in its shadow that would have dwarfed the Shera several times over. At the front of it was Sephiroth, arms spread, floating in midair.

"Oh," was all Aeris had time to say. The wave rushed towards them with a deafening roar. She flinched and braced herself for the impact.

It never came. The water flowed harmlessly around her, encasing her in a shimmering veil.

She turned around to see how Cloud was managing something like this, and found Sephiroth there instead.

"You, unfortunately, are still necessary," was all he said.

She whirled around frantically, trying to spot the others. She could faintly see Tifa, frantically struggling to fight her way to the surface to draw breath.

Cloud, on the other hand, who along with Sephiroth apparently had decided breathing and gravity were both optional, was now angrily barrelling towards the both of them. He raised a couple fingers and gestured in a circle, and the bubble peeled away in a glittering veil of razor sharp shards of ice. The change rippled throughout the entire tidal wave, and then Cloud, along with millions of ice shards, came hurtling towards the both of them.

Sephiroth was forced to retreat, erecting some sort of magical barrier in front of him. Cloud reached out to Aeris as he passed and missed, once again leaving her plummeting on her own, until her other hand was grabbed by Tifa, now shivering badly. A healing spell, which now felt warm in comparison to the windchill around them, washed over them both. She'd become quite badly windburned.

Cloud streaked past them once more, now tossed aside in a fine mist of blood, skipping across the surface off the waves to somewhere far below them, limp as a ragdoll. Tifa was forced to let go of her again as she barely managed to bring up the metal plates on her gloves in time to block.

It was an entirely one-sided affair. The two of them were in freefall, and Sephiroth not only had significantly more range than Tifa in the form of a sword taller than he was, but could fly and therefore press in as aggressively as he liked, leaving Tifa completely unable to back up in response.

It only took one bad block to leave her spinning head over heels as she fell, and Sephiroth promptly slid his blade in through her back.

The entire world seemed to slow down as he withdrew the sword from her body and flung her away as well. He converged towards Aeris, apparently completely indifferent to the fact that he'd stabbed the woman that had healed him a few days prior.

Something slammed into him so hard Aeris could have sworn an eardrum burst from the sound alone. Cloud had worked his way back up to her, kicking off the same magic barriers he'd created before, sword wreathed in iridescent blue light, his face drawn, looking more awake than she'd seen him in -- perhaps ever.

And apparently he wasn't done yet. He raised a spare hand, grasping for something that wasn't there as he fell -- until threads of golden light began to materialise in his grip, threading between his fingers, twisting themselves into concentric rings that trailed after them. These ones were far more complex than the ones she'd seen in Reading, and quite a bit larger.

Cloud didn't look like he was about to start seizing this time, but given what the last one had done... She managed to twist herself around in midair, and only barely managed to get ahold of Tifa's arm in time to pull her to safety as the world erupted into light around her.

There was another dragon, though the word "dragon" here seemed about as accurate as calling the K-T extinction event "weather". This one was wreathed in silver, sporting six pairs of wings, and though she was nowhere near its mouth, she could feel the heat it was generating from several feet away. For a moment, it simply floated there, a ball of light between its teeth.

"Brace!" Cloud barked at Aeris, which was apparently the only warning she was getting.

The light that poured out in the form of a beam that lanced across the ocean, boiling it in its wake, momentarily blinded her. She saw the way billions of gallons of water were vaporised, a wide gouge cut into the seabed in places, and absently noted the thing Cloud had said about how the Jenova Project had rendered fission bombs obsolete. The sky was painted the muddy purple of the inner city, and one by one the stars winked back into existence as the light faded.

Even through the protective wall of water Tifa had pulled in front of them in the nick of time, Aeris felt the skin on her face and arms sunburn.

The air was full of heated ocean vapour, and Tifa seemed to grab hold of the wind, guiding it in around her before sending it spiralling through the masses of clouds they'd created. The first clap of thunder signalled the massive storm they'd apparently created, which spanned the ocean as far as she could see, consuming everything that the light from Cloud's now-dissolving summon hadn't.

They were still falling, now soaring over the coastline, and towards a dense forest.

Aeris swallowed and looked at Tifa. She seemed exhausted and in pain, slowly healing her stab wound away. Tifa looked back up at her and signalled to the trees.

It's just Tifa, she reminded herself. It's still just Tifa. She turned to Cloud, wondering if he'd gone and had a seizure after all.

He was fine. He was breathing heavily, but he was fine.

Aeris almost wished he wasn't, actually.

Cloud was grinning.

 

---

 

Cloud's muscles still ached from shock, his heart was pounding so hard he could feel it in his face, and the last time Sephiroth had slammed into him had potentially torn some sort of ligament that complained every time he moved.

It felt incredible.

Every flash of pain reminded him he was alive, his entire world had narrowed down to keeping it that way in a show of clarity of purpose he seldom got to experience. He had a target, he had a weapon, and he excelled at handling both. It was gratifying in a way he wasn't sure anyone else besides him had ever experienced.

Plus, there was Tifa. There wasn't even any need to discuss each attack between them; they had done this a thousand times by now, practised it a thousand more, and by now they had become very, very good at it.

Forget gratifying -- this was natural, this was right. This was second nature and felt incredible, to know so intimately what was expected of him, to know what to expect of her, for every movement to be made in lockstep with someone else.

He perched gently on a tree, and looked back up, willing Aeris and Tifa to stop in midair so they could disembark.

It felt easier than it ever had before, to use Mother's gifts. He wasn't even sure how he'd ever had trouble with it.

And then there was Aeris.

She was now very badly windburned (not to mention what the light from his summon had done), which Tifa easily took care of with another healing spell. But she was staring at Cloud, eyes wide, motionless.

"Told you I was good," he said. Aeris managed a small nod.

Cloud frowned. She'd asked to see this earlier. "I want to see the most magic thing you can do", she'd said that. What the hell was her problem?

"We need to get you down," said Tifa firmly. "Hold still." She clamped a hand on Aeris's shoulder.

"How did you get here?" asked Cloud.

"I fell faster," said Tifa, smiling slightly. "Normally you use gravity to throw or immobilise other things, but..."

Aeris suddenly shivered as Tifa's spell hit her.

"...what about using it on yourself?" She nodded to Aeris. "Try jumping."

Aeris swallowed and gave a small hop. It took her a bit further than it should have, and she slowly floated back down to the tree trunk, looking perturbed. She looked nervously off the side of the tree, watching the raindrops from the storm they'd created fall all the way through the forest and trickle off the tree trunks.

"...Feel a little nauseous..." she said.

"Sorry, I've never actually done this before," said Tifa. "I'm guessing that'll hold for long enough to reach the ground. Just let yourself fall."

Tifa was so smart. Tifa was so smart and kind and good at using magic and Cloud was good at using magic with her and she trusted him to catch her and fight with her and this was good and right and if only they could do this all the time --

"What about you?" asked Aeris. "I thought... is it safe, for you to be doing this?"

"...She's right," said Cloud. "I thought you went to the medbay."

Tifa smiled again. This one looked wrong on her face. "I'll be okay. Just gotta --"

Cloud did not get to hear the rest of what Tifa said, as something rammed into him, smashing the tree they'd been standing on to bits.

Sephiroth's hand closed around his neck. Until this point he’d remained more or less untouched, but now his teeth were bared in a snarl accentuated by the visibly still regenerating skin that was missing from his face, the edges burned and melted.

They crashed through several more trees before Sephiroth grabbed his head and forced it into the ground, grinding it against the forest floor as they fell at high speeds, shearing at his face.

Cloud closed his eyes and allowed himself to slip through the ground entirely, phasing into solid earth. He leapt back out, spear-tackling Sephiroth around the stomach. His jaw was raw and bleeding, and his ear was torn and ragged, and he couldn't hear out of it anymore.

Fix it later, he told himself. You've had worse.

The tree that they finally collided with had been turned to stone by Tifa, and Sephiroth cushioned Cloud’s impact with a sickening crack. Then there was a loud crunching noise as Sephiroth put his hand into the stone and wrenched the tree from the ground, swatting them both away. He barely managed to block in time with his sword, and both it and him went flying, the sword tumbling away deeper into the forest.

He gracefully arced himself over a branch in midair, easy as breathing, and leapt from another one, flipping through the branches after his sword. Sephiroth pursued him relentlessly, trying to press his advantage, but if there was one thing Cloud had learned to do long before he had even been enhanced, it was using his size and speed to his advantage, moving through the foliage without disturbing so much as a leaf he didn’t intend to. He effortlessly wove through both the trees below him, and the ones that had started raining down on top of him as Sephiroth simply opted to destroy wide swaths of the forest in order to clear a path. He was picking up speed, too, and Cloud only barely managed to grasp the hilt of his sword in time, a triumphant grin splitting his face as he whirled around ready to meet the opposing sword.

Aeris was there behind him instead. He froze mid-swing, halting the blade a mere inch from her head.

"I-I --"

Aeris smirked at him cruelly and swung her -- Sephiroth's sword at his neck. He was thrown to the bark of the tree they were standing on, barely managing a sloppy, haphazard block. Sephiroth had shed the form he'd adopted, his blade locked with the fusion swords.

Cloud bared his own teeth, pushing back against Sephiroth enough to sit up, and then was thrown back against the tree as Sephiroth’s fingers jutted forward into long, narrow spears, piercing his flesh. It was all the opening he needed to raise Masamune and strike another blow, and this time there was no way he could deflect it properly.

The tree he’d been lying on split apart as the sword cleaved through both it and Cloud’s leg.

That’s mine, he thought bemusedly, as he fell with it, the oozing stump of his calf spraying the leaves as he plummeted past them. I need that.

He tumbled through the canopy, and the number of trees he hit on the way down kept him from noticing the pain in his leg as he briefly passed out from shock.

He woke up a few moments later, lying in the trees. It was peaceful, almost. The world started to dim around the edges, but far above him, there was a gentle light.

 

---

 

Tifa set off her Flare spell with a roar.

The light burned through the trees after Sephiroth, incinerating a number of them. It had the desired effect, which was that Sephiroth could no longer continue to dismember Cloud, with the unfortunate drawback that she was now stuck fighting Sephiroth one-on-one again on the trunk of a particularly large tree.

That was fine. She only had to buy a little time. Cloud would get back up. It was a fight. They were good at that. It was blessedly uncomplicated.

She clapped her hands together onto the blade of the sword, grabbing it tightly, and swung herself around to kick him in the chest. If she was going to fight him, she was going to do it properly.

It was easier to block now that she had something to stand on, but every time the blade made contact with the metal plates on her gloves she could feel the impact ringing through her bones. One or two times she was sure she heard them fracture, and that was on top of the fact that she was rotting from the inside out. If she concentrated, she could even feel it happening.

How close was Aeris to the ground? Had she already been killed in the crossfire before being able to make it? Or had the spell worn off early, and she'd already plunged to her death?

Her gloves began to fill with blood, and bit by bit she found herself forced back to the end of the tree trunk they were standing on.

She took another step back, and for a second the bottom dropped out of her stomach as her foot fell through air. Sephiroth levelled his blade at her once more, now that she had nowhere left to run.

Then her boot, along with the point of Sephiroth's sword, landed against sturdy metal from the flat blade of Vendetta that Cloud had just thrown into the tree. Tifa ducked out of the way as Cloud leapt up from below, swinging himself around the handle of his sword and forcing Sephiroth to twist out of the way of his kick at the end of it, wrenching it from the tree as he did and alighting gently on the bark next to her in a crouch.

He was covered in his own blood and battered beyond belief, and the nonplussed look on his face didn't indicate he was anything worse than "somewhat winded".

"I gave you an out," he said to Sephiroth, not taking his eyes off him as he disconnected Merciless from the main assembly and tossed it to Tifa.

Sephiroth replied by lunging for Cloud, who braced himself against the blow with both swords. Tifa stepped in, forcing Sephiroth back, and Cloud followed up behind her.

Tifa barely had to think about what came next, as she, Sephiroth, and Cloud wove in and out of one another's blades without even a moment's rest. Cloud would block, and she would move in to strike; Sephiroth would thread his sword past their defenses, and another blade would be tossed from one of them to another in time to meet it, an intricate dance of swords and limbs and blood, and one that she'd danced with Cloud a thousand times over.

For the first time in forever, with her lungs screaming for mercy, with her organs writhing inside her, with imminent death flashing silver in front of her, she felt herself relax.

 

---

 

Someone's going to die, Zack kept thinking to himself as he stumbled onto the bridge. I'm going to see someone else die today. Someone's going to die.

"She jumped," he repeated to himself, for about the fiftieth time. "Why did she jump?"

"Damn fool girl never did have no sense," grumbled Barret. "First the train, now this --"

"Can't this thing go any faster?" griped Yuffie.

"How fast do you need it to go?!" said Cid. "We took a major hit. I don't know what kind of damage we're working with."

"Well, how fast can we get there?" she pressed.

“We'll be at Junon in five, and from there we'll still have to taxi out from wherever we land."

"They've probably hit the ground by now," said Jessie. "Or – the wall, or whatever. Oh god, they've already died, haven't they --"

"You ain't helping, Jess," shot Cid. "The ship moves faster than terminal velocity, and they've got a long way to go."

"That's not the part I'm worried about," said Nanaki, gesturing out the window with a nod.

On the horizon, a human figure as large as a house with three faces, six arms, and a massive weapon in each hand appeared in a bloom of molten rock.

"Looks like he's got himself a summon or two," commented Cid, flicking the ash off the end of his cigarette, as Zack frantically scrambled away from the window in shock.

"You mean he stole a summon or two," grumbled Yuffie. "Swiped that from Wutai during the conquest, I'll bet."

"All the more reason to steer clear until we can land," said Barret. "If we were all on the ground together it'd be a sure thing, but ain't none of us can make it through that drop."

Zack peered out the window more closely. What probably would have appeared as a faraway indistinct streak of blue light to everyone else was Cloud, having been thrown at high speed by Tifa towards the summon, smashing its way through the bow it held in a blaze of light before it swatted him like a bug.

"...I could," said Zack. "Just -- drop me off nearby, I can make the jump."

"You said you were a cosmologist, correct?" said Nanaki.

"Yeah, but -- Cloud's been training me a little, I can't just sit here and watch --"

"So you want to go against Sephiroth with a few weeks of basic combat lessons?"

"I mean..."

Don't think about it, remember it. The knowledge is already yours.

"...Yeah," said Zack, as the realisation dawned on him, "I do. I do want to do that."

"You have a plan?" asked Cid with a frown.

"Kinda," said Zack. "Just -- drop me off nearby."

In truth, he didn't actually have a plan at all, but he didn't really need to.

Cloud already had one for him.

 

---

 

The bouncy castle legs were back, which was fun.

High above Aeris, her friends (well, two friends, one acquaintance) were trying to stab each other to death, which was less fun.

Below her was a sea of trees that she was slowly drifting through like a fallen petal. Behind them was the wall of concrete and light that was the city, Junon. She could look directly ahead of her and see the night sky, flecked with stars. It was almost peaceful, at least until she heard another crash, or saw the flash of another spell go off. The air reeked of burning trees and ozone alike.

All light was suddenly blotted out -- a burst of darkness, radiating the same way a flashbulb on a camera might go off, which should have been physically impossible -- and when it cleared the trees behind her began to rumble as they were dislodged and thrown into the air.

She began frantically kicking off the trees as hard as she could, trying to accelerate, since it wasn't as though she could just "fall faster". Already in the city below her, she could see emergency lights flickering where particularly large branches had already fallen and lodged themselves into buildings.

When her feet finally did touch the ground, she felt the nausea of being almost weightless retake her again, before bolting as fast as she could to the side.

"OUT OF THE WAY!" she shouted to anyone who would listen. "GET OUT OF THE WAY!" She realised a moment later she was shouting at them in English, but the tone of her voice and the way she was pointing at the forest above them seemed to have gotten the message across regardless. Even if the trees smashed apart before making it this far, there was something far worse coming down the pipe.

 

---

 

Tifa shrieked in pain as she fumbled a block and Asura severed a few fingers and crushed another. The sound was almost completely drowned out by Cloud setting off Ultima in the summon's face.

He himself was beginning to feel the blood loss, not to mention the onset headache from spell fatigue. Sephiroth had finished growing back the portions of his face he'd lost, and compared to the two of them was still effectively unsullied. Junon was now visible, far below them.

Tifa leapt at Sephiroth through the dissolving remains of his summon, hurricane-force winds collecting around her arms like a whip. She sliced them through the air towards him, but he'd already moved, and she was battered to the side by the ground erupting around her as rocks burst from the forest floor. They streamed towards Sephiroth, twisting around his blade along with a stream of fire, glowing dull orange, and then blinding white.

Cloud barely managed to tackle Tifa out of the way as Sephiroth swung his blade, sending waves of liquid stone lancing towards them, setting nearby trees ablaze with their mere presence. Entire footholds had to be abandoned as even dodging the stuff had them catching fire, globs of it raining down on the forest below.

And then there were no more footholds. The trees were beginning to thin out into grassland.

Cloud hit the release on the fusion swords, and they began to fall towards Junon as well -- until Tifa caught one, hurtling towards Sephiroth with a scream. He weaved around her, but Cloud's silhouette appeared, created from blue light, and caught her foot, allowing her to kick back off towards him, this time throwing the sword she'd caught to Cloud before Sephiroth had a chance to register what was going on.

Another afterimage appeared, and another, the two of them weaving around Sephiroth, and this time there was nowhere for him to dodge, Junon now seconds away.

Tifa flung the other five blades towards Sephiroth with another gravity well as Cloud fell with Vigilante towards Sephiroth. He put all of his strength into the swing, the tip of his sword creating a loud crack as it passed the sound barrier.

Sephiroth closed his eyes and simply phased through it.

Behind him was Aeris.

He'd put too much momentum into his swing which kept carrying him forward, and the swords were already falling around her, and she was close enough to see the sheer terror on her face --

-- as Zack stepped into place and neatly caught Vendetta, the impact of metal against metal as he blocked making his teeth buzz in his skull. The windows of the building he was standing on shattered from the pressure created by the blow.

Cloud barely had time to trip backwards and catch Tifa as Zack readied his blade again and intercepted Sephiroth.

"So, what did I miss?"

 

---

 

As the hilt settled into his hand, Zack suddenly felt a sense of calm wash over him. This was easy. This was his sole competency, and second nature, and as simple and natural to him as breathing. He stepped in alongside Tifa, and his body knew what to do, and it was with that knowledge that he brought the sword down upon Sephiroth, ducked around another slash, and hit him so hard he put a dent in the ground when he landed.

"Magic's not the only thing I can remember from you," said Zack. He stepped into place behind Cloud, borrowed sword at the ready.

It was Cloud's memories of doing this for hours upon hours that coursed through his nerves, pulling at his muscles in ways he could have sworn he'd felt a thousand times. Tifa snatched up one of the fallen swords as well to parry with and readied herself. Avalanche was a couple minutes away, at most.

"...Three against one," Sephiroth suddenly said with a grimace, "is cheating."

Zack opened his mouth to ask what kind of complaint that was supposed to be as Cloud nodded and smiled.

All that came out instead was a pained, wet groan, and the metallic taste of his own blood on his tongue. Cloud had turned around and unceremoniously grabbed him by the throat before stabbing him in the chest.

The sword fell from his slack fingertips. It was pain like he'd never known it before, and he remembered all too clearly that he had never really fought a day in his life.

As it turned out as well, being enhanced with mako didn't make this sort of thing hurt any less. Cloud really had just been tanking those injuries. When he wrenched the blade from Zack's body, he actually did scream properly.

Tifa only barely managed to catch Cloud's hand in time to keep him from plunging the blade back into Zack's throat this time. Zack couldn't move for pain, and it was all he could do to not pass out right then and there, and Sephiroth was advancing on all three of them, a cruel smirk plastered all over his face.

"Cloud -- Cloud, come on, breathe with me --" Tifa said frantically. Cloud ignored her, and continued trying to force the blade into Zack's throat with a blank expression, his eyes a burning, poisonous green.

"He can hear you already," said Sephiroth. "He just doesn't care."

"Let him go," she panted.

"It wouldn't matter if I did," said Sephiroth. "He wants whatever he's told to want. You know that as well as I."

"Cloud, please, I know you're still in there --"

"There was never anything in there in the first place, save for what you told him to be." He levelled his sword at her neck. "That's what drew you to him, was it not?"

"Cloud, please wake up, please --"

"Was it simply because you enjoyed having that much power over someone? Or because you knew no one else would ever want you? Your desperate appeals for approval that you disguise as generosity, fooling no one, not even yourself."

"Shut up!"

"And then there's him, the only puppet that will stay and beg you for your mistreatment because it's all he knows. It must have been incredibly liberating."

The point of the blade slid closer to Zack's throat and bit into it. He felt his blood trickle down the side of his neck.

"And you fools had the gall to tell me I was a part of this charade? That I should dive further into it, of my own volition?" The smirk, somehow, widened even further. "Remember, Tifa, if you think for even an instant what you have carries any meaning: When it had no one left to turn to, it begged me for acceptance, knowing full well what would happen should I grant it."

"Shut up!"

The blade was pressed against Zack's throat so closely he scarcely dared breathe, and the breaths he did manage to get in were agonising and sticky. Tears were pouring down Tifa's own face, and she seemed oblivious to the sword against her own throat. It didn't even seem necessary.

"We are cut from the same cloth, you and I. The only difference between us, Tifa, is that rather than lower myself to the pathetic pantomime the rest of you have put on, I am willing to admit that it was never anything more than an empty puppet before I started using it."

"Tifa," pleaded Zack, his voice barely more than a rasp. Her hands were shaking. Cloud did not even seem tired. Sephiroth, seemingly having fulfilled whatever purpose he’d started this conversation with, raised his sword to strike her head off.

“What in the bloody fucking hell do you think you’re doing?!”

Zack’s vision was fading in and out of focus with the amount of blood he was losing, but there was no mistaking Aeris’s voice. She was standing behind them with the gun pointed at Sephiroth’s head, and she looked as terrified as she did absolutely furious.

Sephiroth, on the other hand, had returned to cold amusement.

“Cleaning up loose ends," said Sephiroth.

"You -- you can't -- we had an agreement --"

"I had an agreement with you, as you are the only one actually required to reverse this -- which in truth is sickening in its own right. You're just as purposeless as the rest of them. You have no right to even speak to me." He turned away from Tifa, who was still desperately trying to keep Cloud from slitting Zack's throat, and began to advance on Aeris, completely unintimidated by the gun. "You, who dared to ask for my respect after forcing your disgusting human mind into Mother's; who is just as empty and broken as that wretched creature back there; who dared to think yourself equal to me -- whose approval did you possibly hope to gain?"

Aeris's hands shook as he drew closer and closer, but the anger in her eyes did not subside, even as Sephiroth loomed over her.

"You don't even know, do you?" he asked. The smirk had long since vanished, and his voice was like sharpened ice.

Aeris lunged and pistol-whipped him in the face with the gun.

It perhaps hadn't even occurred to Sephiroth to bother dodging, and he stood there for a moment, trying to process what had just happened.

"Why didn't you shoot him?!" groaned Zack in desperation.

"I-I couldn't figure out how to get the safety off!" She raised the gun to strike him again, undeterred, but Sephiroth caught her arm. A dull crack followed shortly afterwards. Aeris let out a bloodcurdling scream, drowning out the sound of a blade clattering to the ground along with her gun. Sephiroth did not let go of her arm.

"Disappointing," was all he said.

There was an awful crunching noise as Sephiroth suddenly lurched forwards, freeing Aeris. He fell forward onto Tifa's bloody hand, which had been forced clean through his heart from the back. He looked quietly stunned.

Tifa wrenched her hand back out through the massive hole she'd put in his chest and struck him again, and again, blood splattering against the ground with each blow. Zack heard things begin to tear. Sephiroth, to his credit, did not let out more than an occasional pained grunt.

A hand on his own chest distracted Zack from the carnage he was witnessing, slowly easing the pain away.

"I'm sorry," came Cloud's frantic voice next to him, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it --" Half the time when he tried to look, Cloud wasn’t there at all. “I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry –”

Zack was finally able to sit up in time to see Sephiroth being thrown his way, little more than a twitching heap of gore, expression still consumed with disbelief.

Tifa's eyes burned with delirious rage, and it was with a thrill of foreboding that Zack realised she wasn't done.

She lurched over to Sephiroth, who was still trying in vain to get back up, and hunched over him, arms and neck going limp, her body still split open in a bottomless void of teeth and eyes and writhing tendrils. They poured out of her, and with a wet tearing noise began ripping him to shreds. His body began to dissolve into black sludge, sinking into Tifa's flesh. She began to convulse rhythmically with the effort it took to... do the thing she was doing.

He risked a glance at Cloud. He was sitting there, calmly watching Tifa eat, his eyes glazed. Aeris watched as well, seemingly unable to tear her eyes away out of sheer revulsion, still shuddering and clutching her broken arm.

It was Tifa making a particularly loud, wet noise that snapped Aeris out of her trance. She hobbled over to her and reached for her shoulder.

Tifa whirled around and snarled, and Aeris recoiled in shock. There were far too many teeth in her mouth, and all of them were just a touch too long and sharp, and her gaze would have been as vacant as Cloud's, were it not for the alien fury shining through them.

Zack looked away and squeezed his eyes shut. It did nothing to help with the sounds, or the searing headache that suddenly erupted in the back of his head -- the roar of a million voices clamouring to drown one another out, each one sharper than the next.

Very soon there was nothing left of Sephiroth. Tifa twitched, and her head pivoted around (independently of the rest of her body) to look at the rest of them. The rest of her twisted around as well, and she began to swarm towards them with unsteady, twitchy lunges.

With a loud thunk, she suddenly dropped to the ground and did not get up again. Behind her stood Cloud holding his sword flatways, looking nervous.

"I shouldn't have done that," he muttered. "They said -- Barret said, with all the times she's been hit on the head like that...."

"She'll thank you later, I'm sure," said Aeris, a pronounced tremor in her voice.

The void in Tifa's body slowly closed up until the only trace of it left was the scar running up her stomach, through her chest, and streaking up her throat onto her chin.

"I guess we're even for the Temple now," he said quietly to her. The shredded shirt Tifa had been wearing lay on the ground beside broken glass and drywall beside him. He grabbed the torn remains of the coat they'd given Sephiroth, no longer even stained with his blood after she had absorbed it all, and wrapped it around her.

"What the fuck was that?" asked Zack, his voice unusually high.

"She ate him," said Cloud.

"Why did she -- why did he melt? What the hell was that noise?"

"She ate him," Cloud repeated. He approached Aeris, waving Zack over to follow him as well. "Need help with that?" he asked. He turned to Zack. "If I set the bones... you should heal it. You're better at it than I am."

"If I was you," said Aeris, trying hard to fight down tears, "I'd just fix it myself. Y-you said I was good at it."

"It's a doctor thing," said Cloud decisively. He flinched as a sudden blast of wind from the Shera dipping low overhead blew through them, chilling the blood Zack’s clothes were now stained with. Because he’d been stabbed through the heart. And lived.

Zack couldn’t help but imagine his own torso opening up like that, and then immediately stopped. The last thing he needed was to waste more clothes.

"Bite down on this," Cloud said, offering Aeris the ripped sleeve of the jacket Tifa had been wearing.

Zack felt considerably less foolish about how much he'd screamed when he'd been stabbed by the time they were finished mending Aeris's arm. Maybe Cloud was giving him a skewed perspective on things in general.

A helicopter touched down several feet away, and Yuffie and the big guy, Barret, practically exploded out of it, weapons drawn.

"Who the fuck's idea was it to trust that motherfucker?!"

"...I didn't know," said Aeris in barely more than a whisper.

"Aww, but you did though," said Yuffie, her voice poisonously sweet. "I told you, remember?"

"It was my fault," said Cloud immediately. "He was on board for this until I -- I said something, and it set him off. I-I said he..."

"Where'd he go, then?" asked Barret, changing his prosthesis back into a hand again. "Don't tell me we gotta chase his ass down again? The others are still en route, there's only one air taxi running right now."

"She ate him," said Cloud again, gesturing to Tifa.

"...What?"

"Can't believe we missed all the fuss," grumbled Yuffie. "Would've liked to get some payback in."

"That's for the best," said Zack, still feeling pretty queasy.

“What do you mean, ‘she ate him’?” pressed Barret, glancing between Tifa and Cloud.

Tifa began to stir. Cloud excitedly hurried over to her.

"I wasn't sure if she'd wake up," he said. "See? Everything's okay now." He turned to Aeris. “There, now you’ve seen all of us naked.”

Aeris did not reply.

Zack watched as Tifa looked up at the rest of the group, then down at her bare chest, now covered only by the jacket, white hair and chin both stained with blood.

She gagged.

"It's okay," said Cloud. "Sometimes this stuff happens when you panic and you're not sure what else to do."

"What in the world are you...?" began Aeris, before Zack managed to catch her eye and very quickly and fervently shake his head "no".

"It gets easier to deal with over time," said Cloud. "I can help --"

"I'm okay. I -- I don't need help," said Tifa softly. "I did it on purpose."

There was another long pause. Cloud didn't seem to know what to say.

"...Not -- not all the way. I don't know, I was just -- I was so angry, and I wanted him gone, and -- I think somewhere deep down, I knew what to do to make it happen, a-and I just..."

"I -- I could still help..."

"I don't need help," said Tifa, in a voice that was probably supposed to come off as confident, but instead became a harsh bark. "You're the one that needs help. It's fine." Cloud flinched away and said nothing more.

"Well, when he shows up again..." started Yuffie.

"He won't," said Tifa. "I -- he's -- part of me now. I did what he's doing to Cloud." She pointed to Zack. "I can still find parts of him -- memories that aren't mine." She smiled a broken smile. "...The awful part is that it's not anything I didn't already know. We really are the same, if you think about it."

"You know damn well that ain't true," said Barret. "Just because you gotta dye your hair now don't mean a thing. You're the best woman I know, you got that? Don't you dare go an' say that."

"What would you know?" said Tifa halfheartedly. "You've never even --" Then she winced.

Aeris suddenly jerked out of the way as something scuttled past her on the ground. Tifa reached out to them, and they leapt for her hand and embedded themselves into her flesh.

"Reunion," she said distantly, examining her recovered fingers.

Zack felt it before he saw her and Cloud tense up. More rage. Older and deeper. Hungry.

"She knows," said Cloud. "Mother knows you took a part of Her. She wants it back, and it's not there to take. She's coming, now."

The world began to throb, colour draining from their surroundings as they began to warp inward. A million hands began pressing themselves against the world, straining against the fabric of it. The group readied their weapons once more. Cloud, however, sheathed his sword.

"...She still can't fit," said Cloud. "Soon. She'll be here soon. Can you hear Her?"

Zack wished he couldn't. He could barely make out what Cloud was saying over the din of that awful noise, now back with a vengeance. He clamped his hands over his ears and gritted his teeth.

He almost didn't look up in time to see the woman again -- the one that had followed them since Nibelheim. Ignoring Cloud, Zack snatched the sword off his back and held it at the ready, trying to keep his hands from shaking.

"What the hell do you want?!" he screamed, brandishing it at her. "What the hell do you want from us?!"

"Zack --" began Aeris.

"This fucking thing has been stalking us for weeks," he said, barely able to control his breathing long enough to get the words out. "We know it's Her, I already fucking killed it once, don't know why I thought it would stick --"

"Zack, wait!"

It was the urgency and the desperation in Aeris's voice that got him to stop. She was staring at the woman, looking beyond shaken.

My child… came a voice from the static, and the ripples in the world around them, and from the mouth of the woman.

He turned back to the woman still standing there, trying to lurch towards them occasionally. Something clicked.

She had looked familiar, after all. He hadn't realised it before, because, well, how many brown-haired white people were there in the world? But now, with the two of them in front of him -- there was no mistaking the nose, the shape of the lips, the jaw, the vivid green eyes....

He could see the resemblance registering on everyone else's faces as well. Aeris took a step forward towards Jenova.

My daughter…

"...Mother," Aeris breathed. No one stopped her.

No one said a word as they gazed upon what was left of Dr. Ifalna Gainsborough.

Notes:

to everyone that called it, go brag on social media or something

or in here, i accept bragging in comment form also

Chapter 55: Self-Recognition Through The Other (Derogatory)

Notes:

and here we are

This Fucking Thing™ was half the reason this fic went on hiatus for over a year. Even writing the goddamn climax didn't take as long. The total amount of words that were written for this chapter and then thrown out entirely cap out at around 26,000. So, there's that.

anyway ART

First, Tofu actually drew this a while ago but now you have context for it!

Similarly, Denebola_Leo drew the second snack. :)

This called shot from Nayu, impeccable vibes as always.

Natade-art drew Cloud continuing to support making meat mistakes and that's okay, plus Aeris in her natural state.

Lastly we have this anonymously submitted pulp-inspired book cover with some fantastic pixel art and a lot of attention to detail! If you ever want to come off anon I will shill your art blog without question.

Thank you to Darth Tofu and la-regina-scrive for betaing this thing, as well as belderiver for a lot of workshopping help last year (!!!), this would not have been possible without all of you.

This chapter contains brief depictions of self-harm and gore, as well as allusions to both consensual and non-consensual sexual behaviour.

The world wavered at the edges as Jenova – as Ifalna – tried to push her way through into reality.

There wasn’t much further for her to go in the first place. Ideas here were already shifting and merging and breaking apart. That was how Cloud – and now, Mother – were standing here to begin with.

The city warped and pinched as people moved through it to put out fires that weren’t already being slowly doused by the storm they’d created. She was close enough to touch him...

“It’s her. It’s Ifalna.”

It was a bad idea, one that bent the world away from her. She flickered and vanished.

“...Mother?” asked Cloud quietly.

“That’s – that was her, that’s her face,” continued Zack.

“It can’t be,” said Tifa. She turned to Aeris. “You said she died.”

“She did,” said Aeris, her voice hoarse. “This is – how – ?”

“Well... did you ever find her body?” asked Tifa gently.

“No, but – there was blood, there was – there was tissue – it can’t be her.”

“They never learned whose it was, it was too damaged by radiation,” said Zack. “And if she came to this universe instead of dying – got infected on the way over, like me –”

“It’s not her,” said Aeris, breathing very quickly now. “It can’t be her.”

“It’s probably not her anymore,” said Zack. “I mean... you said Jenova’s been here for billions of years, across a bunch of galaxies. She might’ve been sitting there in the vacuum of space with no contact points for who knows how long. She wouldn’t have had anyone to talk to, or any way back, or....” He rubbed his neck. “I don’t think that’s her anymore. But it was, a long time ago.”

“It can’t be. She wouldn’t... she wouldn’t do this, it makes no sense. What does she stand to gain by all these deaths, after all this time, any of this?”

“The first bridging experiment,” said Zack. “They just went straight through, because someone had to be the first. In order for there to be a reference point for other people to find.”

“...The music,” said Tifa slowly. “The pattern. She’s here to make sure it spreads – to create points of contact. It’s what she came here to do, and she’s still doing it.”

“But...” stammered Aeris, “how did she... the space in between. Is that her?”

“Maybe it’s a part of her,” said Zack. “Or -- she’s a part of it. She creates more pieces, it keeps trying to put itself back together.”

“Why her and not me? Why didn’t I wind up a part of it? Why didn’t I get infected?”

“...Natural immunity,” said Tifa. “You already are. Her DNA was already a part of you.”

“...Mother...”

Zack let out a bitter huff of laughter. “And the rats?”

“Zack, when you were in there,” said Aeris, “you said... you saw something?”

He nodded uneasily. “Yeah. It was – it hurt to think about, but it was this – this idea – not just an idea, but it was like – like a pattern – but – I looked at it, and I understood it, and I couldn’t not understand it, and it was like it... like there was only room for the pattern, it was too big...” He shook his head. “It’s hard to put into words. Cloud, you’d probably know better than... Cloud? You okay?”

The humans behind him were still talking amongst themselves about Mother. Cloud hadn’t moved from where he’d been staring at the spot Mother had disappeared.

My daughter....

“It can’t be her,” blurted Cloud.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“What do you mean?” asked Aeris.

“It was meant for me,” he said. His mouth felt very dry.

“...What was?”

“When she smiled at me. It was meant for me. I just looked wrong. It wasn’t – it wasn’t her fault, it was mine, but it was for me.”

“Cloud...” began Zack nervously as something seemed to dawn on him. Cloud ignored him.

“It can’t have been for her. It was meant for me. What was it all for?”

“It isn’t your fault,” said Zack immediately. “You know that. Isn’t it good that it wasn’t for you? We even have proof that it wasn’t now. It never was. Isn’t – isn’t that good news?”

“What are you two...?” said Yuffie, frowning.

“It can’t have been for her, it was for me!” he screamed. “It was meant for me, she was talking to me!”

“I-I – Cloud? What are you talking about?”

“You can’t take her!” he shouted at her. “You can’t take her, she was – she – she was talking to me – !”

“Cloud!” interjected Tifa, looking horrified.

“It can’t, it – it isn’t fair, she was talking to me, I was good for her, I was good like she wanted me to be – she stayed with me in the – in the dark – she can’t – she –”

He couldn’t breathe. The world was pressing in around him again, everyone’s faces strange and leering, the sound of their blood roaring in his ears. He closed his eyes.

It was quiet here, in the silvery ocean. The music was as beautiful as it ever was.

It was hard to tell, given this place went on forever, but it seemed so much larger than it had the last time he had visited in Reading. Or perhaps he had become smaller. Perhaps both.

Cloud? Cloud?!

He could hear voices in the distance. They were afraid, but there was only peace here.

Where did he go?

Must’ve slipped back through. I can try to find him, hang on –

Zack couldn’t reach him here. That was good. It was safe here. Peaceful. He tried to tell Zack this, but that part of him seemed to be gone. That was okay.

...Aeris – Aeris, please, he’ll – he’s – he’ll apologise – gods, I’ve never seen him lose it like that... what...?

…He’s right.

He’s not.

So you infected yourself for fun? And now you’re dying.

…Someone had to do it.

No, they didn’t. You felt like you had to do it, because I was there. No one had to do it. Why – why did you think you had to?

Zack, any progress?

I – I know he’s there, I can still feel him – he just won’t respond to me –

It’s okay. He took a little while to show up again before, remember? And if you can – Tifa, you can sense him too, right?

...Yeah.

Exactly. So then – he just needs a moment to come back again.

You don’t understand. Zack was frantic now. It was souring the music. If he’s doing this on purpose – I should’ve said something, but – you can’t just open with that kind of thing, it’s private –

Zack? Tifa’s voice. Cold dread, this time, instead of disgust with him.

Do you know how often he thinks about killing himself? And he’s still not responding, and –

Cloud snapped awake and flew towards the surface of the silvery ocean. As before, he was unable to pass through it.

He –did think about it a couple times, admitted Aeris, while I was with him. But he wouldn’t –

Cloud was screaming now, clawing against the underside of the water, which again refused to yield. For an instant, he saw out through Zack’s eyes again. Aeris looked distressed. Tifa’s face was as blank as it had been when he had told her he was being claimed by Mother.

I had to pry the gun away from his mouth myself, said Zack firmly. I think the only reason he didn’t try it again is because I made him promise to teach me magic, and if he gets tired of that.... It’s been weeks of this shit.

But – he’s still there, right? He couldn’t just –

He’s still there. I can tell, I just can’t...

How long? said Tifa suddenly. How long has he...

She wasn’t supposed to be hearing this, Zack wasn’t allowed to tell her this, her of all people –

I don’t know. Uh – it’s – years. At least. I don’t know. Sometimes he – no, this isn’t... it’s not up to me to tell, there’s – there’s other things. You – you should ask him yourself when you get a chance. Please ask him yourself when you get a chance.

Cloud screamed all the louder, trying to break through, to drown out what Zack was saying, anything.

How the hell do you handle this full time?

And then Tifa did a peculiar thing: She began to laugh. Her face was twisted up in anguish, but she kept laughing all the same, a manic giggling that bubbled out of her and didn’t seem to stop.

I guess I don’t! she said, still tittering. I guess I didn’t!

Cloud stumbled into being beside Zack at long last. His first act was to punch him in the jaw. His hands were shaking so badly he nearly missed, but Zack landed in a heap and did not get up all the same. Cloud aimed a few firm kicks into his ribs for good measure. Aeris screamed. Tifa did not stop laughing.

“Hi, Cloud!” she said between the peals of laughter, smiling. “You know, if you ever need to talk to me, even if you think it’s stupid –”

Her laughing cut off abruptly as a dark, tarry substance sprayed from her lips and dribbled down her chin in shiny globs, black against the red already painted there.

She swayed for a moment, then toppled to the ground.

 

---

 

Zack awoke with a groan to find himself lying on metal plating, having not lost more than a few moments from the looks of things. His jaw twinged as he rotated it a few times. He’d kind of hoped Cloud was done with the whole punching in him the face thing by now, but hopefully that had gotten the last of it out of his system.

Whatever. Someone had to say it, and apparently it wasn’t gonna be Cloud.

He told himself that, but it didn’t do anything to help with the guilty squirming in his gut that wouldn’t go away.

He was dizzy and sore, and there were people with medical supplies that were already clustering around the wreckage, clambering over sideways road rails to check for injuries and put out fires.

“Hey you. Soldier.” Zack blinked, his vision swimming every now and then; he’d lost more blood than he thought. “Hey!”

Right. Barret was talking to him.

“Get up. We gotta hide. Now.”

Zack scrambled to his feet, and his vision immediately filled with stars. “I – where, hide where? Why?”

“Can’t let them see Tifa,” said Yuffie. “If they call in the WRO, even if they mean well, we’re screwed.”

“This way!” shouted Barret, gesturing to a gap in the road that opened up into what would have been a sheer cliff face, but was now simple matter of walking, the stone worn smooth from what must have been centuries of waves beating against it.

Barret and Aeris carefully hefted Tifa into a carrying position that would jostle her as little as possible while Zack gathered up Cloud’s swords, quickly reassembling the whole thing and hauling the harness over his shoulder without bothering to put it on. They managed to disappear over the edge of the road just as the lights from emergency vehicles began to draw larger and larger crowds.

The cliff face they were standing on was crisscrossed with beams supporting the road “above”. Far in the distance, Zack could see a wedge cut out of the city, allowing the sun through onto the roofs of the most normal-looking houses Zack had seen since coming here, even if the ground surrounding them was grey and lifeless and muddy. He looked up at the forest they’d fallen through, parts of it still smoking slightly, and grimaced.

It could have just been the way his head was pounding, or the way stars kept flickering across his vision, but the world seemed to warp and stretch around them as they travelled. They didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the fishing village he could see on the horizon, and he had no idea where they were actually standing beyond “cliff”. It was as though the fact that this place was next to Junon had become broken somehow, or misplaced.

“Now what?” asked Aeris. “Where do we go?”

“You said the WRO wasn’t an option anymore,” said Zack. “That was the only plan we had.”

“Then we come up with another plan,” said Barret, setting Tifa down as gently as he could manage and getting out his phone. “I gotta let the others know we’re meeting up here. Can’t risk being seen, not with –”

“Hey!” shouted a voice in the distance. “Hey, you!”

Everyone froze. An old man with a tanned, weathered face was running towards him, waving his hands.

He stopped dead when he saw Tifa: white-haired, three-eyed, dribbling black tar from her lips.

“...Just walk away, grandpa,” said Yuffie, conjuring up a flame between her fingers. “This doesn’t concern you.”

“I know you,” said the old man to Barret, gesturing to his arm. “...You came here a few years back.” His eyes raked over the group before landing on Tifa.

“That the stigma?” he asked. “Never seen it do anything like that before. Looks bad.”

“What’s it to you?” asked Barret.

“She looks different,” he said. He looked back up at Barret. “...You come with me,” he said. “She needs medical attention. And so do you,” he added to Zack. Zack blinked hard, trying to ignore the chill in his fingertips.

“Why should we go with you?” asked Yuffie.

“Because those people up there won’t remember you,” said the old man. “We will. This place owes you all a debt.” He scanned the group once more. “...There was a young man with you last time. I still haven’t thanked him properly for my granddaughter’s life.”

“...You’re Martel,” said Barret, carefully lifting Tifa once more. The old man, Martel, nodded.

“Priscilla’s not as dead set on marrying him one day as she was, of course,” said Martel with a small smile as he began to lead them back towards the looming complex of roofs ahead of them. Strangely enough, they seemed to actually be getting closer now, and the pile of buildings seemed to grow in complexity to the point where it hurt to look at them.

“Did he heal her?” asked Aeris. “I thought anyone could do that.”

Zack frowned in consternation. For someone that hated doctors, especially the medical kind, Cloud would have probably have made a really good no no no no no no no no no –

Cloud wrenched himself back into the silvery ocean, clutching at his head in terror. He’d been gone. He’d been part of Zack, and there hadn’t been a Cloud, and he wasn’t – he wasn’t...

“Healing only does so much,” said Martel. “No replacement for first aid, though.” He nodded to Tifa. “The same goes for her.”

Zack hurried to keep up now that they were approaching the... houses? Every time he thought he spotted where one ended and another began, he realised it bled into the next one in a confusing jumble of rickety wooden steps and beams and nonsensical windows that shouldn’t be where they were. The sight didn’t help his growing nausea at all. If there had been any food actually left in his stomach he’d have already started emptying it.

Martel continued speaking, gesturing out at the beach now far above their heads. “He risked his own life diving into poisoned water, but when he pulled her out she still wasn’t breathing –”

– waves beating on the sand, on the sand, on the sand, the sand was – the waves were –

He was here and himself – I am I am I am I am – I am...

I...

He was himself, who was – alone. Who was unloved by Lucrecia, by Mother. He fumbled in the dark, against the tide, for more pieces. That was the only one he had.

The only thing he had in the world was his friend, the Pale Man. The Pale Man was his friend.

He struggled to force himself into the world again with what he had left. He knew that he was too small, that it was big, and empty, and it was going to hurt him. No one in the world had been there in the dark but the Pale Man.

He didn’t know where he was. He knew it wouldn’t be long now, before he disappeared entirely into someone else.

Would that be such a bad thing? No one had missed him. Mother had never loved him.

He knew himself. He was... he had a number. It was all he had. He didn’t even have Mother anymore.

He looked down at his arm. His number was still there. He looked up from it at the jumble of houses around him.

Something wasn’t right. He was forgetting something important, and if he forgot it it would – it –

“We may have to put her on life support if things continue progressing,” said the nurse. The room they were in was small and under-equipped, but the nurse seemed to know what she was doing, and the medical supplies were in fact medical supplies. She drew the sheet of plastic back around Tifa’s bed and turned to Zack, escorting him over to his own bed. “As for you... you wouldn’t happen to know your blood type, would you?”

Zack turned to Barret tiredly, adjusting his hospital gown in preparation for the needle. “What type do people on your planet call a universal donor?” He paused. “...Actually, maybe I’m not even that anymore. What blood type was Cloud?”

Things running into his body – running out of his body – fluid and tissue and names and words –

He tripped back into being and fell, landing with a thump against a set of cabinets, his breath coming in short, terrified pants. His vision began to blur with liquid, and then went dark entirely.

He fumbled in the dark. His sound map went quiet as well, and he was alone in this room – wherever it was. His limbs no longer wanted to listen to him properly. Everything smelled like burning, when it didn’t smell like nothing at all.

He fumbled his way over to the corner and pulled his knees to his chest and shook.

Get up, he told himself. Get up. She needs you. How dare you sit here like this? How dare you cry, when –

He couldn’t remember her name. He remembered kind and warm and bleeding. He remembered tired.

She can’t help you now, he thought. No one can. No one would want to, either. Even if they could. She needs you. Get up.

But he couldn’t bring himself to do more than sit there and shake.

You deserve this, he told himself. The other one – tall and better and afraid – he had made himself get up. He made himself carry him across the city.

Getting to be him is too good for you, he thought. Mother didn’t even want you. Why would anyone else? The good thing to do for everyone else would be to let yourself go right now. So why haven’t you?

Selfish. Selfish and afraid, and falsely believing he could do something good with his life for someone good and kind and so very, very tired. In a just world, kind warm bleeding tired would have killed him herself.

So get up and prove you deserve to be here.

He tried to stagger to his feet, but he found himself unable to keep his balance properly, and fell over in a heap once more. His train of thought stuttered and restarted again and again like a failing engine.

She didn’t ruin everything. You did. You think it’s her fault Mother never wanted you? The Director? The Pale Man? Anyone at all? You can’t even walk get up get up get up get up get up you deserve this –

Too close to the edge of the world. Not enough – his head. Too much damage from the mako, the surgeries. If he was realer, it was, too.

He risked dipping back into the less real spaces again.

Things were fuzzy like this. Probably whatever sedative they’d given him. Exhaustion, they’d said, and malnourishment, to complement the blood loss that was still untreated from Cloud’s brute force healing and the concussion and an awful lot of bruising in his torso. The nurse, a doting old lady (he’d yet to see anyone in this town under the age of 50, for some reason) had given Zack a warm smile and told him he was a fighter before informing him he’d be back on his feet in a few days or so. He could hear soft voices the next room over, where they were keeping Tifa. Something about surgery.

Outside he could hear the gentle rush of the ocean onto Junon’s beach, and the creak of fishing boats rocking with the ebb and flow of the water. Another pang went through him that had nothing to do with his recent stabbing. He rolled over in his own bed and sighed, and let himself drift off to sleep.

He clawed his way back out into the water, frantically trying to stifle his own sobs. There had barely been enough space for him to escape, and all he had was she needs you and you deserve this this is good and his number, still there for him even when no one else should have been. His own name had washed away along with the others.

He pressed into the world, even as it sheared at him the way the wind had when... when something. He couldn’t remember. Too many pieces were missing.

Everything was big, and twisted around him in confusing ways that didn’t make sense to him.

This looked correct. The way he remembered it.

“Hey! You alright, boy?”

Someone was shouting now. He instinctively pressed himself more firmly into his corner and went still. Always easier this way, to let them do what they wanted and then wait for them to leave.

“...Cloud?!”

A very large hand grabbed his arm, encircling it easily with how bone thin it was. He went limp, even as tears began to trickle out of his eyes even faster. He was pulled to his feet, and the world no longer seemed to tip and rock around him. He could see again, as well. He looked up for what felt like miles.

He didn’t recognise the face looming over him now, painted with naked shock. He did recognise the ring, though. It – it was his. Or – not his. It was part of his. But they hadn’t wanted to get him a ring, because he would lose it.

“...That really you?”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. The man kept staring at him, looking perturbed.

“We been lookin’ all over for you. They operated two days ago. The hell you been?! “

The man was angry with him now. He was angry and it was his fault. He didn’t know how to fix it. He couldn’t find kind warm bleeding tired. If the man was going to hit him, he wouldn’t try to avoid it.

“Cloud? You can understand me, right?”

Context said that he was Cloud, and that the man was calling him that. Cloud nodded.

The man was still staring at him, looking him over repeatedly. At one point he adjusted his grip on Cloud’s arm to get a better look at his number. His frown deepened into something else.

“Do you remember who I am?”

Another piece surfaced -- the man, shouting at him. He had been livid beyond all reason.

“I told you I had a spare mattress! How the fuck long were you living on the damn streets?!”

“It’s not that big a deal,” he had told the man, even as his stomach clenched with guilt. The move into the storage room above the bar had been easy enough when all his worldly possessions amounted to a sword and the outfits the man had bought for him, still in the bag from the store. “There wasn’t any point makin’ a fuss over it. I can take care of myself.”

He hadn’t needed much. He had thumbs, to open bins that the rats and pigeons couldn’t, and happily shared the contents with them both.

“Cloud?”

He didn’t know who the man was. He was supposed to, though, clearly. Something else that had sloughed off from the bits of self he had left. Cloud nodded again.

“...Can you tell me?”

Cloud could not bring himself to say “no” out loud.

“What you been up to, then?” The man’s voice had changed. Quieter. Forced calm. There was a strained-looking smile on his face.

Cloud swallowed and said nothing.

“How ’bout we take a walk, and you can tell me?” said the man. He began to lead Cloud somewhere else.

If you really cared about her you wouldn’t care if he hurt you. Coward. You deserve this you deserve it if he hurts you you should be proud to hurt for her –

Cloud stopped in his tracks and tried to pull his arm away.

“Need to – need to find – don’t know where –” He couldn’t remember her name.

“Come on,” said the man, “we’ll go see her. You made everyone worry about you, all we had was Zack’s word you hadn’t gone and died.”

He led Cloud through a lot of doorways, many of them sideways, or only accessible from moving at a specific angle and watching the world churn into another facet of itself (“Locations don’t make sense lately,” explained the man. “Places ain’t next to places like they should be. You gotta know where you wanna go to get there. The ideas need to connect to each other.”), and he told Cloud several things that didn’t make much sense. The man explained that his name was Barret, and that Cloud had been gone for two days (gone from where? since when?), and that he was very stupid and had caused a lot of trouble for everyone in the process (this one Cloud had no trouble believing).

Some rooms seemed to go on forever, folding into one another, fanning outward into nearly-identical copies. Above them, the sky was bright red.

He led Cloud to a room with a lit fireplace and a couple other people who were every bit as stunned to see him as Barret had been. There was a girl there, even shorter than he was, that was now staring at him uncomfortably.

“What’s wrong with him?” he heard her whisper to the man that had brought him here. “Why’s he so skinny?”

Cloud didn’t process the question right away. He was too busy staring at the bed, where kind warm bleeding tired lay. She was bigger than he remembered.

He looked down at his hands, then up at the room around him. A woman with her hair tied up in an old pink ribbon stared down at him in stunned silence.

He didn’t dare look her in the eyes. He remembered this one, vaguely. She was one of the ones who could hurt him very badly, if she wanted to. She’d certainly done it before, and now he had given her a reason.

“...I’m sorry,” he said. “It isn’t your fault Mother doesn’t want me.”

“And Zack?” asked the woman, getting up to leave. For some reason, she seemed wary of him, as though he might turn around and hurt her. That wasn’t how these things worked. He could no more injure someone like her than he could breathe stone. “Are you sorry for him?”

“...Zack?”

“Behind you,” she said, gesturing to the other bed. There was a very tall man resting in it, his arm branded with a white ring of scar tissue framed by the healed remains of dozens of smaller gouges, and a number tattoo. His blood was full of music.

Cloud’s eyes widened and he quickly backed away. This was the man he was disappearing into.

He turned away to try and run, but Barret was by the door. He backed away slowly.

The water rose up around him. Someone far above him watched him sink. The Pale Man.

He tried to reach up for him, but all that was left of his body was his number, too insubstantial to grab onto. Not that the Pale Man bothered to move in the first place. He watched Cloud sink, his face as indifferent as ever.

His dreams were jumbled and disjointed, but at the very least they were his own for once. He was breaking up with guy number six for Aeris, who kept smashing his phones. Guy number six was disappointed because he wanted it to be less of a casual thing and Zack didn’t, and Zack had to explain with increasing frustration that he couldn’t answer calls anymore anyway because his current girlfriend (who now looked like girl number four) kept destroying his phones. He needed to feed the pieces to his pet rat, Remy -- but Remy wasn’t getting enough phone to eat, and he lay there broken and immobile in his cage. He’d forgotten to feed him for too long, how could he have possibly forgotten -- ?

“Do you think you’ve done the right thing?” asked girl number four coldly, who now looked like Aeris again.

When he pushed back into the world again, he could hear things moving around him, but the world was cold and grey and flat, and he was the only one in it. Faintly, he could hear voices. Not all of them were human.

He was himself who was here to -- to help someone. He was here to help someone.

He couldn’t remember what his own face looked like. He had a suggestion of a body that would no longer hurt properly when he ground his nails into his own skin to narrow the world down to his own flesh, remind himself he was here.

Something metal wrenched his fingers away from his arm anyway, and then slipped fingers through his own. They felt smaller than they had been when they’d circled around his arm, and the light didn’t pass through them they way they did through Cloud’s own.

“You with us?” said Barret. Cloud nodded shakily. There was another man here now, with a layer of grey stubble on his face. The woman was gone.

“...Where did she go?”

“Hm?”

“That lady.”

“...Aeris ain’t talkin’ much now,” said the stubble man. “Came back to visit Tifa, left again.”

“Just keeps wandering off,” said a man leaning against the wall. Zack. He was here now.

“I didn’t mean it,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t -- I don’t know what to do.” More time had passed. He wasn’t sure how much. Zack was no longer in the bed behind them, and the tubes had vanished from Tifa’s arms.

He looked up. “What do we do?”

Barret merely shook his head. Cloud went quiet again and turned his attention back to Tifa.

She deserved better than the spare bed in someone’s house in Junon. She deserved better in general.

“How long…?”

“I donated more blood,” said Zack. “There were trace amounts of mako in yours, and that kept her stable for a while, so… we figured it was worth a shot. Didn’t help a whole lot, though.”

“There’s too much damage,” said the older man. Cid. His name was Cid. “We bought her another month, maybe. If we’re lucky, she’ll make it to January.”

Was it finally winter, then? Or were they close? This had all started in the summer, hadn’t it?

“If we’re lucky, we’ll make it to January,” said Barret. “You looked up lately?”

“We just need…” Cloud frowned. “There was – there was a pattern…”

“Aeris ran off,” said Cid shortly. “And even if she hadn’t, what the hell are we supposed to do without that machine she had?”

“She didn’t need it to come through,” said Cloud. “She found me. She could find –”

His head pounded. He took another deep, slow breath, even though he didn’t need to at this point, and continued forcing himself to be.

“How’s that even work?” asked Cid, turning to Zack expectantly. “It’s just raw data y’all found.”

“Don’t ask me,” said Zack. “I was never the one that did it. I was there to supervise and run the numbers.”

“Cosmologist, right,” said Cid, studying Zack a bit more closely.

“Cloud mentioned you,” said Zack. “You’re the astrophysics guy.”

“For what it’s worth,” said Cid, his scowl deepening. “First man in orbit.”

“All by your lonesome?” said Barret. “Imagine that –”

“Yeah, yeah, and you numbskulls were there too, I guess.” He sighed. “We can’t all be astronauts. Good we got kids like you runnin’ the numbers. Helps keep idiots from throwing their lives away.”

Zack shifted uncomfortably. Cid looked back down at Tifa and sighed.

Everyone had run out of words. The only sound filling the silence was the subtle wheezing of Tifa breathing. It wasn’t as bad as it had been before, he noticed. They’d probably reached inside her and cut something out to make more room for the air.

Cloud grabbed Tifa’s hand and clutched it to his forehead, hunched over her body.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered frantically, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

A hand gently squeezed his shoulder. “We’ll give you some space,” he heard Barret say.

He didn’t hear any footsteps. They simply were no longer in the room.

He sat there, squeezing her hand, slowly rocking himself.

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

The spot in his ribcage burned. Let me be good enough. Let me be good.

 

---

 

On the side of a building in Junon, Tifa stumbled and fell.

She heard the others cry out as they failed to catch her, but they needn’t have bothered – she felt herself slow suddenly, drifting gently to the ground. The sunlight above her splintered through branches that weren’t there. The sky was burning, the ugly red colour of an open wound. Tifa lay against the grass and breathed.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

The problem with breathing, Tifa had decided, was that you had to keep doing it, and doing it, and doing it, and every lungful hurt.

There was a whirl of people around her, dipping in and out. Once or twice she was given something to swallow. All of it blurred together. Eventually it quieted down.

Her skin was drenched in cold sweat, and the hands cradling her as they leaned her against the bed, gentle as they were, still caused her to ache at every touch, as though they were hot irons being pressed into her skin.

“I’m sorry,” whispered a voice next to her, again and again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Cloud was still here. She forced another smile, which wound up looking more like a grimace. She closed her eyes.

I’m okay, she said. Just need a little sleep.

More fingers. Threading through her own. Brushing the hair from her face. She could smell the fear coming off him now.

She heard wind chimes jangling outside. Cloud lay in bed next to her.

“You’re sick,” said Cloud.

Tifa sighed. The bar was empty. It was the middle of summer, and her room still smelled like lavender and fresh laundry. She only had two eyes here. Cloud’s eyes were an ordinary, unremarkable blue, and the pupils were round, and they still burned into hers anyway.

“...Don’t worry about me,” said Tifa. “I’ll figure out another way to get mako, and...”

She couldn’t finish.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It wasn’t... things weren’t supposed to work out like this. But I’m glad I did it.”

Cloud sat straight up. “Stop it. Don’t – don’t say that.”

“Cloud...”

“Don’t say that. Don’t say you’re glad about it.” He swallowed. “And you don’t have to say you’re sorry either. You’ll be fine. And we’ll go home, and go back to being a family, and everything will be okay again.”

“We both know that’s not going to happen,” she said gently. “Finding mako could take months. I have... I don’t know, a few weeks left before my body gives out.” She sat up as well and smiled. “You’ll be okay, though. You’ve still got –”

“Take mine.”

Tifa stared at him, not quite sure if she’d heard him correctly. “Your what?”

“You’re infected,” said Cloud. “You could take my body instead.”

Tifa continued to stare at him.

“Not like how Aeris does it,” Cloud explained, shifting nervously. “You could use Mother, the way Sephiroth did with the other vessels. You could take my body. It’s what I was originally made for, remember? It’s what I got my tattoo for. I was a success. I can still move, but I wouldn’t have any will of my own, and you could –”

“No,” interjected Tifa. “No. After everything you said back at Aeris’s house – were you just telling me what you thought I wanted to hear?!” Cloud flinched and fell silent. Even now... even now, he was still doing this, knowing how much it hurt them both, and...

“...Tifa, please.” He was trying again with the same offer. A first for him. “I’m giving it to you. I’d – I’d fix it if I could, but I can’t so it’s the least I can do.” He swallowed. “I know the – the body I have isn’t real, so you’d have to push through. But you’re good at being real anyway, and it’s better than you being gone. You’d still exist somewhere.”

“And what about you? Where would you go?”

“...I’m not going to be around for much longer anyway. I’ll still be around this way, even if it’s...”

“So I should speed up the process? Get rid of you early?”

“Tifa –”

“No. If this is you cashing in on that promise you asked me to make, I never agreed,” she said. “And anyway, we’ll find a way to help you –”

“What about me makes me deserve to be here more than you?”

“I...”

“I’m giving it to you,” said Cloud again. “Myself. Everything. I... if only one of us... I couldn’t think of another person I’d be happier to give myself to.”

“Not for me,” said Tifa, slowly shaking her head. “Please, not for me. I can’t have any more people dying for me, just because I can’t...”

The world around them was dark now, and her chest suddenly burned again, drawing an involuntarily groan from her. Things howled in the dark, and she clamped her hands over her ears, kneeling there.

“Just for now, then” said Cloud. “Please, just for now. You can’t go, we just... please, just until – until one of us isn’t –”

She shook her head faster. Cars on the street began to rush past them. It was all too loud, scratching, tapping, clicking.

“I can’t,” she said frantically, “Cloud, I can’t. I can’t, I can’t do it!”

“Why not?! I’m giving it to you, I want to help!” He was kneeling with her now, clutching her shoulders in desperation, his eyes growing wet. “I don’t understand. I just wanna help, and – and I care about you, and everyone is so good to me – you let me live with you, and y-you – you give up things you care about so that I can have them, and you can spend time with me, and I just wanna help. Please, please, please let me help, please – let me do anything for you, I don’t know what else you want, I just want to make you happy – you gave me a home, and a name, and clothes – and I don’t even love you back properly or you wouldn’t feel like this, I don’t even think I can –”

Tifa stiffened. “...Who am I to you?” she asked, already dreading the answer.

Cloud wiped at his eyes, trying and failing to stem the tide. “I don’t understand.”

“Am I your friend? Are we friends?”

Cloud nodded desperately. “You’re a good person –”

“Am I your partner? Are we together?”

If anything, he seemed to be freaking out even worse. He nodded again. “If you want us to be. I don’t want to make you, I know – I know you could have anyone, but if you want to be –”

“Am I your owner?”

And without even hesitating, he nodded again harder than before, a pained grin splitting his face as tears continued to pour down it. “You gave me clothes. I love you. You’re a good person, I don’t know what else to give you – I want to make you happy, you gave me clothes –”

“Cloud, no!” She saw her own vision blur, her breathing becoming shakier. It began to hurt worse, too. “No, I’m not, can’t you see this is why –!”

“You are!” he retorted. “You are my owner, and – and it’s a good thing. It’s a good thing I have someone to help that’s kind, and likes what I can do for them...” He began to rock himself gently, and he began to distort, like ink in water. “Nobody understands. Nobody ever understands. I try to be good. I know I’m ruined and I’m afraid all the time, but I try to be good. And... everyone’s so patient, and they don’t take things from me, and – and I know it hurts them, I can smell it on them even if they don’t show it, and it matters to me. And so I have to – to do something, I just want to help, so everyone knows I understand how much they’re giving up – something I’m not just supposed to do, something that actually means something, but it’s never enough. It never feels like enough, it always feels like something I should be doing anyway, or... when it isn’t, you don’t want it.” He was clutching Tifa’s hands in his own, his grip painfully tight – or was that her own body, in the waking world? She couldn’t be sure anymore.

“Please, just let me help,” he begged. “Nobody will give me orders, and nobody will tell me what I’m supposed to do to make them happy, and I have to guess, and I’ve never in my life guessed right even once. Everyone acts like I should know, and I don’t, and I don’t know what else to give you. And you’re sick, and I’m barely even real anymore, and even though it’s hurting you, you won’t – just let me give you one single thing to help. Just once. Please. I just...”

He knelt there, head bowed, softly crying into her knees. “Let me give you one thing that’s good enough. Please, just one. That’s all I want, please –!”

He was too close now, and no longer able to hold himself together. He flew apart in a wash of grey until she couldn’t see anything else, his thoughts flooding into hers in a blur of sound and emotion:

they want you out of the way you keep getting in the way

useless can’t give them back the hours you took

look wrong men aren’t pretty you’ll never look how they want you to

selfish you’re trying to buy them off

better this time

the problem with what you’re giving them is that you’re the one giving it

She stood stock still, cold and naked, waiting for her evaluation. Not something she normally looked forward to, but this time she’d managed to run more than triple the length she had last time before collapsing from exhaustion. Surely she’d hit the milestone they were expecting her to be at at long last. Surely they’d be proud of her. They’d give her clothes back. Surely they’d be pleased. She thought it over and over again, right up until she realised they were dragging her back to the Box. She screamed and sobbed and pleaded with them as she tried desperately to claw her way out of the storage room – hadn’t she done good? Hadn’t she done what they wanted? Hadn’t she

“I’m sorry, just… I should have mentioned. My period started, and I didn’t want to say anything.”

Cloud stared at her, unsure how to respond at first. “Oh… well, er… did you just want to sleep, then?”

“That’d be nice,” said Tifa, and without another word she’d slid off the bed and undressed herself, throwing on a nightgown instead.

He lay in bed, Tifa curled up next to him, pretending to be asleep. Pretending to be on her period, too. It wasn’t as though he wouldn’t have smelled the hormones on her days in advance. Not that he went around announcing he noticed those things, not after Yuffie had informed him it was creepy when he went around providing real-time commentary on people’s bodily functions, and it was so hard to remember what humans could and couldn’t hear, or smell, or….

Would it actually matter, though, if she hadn’t known he could tell she was lying?

But… hadn’t he agreed? It wasn’t as though he could just... ask her for something this intimate on a whim, not when it was always such an ordeal, when there was so much planning involved so he wouldn’t make her sick, or break a bone or two accidentally. And it wasn’t as though either one of them would’ve preferred to top either, so he’d really, really thought she’d have appreciated that he’d actually been physically up to it this time. And she’d been the one that had asked him, after all, and he’d wanted to make sure she enjoyed it. It was for her. He couldn’t just ask.

Did she not find him attractive? Was he really that bad at it, that she didn’t even want to start? Did she miss having a girlfriend? Or was it the other way around, and he wasn’t – masculine enough? What was so wrong with his body, that she didn’t even want to touch it?

Where to start, he thought to himself bitterly.

And if it wasn’t his body – if it was just his body, maybe he could change it somehow so she’d like it – too “pretty”, guys weren’t supposed to be pretty – but if he wasn’t attentive enough, if he was too high-maintenance, if it was just so much of a hassle for her that whatever enjoyment she got out of their time together wasn’t even worth it… if it was him….

Could she tell, maybe, that there had been hands all over him for years, grasping and pulling and tearing as they pleased? That he had all but begged for them, because it was better than being left in the dark? He was suddenly acutely aware of the handprints that must be spattered all over him as ubiquitously as the scars, dark and greasy, and as clearly visible to her as they were to him, still roaming his body, inside and out. There wasn’t a single clean patch of skin left anywhere on him.

How self-centered of him, to think she’d want to touch something like that – that she’d even want him in her bed.

...It was probably him.

“You just whore yourself out to whoever’s nearby as long as it gets you what you want –”

No, Tifa wanted to think – no, that isn’t true, I know that’s not true – but he had dissolved into her now, a part of one another, thinking each others’ thoughts no matter how caustic, and she could no more make it stop than he could.

The memories were coming in faster now, more intense, and she couldn’t tell which one of them she was anymore, and she was drowning in the ink.

Cloud, screaming in agony as the white materia dropped to the ground and he crumbled away into nothing and she sat there uselessly and watched it happen.

Tifa, refusing the dessert he pushed her way; realising of course it was meaningless as a gift when it was technically her food anyway.

Cloud, lying on a bed in Cosmo Canyon, inhuman eyes vacant as she and the rest of Avalanche stood around him and watched; it had been their idea to use him against Sephiroth when they’d noticed it went both ways, not Cloud’s, and he hadn’t even complained before agreeing even though the fear on his face was obvious.

Tifa, nodding politely when he explained how Fenrir’s engine worked without any real comprehension in her eyes, knowing he’d never be able to make anything truly good for her that she’d actually want.

Cloud, looking shabbier than she’d ever seen him, casually letting slip the reminder that he’d been homeless since Meteorfall and had nothing and no one left in the world but her as he talked about how beautiful the sky was over Edge, how the rats and pigeons and who knew what other vermin would eat out of his hands now.

Zack, not accepting his extra portions, carrying him everywhere anyway.

Cloud, clay in her hands as she sat on a bench in Southampton, the extent to which they’d really mutilated him finally clear, and asking her to participate.

Cid, refusing to take back the jacket he’d given him, insisting it was a present; it was such a good jacket, Cid should own a jacket this nice, he could do without.

Aeris, smiling fondly at her as she unknowingly recounted how Cloud had latched onto the first person available to give him orders.

Aeris, warm and smelling faintly like the shampoo she’d used, as they held each other in the garden, heart still hammering in his chest from when he’d dared make the first move, half-expecting her to let go and strike him across the face for being so presumptuous as to attempt to touch her.

Cloud, passed out in a pool of his own blood and stabbed more times than they could count, skin flayed from the rain she had summoned, along with half the city, Barret’s gentle hand on her shoulder feeling more like an additional weight than a comfort.

Hojo, standing over him and demanding he actually try as he begged not to be taken back to the room with the machine in it, saying he was trying as hard as he could, that he wouldn’t tell anyone if they would just please let him go home, wanting nothing more than to be permitted to curl up and die in the ashes of his house with his [][][][][][] than continue to fail and fail and fail –

Tifa wrenched herself out of the memory, stumbling across the slick floor of the empty lab. Cloud, sickly and pale and barely more than a child, cowered on the floor, his chest still not fully healed from when he’d clawed his way down the Masamune to avenge Nibelheim.

She knelt in front of him, the wound running up from her gut all the way to her chin just barely having begun to fade into a scar, covered by the ill-fitting clothes she’d been left with when she’d woken up in Midgar alone. He slowly raised his head to meet her eyes.

Tifa offered him her hand. “I want to show you something, too.”

Cloud looked down at it, then back up at her. He slowly, hesitantly reached for it, as though fully expecting her to jerk away at the last minute.

She simply slid her fingers through his and helped him to his feet, then led him back out the door to the upstairs hallway of Seventh Heaven, and down the hall to the stairs.

They saw her in the kitchen bent over a small saucepan, which she finished stirring and emptied carefully into two mugs. Things like chocolate were finally more readily available, especially now that they’d gotten the proprietary locks off all the Shinra-owned harvesting drones, and Tifa was taking full advantage of it as often as she could. She added the finishing touches to each of their mugs (marshmallows in Cloud’s cocoa, a bit of cayenne pepper in hers, and whipped cream on top of both), then set them on the empty tray next to a couple kleina, hot out of the fryer.

She was just about to call up to Cloud to ask how he was doing when an irregular thumping noise from upstairs answered her question for her. Cloud was trying to get the skylight open, it seemed.

By the time she got upstairs, he had already given up trying to jump and unlock the window without smacking his head on the ceiling, and had opted to latch onto the wall before casually walking onto the ceiling and seating himself there. He looked up (well, down) at her briefly before returning to fiddling with the sneck.

Tifa set the tray down on the bed and sighed. “Having trouble?”

“No,” said Cloud firmly. “I almost – haha!”

The hatch clicked open, and the skylight swung upwards. Cloud immediately lost his “grip” on the ceiling and dropped like a rock into Tifa’s waiting arms.

“Of course you’re not,” she said daintily, setting him down on the floor.

“I got it open, didn’t I?” He bent his knees and leapt straight up through the hole before leaning back down through it. “Start passing me stuff.”

She sent up the tray first, and then the blankets. Then, because she didn’t believe in making things harder than they needed to be, she simply moved some of the boxes he had in the corner underneath the skylight, and climbed up after him.

They spread out one blanket underneath them and set the tray on it, then sat and huddled together under the second. Tifa looked out across Edge’s skyline and saw scores of people all over the city doing the same.

The sun had only just finished setting, leaving the cloudless winter sky deep blue, faintly warmed with red. It would be starting soon.

“...How do you not burn the milk?” asked Cloud, taking the first sip of his cocoa.

“Wind magic,” said Tifa simply. “You gotta cushion it just barely off the bottom of the pan. Like a bain-marie, almost.”

“Oh.” He took another sip. “Cool.”

She laughed a bit. “Cool” was a massive understatement, as Cloud was well-aware. Wind was incredibly rare, incredibly difficult to master, and one of the most highly destructive spells in existence. Most people always attributed a lot of difficulty to big, showy feats of power, but anyone with any real experience knew that having that level of control over a spell that devastating was an incredible display of skill. As impressive as it looked to tear down a building single-handedly, it was nowhere near as difficult or underappreciated as the little things. The little things were always harder.

“Are you sure you’re up to it this time?” she asked suddenly. “Because if you want to go back inside –”

“I’m sure,” said Cloud.

He looked nervous anyway. Nervous and guilty.

“...Do you think you could talk for a bit, though?” he added.

“What about?”

“Anything you like.”

“Well...”

She cast her mind around for conversation topics. She had worried, at first, about boring him. If anything she talked about bothered him, though, he had yet to show it. He seemed to genuinely enjoy listening to just about anyone ramble at him, which meant that if anything she wanted to chat about with her coworkers was deemed too stupid or uninteresting to listen to, Cloud was still guaranteed to be enthralled by it. Cloud was an excellent listener.

So this time, it was about her earrings, something people from the city wouldn’t give a rat’s ass about.

“It was always something I regretted a lot, you know, Mama not getting to pierce my ears,” she said. “Papa had to take me to get it done instead. And Mama had planned to leave me this pair she’d always had, but when I was really young we found out I was allergic to them anyway. So Papa gave me these ones instead.” She gestured to the teardrop-shaped ones she was wearing right now. “They were his father’s. I think he might’ve gotten them from my great grandmama, but I can’t remember.”

Cloud nodded. There was something in his expression she couldn’t quite place.

“He put away Mama’s earrings for later,” said Tifa. “In case I ever made a family of my own, and I could pass them on.”

She didn’t continue. She didn’t need to. Like everything else about their home, it had been lost in the fire a long time ago.

“...I think, if I still had them,” said Tifa, “I’d have given them to you.”

Cloud shrugged. “It’s okay. I got myself some anyway.” He gestured to the cheap, unadorned metal studs in his ears he’d picked up from a shop in the slums. Probably just aluminium. Maybe even lead. Impersonal and mass-produced. Nobody’s family would ever pass on something like that.

She had an idea then, and opened her mouth to voice it aloud when the first firework went off.

“Oh, shit.” Cloud frowned, digging his phone out of his pocket and checking the time. “I guess it’s six thirty already.”

Tifa nodded and leaned against him, taking a sip of her own drink as he started on his kleina.

The sky was awash with light and colour. She faintly wished she’d actually plucked up the courage to ride that gondola with him.

She could hear him taking deep, slow breaths, saw him fiddling with the bandage around his wrist hiding his serial number out of the corner of her eye. She squeezed his hand a little, and felt him settle a little bit more into her side.

“You really don’t have to do this for me,” she said again, between the fizzling out of one firework, and the bang of the next.

Cloud looked up from his bandage and stared at her. “...Why would I not? I’m here, aren’t I?”

“...Yeah, but –”

“Not even hiding or anything,” he said, and there was the barest hint of pride in his voice. He cleared his throat self-consciously. “I mean – it’s not like you dragged me up here. And you’ve been looking forward to doing this, and… I mean, unless you don’t want me here. You did, right?”

“...Are you doing it because you want to, though? I know this isn’t –”

“I couldn’t imagine not wanting to do this for you,” said Cloud simply. “I’m up here because I decided to be here.”

He offered her a rare smile, then turned his eyes skyward. The first stars were beginning to emerge, barely peeking out behind flashes of red and gold.

“...Sometimes I forget,” he said, more to himself than to her, “it goes on forever, doesn’t it?”

“Happy New Year,” she said quietly.

“Happy New Year.”

They sat on the roof behind themselves, watching silently.

“...I wish I remembered this,” said Cloud quietly. “I don’t know how much is left of me anymore.”

Tifa squeezed his hand. “It’s okay. I’m glad you got to see it now.”

“Me too.”

The fireworks were indistinct now. The sky rippled with red and gold.

“...How can I prove it to you?” he asked. “So you’ll take my body. How can I prove I’m giving it to you because – because I love you, and not just because you’re my owner?”

“I’m not,” she said. She rubbed at her own eyes. Three now. It seemed she remembered she had them. “I refuse to be.”

Cloud sat there for a moment, then at last said, “...I can’t make you be one, either, can I?”

“No.”

“Then how do I prove it?”

“...I don’t know.”

The gold faded.

“I don’t, either,” said Cloud softly.

The sky was burning, the ugly red colour of an open wound.

“...When you infected yourself,” asked Cloud, “did you do it because you chose to? Or because you thought you didn’t have a choice?”

“...I don’t know,” said Tifa after a moment.

“...Sometimes it can feel good, I think,” said Cloud. “Control. Or, the illusion of it, anyway.”

“It’s never felt good to me,” said Tifa.

She blinked. Cloud was still cradling her body as they sat there in the bed in Junon, breathing in, and out, and in again.

“Please, take it,” he whispered. “Just for a bit. As long as you need it. You can stop hurting.”

Out. Back in again. Out.

“...You sure?” she rasped.

Cloud brushed a bit of hair out of her face again.

“...If you’re not my owner,” he said, “then that means it’s mine to give.”

She gave his hand another squeeze, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes as Cloud let out a quiet gasp of surprise.

She flowed into him, like she had in Southampton: There was no resistance, the whole of him laid bare to her, intertwined so deeply into her it got hard to tell where he ended and she began. An extension of her, the place where his will had been ready and waiting to become hers, as though it had always been meant for her. She let her mind drift further into his, overtaking it, tearing her attention away from the body lying cradled in her own arms, until the pain was a distant ache in another part of her flesh, disconnected from this one.

She stared down at it, watching its chest slowly rise and fall, then at the unfamiliar hands intertwined with its fingers.

She hefted the other body into an easier carrying position and tucked it out of the way against the corner of the bed before closing its empty eyes. She wouldn’t be needing it for now.

“Thank you,” she said out loud, in an unfamiliar voice, for whatever part of Cloud was able to listen and appreciate it in this state. It felt strange, as though she were thanking herself.

Maybe she was. Maybe it had always been this way.

Notes:

ADDITIONAL ART:

Asin drew Tifa having herself a snack or perhaps a tasty meal everyone please go look at it right now thanks.

Masterqueef drew the girl dinner also.

Chapter 56: Tifa Falls Asleep

Notes:

WELP I missed the August 19th update window so that sucks. Also it was decided (by me) at the last minute to split this chapter a bit, since 57 was looking a bit threadbare and I didn't want it cutting into 58 for, er... reasons. Plus this will make updates go faster.

BUT WHO CARES FANART HOORAY EVERYONE IS DRAWING ME FUCKED UP TIFAS AND I AM LIVING FOR IT. Once again I am bad at organising bookmarks so if I missed your art do not feel shy about messaging me to share it with everyone!

Thank you very much Bear for drawing this Tifa, who absolutely could not be faulted for picking smoking back up given this mess.

And thank you to Ash as well for drawing this fucking incredible rendition of a very fucked up Tifa just having a time of it in chapter 54/55. Content warning for tasteful nudity and body horror/gore.

And speaking of which, this chapter contains graphic depictions of body horror and gore. Do I even still need to warn for that at this point? It's in the tags three times and I think there's maybe only one chapter in this whole fic that doesn't have that going on somewhere. idk

Thanks to Tofu, Billie, and Bel for the beta work.

Aeris clambered up the last bit of sideways cliff onto the road, and into the city of Junon.

Or was it a town? It was a bit hard for Aeris to tell. The tumbledown fishing village, painted all manner of bright colours, had little architecturally in common with the grimy, neon wall of steel and concrete hunkering over it like a vulture. The sun slanted through a massive section that seemed to have been knocked through a hole in the road, and the water on the beach was crystal clear.

It was clear enough, in fact, that even through the window of the house they were staying in she could see straight through to the bottom, where twenty feet from the shore a bunch of electrical cables laid out along the ocean floor. The sand was pristine and white, and it took Aeris a moment to realise there weren't even the remains of seaweed that had washed ashore.

The houses themselves were harder to parse. They looked like houses, until she tried to actually focus on a particular detail of them, and then they dissolved into an indistinct jumbled mess of red girders and blue shingle rooftops. Sometimes complete strangers would appear and disappear in front of her, no more certain as to how they'd turned a corner in their own home and wound up in this one than she was. Her best guess was that there was an extra spatial dimension present that had been forcibly added. Zack, on the other hand, was convinced that they were periodically losing one, and not a one of their lists of qualia on what they were seeing ever seemed to line up. Strangely enough, Zack didn't seem too fussed about it. Or much else, for that matter.

"I'll be fine. Not even the first time he punched me in the face," he'd said bitterly as they'd given him a couple barbiturates and a small paper cup of something blue and oily-looking for "spell exhaustion".

They'd insisted she have a dose as well as a precaution, even as she'd tried to explain she wasn't even capable of magic. They didn't seem to understand. Or perhaps it was a grandparent thing. The stuff didn't taste half as awful as she expected, but it had a grainy texture that seemed to stick to her teeth even after several swigs of water.

Tifa and Zack had both needed surgery. Zack's was, all things considered, somewhat minor given his physiology. Tifa's had been touch-and-go from the sound of things, Zack donating blood he himself was already running low on and Cloud not even there to talk to as she watched them both lying in bed...

...and in the end, it hadn't done much more than buy them time.

She'd found herself pacing circles around specific cigarette burns in the rug to the point where even when she looked down in completely different places -- including outside -- she still saw them.

The walls of the building they were in were warping and changing from moment to moment anyway, so was it really that much of a stretch to imagine that the repeated scraping of breath through Tifa's lungs, the staticky presence of Cloud's barely-there outline, the way Cid and Barret exchanged uncomfortable murmurs about staying in this city for too long, Zack's uneasy shifting in his sleep, the contents of her bag sitting in the corner, were all causing the world to close in around her?

She looked around the room for anything familiar. The shapes of Barret and Cid seemed filled by something else -- like there was something moving behind them, behind the walls, the ceiling, the sky itself, ready to burst forth. One of the things she'd originally recognised as Cid turned its head towards her, peering out from the lump of flesh topping the misshapen pillar of its body with wet sensory orbs in the recesses in its surface that jittered and jumped about to focus on her. She almost gagged. The walls were wrong, the ceiling was wrong, the people were wrong. She hated looking at it all. She hated it.

Cloud's anguished face still filled her vision every time she closed her eyes. It wasn't a surprise to anyone what, exactly, had dealt the killing blow to his ego -- ego as in everything he was, ego as in the only thing keeping him upright, and not ego as in her own stupid, short-sighted belief that this was ever going to go anywhere but south.

And for what? Whatever he'd been talking about, what did it even mean that some warped fragment of her mother's mind had sensed her own genome in some man from another universe and spoke to him? What would the point of that be?

She had a job to do. Sephiroth had been right -- none of the others were necessary to stop this. In fact, she'd demonstrably done more harm than good to all of them by involving them in the first place. The Jenova Project, what it had done to their Planet, to the Cetra, to humans, to people she had, at one point, considered her friends; all in the name of some long-dead remnant of her mother still trying to create waypoints, to spread the pattern so that she, Aeris, might one day continue it...

Cloud and Tifa were just two more people that were rotting, and she didn’t want or need to stick around to watch.

She left. She had to.

The clothes she swiped from the airship didn't quite fit her, but they were better than nothing. She didn't have a destination in mind as she started walking, other than "away." She took her bag with her to find some place quiet to work. That wasn't going to be lower Junon.

So, here she was. A city on the Planet, just like she'd always wanted to visit.

And it was beautiful, in its own alien way. There were places that looked familiar, the kinds of things that she would see walking around Reading. Stairs were stairs, windows were windows, lamps were lamps. Some things -- some sort of holographic display advertising a storefront – pointed to technology leaps and bounds above Earth's own. Others, like the prevalence of wiring for landline phones, strung over and down from the buildings, were behind. None of it was slick or polished or inviting -- it was just used, the way a bus or a road or an overgrown backyard would be.

The creatures -- humans, she knew they were humans, why did they suddenly look wrong? -- swarmed around her on the street. She felt certain they were watching her. Some of them swept across the walls of buildings along with the phone lines like insects. She turned and ran through the nearest door, not caring that the doorframe it was hanging in wasn't actually attached to anything.

She turned and ran. She needed to get out. She needed to leave, she needed to be anywhere else but here.

Aeris tore down stairs in the alleyways, the graffiti on the walls teeming with eyes the deeper she went, as though she were descending into the belly of some enormous beast.

Her foot skidded against mud-slicked grass, and she stumbled to a halt.

Huh?

She smacked headlong directly into someone's torso, causing him to draw breath in a sharp hiss of pain. She immediately let out a shriek and lashed out with the barrel of her gun.

"Fuck puta shit god dammit come mie --"

Aeris stumbled backwards as Zack staggered away from the blow and continued to swear angrily, his nose now dribbling blood, the sunglasses he'd been wearing clattering to the ground.

"Sorry!" she cried.

"It figures, doesn't it?" he groaned, holding his nose, blinking hard. Aside from that, if she hadn't seen him get run through herself a few days ago she'd have never been able to guess it had happened at all. "Who knows, maybe Tifa will get a swing or two in before --" he cut himself off, still wincing. Aeris remembered why she'd left, and turned once more to walk away.

"Hey, wait!" he called out, snatching up the glasses and jogging to catch up to her. "They sent me out here to find you. Come on back, everyone's been worried sick."

"I'm fine. I just need some space to work." She gestured with her bag. "I was the one here with a plan, remember?"

"If you say so. Though if you ask me, I think some company would do you good."

"...I rather doubt it."

"Ah, wait, yeah. You'd have to admit you were upset first. I know this is pretty rich coming from me, but you should try sleeping more," he said to her. He might have stopped putting on the movie star bullshit, but the fact that he never shut up seemed innate. "You'll feel less shitty."

"I don't feel shitty," said Aeris automatically. "It's just a lot to think about."

Zack rolled his eyes. "You know, even by British people standards you're pretty insufferable," he muttered, rubbing his nose, which was beginning to go red and swell up. "If you wanna talk about it -- I mean, I dunno if I can help, but if you wanted to talk..."

"What's there to talk about?"

“Aeris, for fuck’s sake, I got stabbed in the heart. If I was – if I’d still been… human, I would have died. Hell, you almost died. At least twice that I saw, who knows how things went with Tifa. Plus… y’know. Tseng, Lazard, Cissnei… Angeal. It’s a lot.”

“I’m well aware,” said Aeris flatly. Zack just grimaced.

"It isn't your fault, you know. You were the one that wanted to -- do the right thing," said Zack. "Wasn't me. All you."

"This is my mess. It's my responsibility to fix it. It doesn't matter whose fault it is."

"It doesn't," said Zack. "You're right. But you want it to."

"Are you always this much of a hypocrite," said Aeris, "or do you save it for me?"

Zack winced. "Alright -- look. Just... if you're not gonna head back, can you at least stay closer? Barret says the city isn't safe. I mean -- do you have any idea how hard it is to track a scent trail through literal nothing?"

"Why would it be more or less safe than anywhere else?" retorted Aeris. "The entire world is falling apart. Distance is more relative than it ever was before. Who's to say you're even standing in front of me? I could be imagining this entire conversation."

"I don't know, but -- look, it can't hurt, right?"

"The only one it isn't safe for is you," said Aeris pointedly, tapping where a pair of glasses would be on her own face.

"Okay," said Zack, letting out a thick huff through his mouth. He gingerly slid his own glasses back on, wincing again when they made contact with the bridge of his nose. "Okay, fine. But -- I also came out here to -- Nanaki has more experience with the scent thing, but I volunteered. I need to speak to you in private. About the transcript."

"...What about it?"

"I wanted to ask you in private first what you took out, and if it's anything we should know now that... circumstances have changed."

"This isn't right," began Aeris. "There were a lot of private things in there that Cloud didn't want anyone to see --"

"Look, I'd just liked to have known in advance that first contact was gonna involve me playing one-man suicide watch," said Zack. His voice didn't carry any resentment (somehow, and Aeris couldn't even begin to fathom why), but his expression made it clear in no uncertain terms he wanted detailed answers from her. Which was rather unfair in her opinion, as she'd done everything she could to try and forget all the details of what she'd seen -- felt --

"There's really nothing you don't know at this point," she said uncomfortably. "...He's very lonely. They cut things out, put other things in. It went on for several years."

"This isn't fair," said Zack. "Not to either of us. It's one thing if you won't even talk to me about yourself, but..."

"Arguably, talking about someone else in this amount of detail is worse."

"Aeris, we're supposed to be friends. If you won't talk to Tifa, or me, then -- look," he said, "I'm sorry about... your mother. I really am. But you --"

"I'm fine. I thought we were talking about Cloud. Which I'm not alright with either, by the way."

"So you know. You know you're not the only one going through this, and you're still..." he sighed. "You can't even hear the damn thing. At the very least, you'll probably need us to --"

"How have you been holding up?"

Zack scowled at her. "Are you asking because you give a shit, or because you're deflecting? Because right now the answer is, 'Shitty, because my friend Aeris just up and bailed on us.'"

Aeris did not manage to come up with an answer quickly enough. She wasn't sure if she cared for this new Zack that was capable of sincerity, and, therefore, actually being mad at her.

"Fuck, I'm sorry, I don't... I don't know why I said that," he muttered anyway. "You're -- look, I get that it's a lot to deal with. Just..."

"I told you," said Aeris, "I'm fine. And you're right, I can't... I can't hear her." She hesitated a moment before continuing. "...What is she saying now?"

"Nothing I can put into words," said Zack. "Cloud calls it music." He gave a halfhearted shrug, as though he hadn't decided whether or not this was actually true.

"...You saw her, then? In the space between. What did she look like?"

"She didn't look like anything," said Zack. "It's -- it's hard to explain. It's like... hell, maybe music makes sense, a little. It's like a song you can't get out of your head -- this pattern that keeps repeating itself, until it's all you can think about, but then it just kept going, and it was all that there was. And then it's too late. You know the pattern, and you can't ever not know it, it's already part of how you think, what you are..." He shook his head. "It's like -- you know, you look out at infinity every night and never think twice about it, and you realise your infinity was a shitty, small one. And there are more infinities coming that just keep cramming themselves into the world, and --"

"That must have been her," said Aeris. "It was Mum, spreading the pattern. All I have to do is just -- reach her somehow, and --"

"Aeris, that's not her anymore," urged Zack. "It wasn't Ifalna, it wasn't human -- it wasn't even a person anymore. It's just a pattern. That's all it is, is the pattern that's been basting in inaccessible cardinals for god knows how long, and the knowledge that it needs to repeat itself, and whatever pieces of the space in between leak out through it after it worms its way into your head."

Aeris said nothing at first. Then:

"...So then... why did Cloud say she spoke to him? Why did you think she might have been speaking to me?"

Zack looked away guiltily. "...Look, that isn't -- it's not the same. If anything, it's more proof she's gone. She's been nothing but a set of ideas for billions of --"

"How do you know? Would you know her if you saw her? That was your one job, wasn't it?"

"Would you?" said Zack flatly.

"What did she say to Cloud?"

"...You should ask him yourself."

"Well, then so should you."

"Ask him what?" said a man's polite, clipped voice behind them.

The two of them whirled around to find Cloud standing there looking bemused, his eyes an eerie, glowing amber.

Cloud's body -- her friend whom she cared about, even if he did scare the shit out of her -- now had someone sitting beneath his skin, moving his face the wrong way. He bit his lip the way she'd seen Tifa do about a hundred times by now, but with his face....

"Hello. Sorry," he tried again. "Ask him what?"

 

---

 

Being Cloud felt beyond strange.

For one thing, there was the mechanical weirdness of occupying two bodies at once, even if Tifa was barely paying attention to one. The one she was in control of now actually felt weirdly accommodating, offering as much control as she had over her own -- which, she supposed, was perhaps the point. Cloud had been literally engineered for this, after all.

For another, being Cloud felt like being Cloud. She could feel his will under hers, thoughts and memories arranged like foam on water, waiting for her to descend. She bore down on one, and it sputtered out of his mind. She gently eased up, and they began to accumulate again. She could guide them this way and that as she pleased, as easily as wipe them out altogether, or slip herself inside them, feeling them crackle around and through her. It wasn't just his body she was taking over, like wearing some sort of meat suit -- it was Cloud, himself. His thoughts, his memories, his emotions, the quiet hum of his mind.

Well -- he'd given her permission. He trusted her with it.

The usual dread that accompanied that sentiment was absent. He trusted her, and that was it. Whatever had happened to him to shape his will, he did in fact still have one, and he'd given it to her for the time being.

She let herself expand in his mind, filling it entirely, allowing it effectively to become her own body. She'd need to do this a bit, at least to get used to moving. It was a little creepy, staring down at her real one on the bed, looking for all the world like a corpse but for the steady rise and fall of its chest. She paced around the room a few times, getting accustomed to his gait. They were pretty close to one another in height, but it was strange being this slight in build. Maybe it had been easier for Aeris; she was nothing but skin and bone herself. Perhaps she didn't have regular access to food where she was from. She'd have to see about cooking her lunch if they all made it out of this. She'd have to plan out a proper meal for everyone, come to that: Cloud and Zack had visibly lost weight over the last couple weeks since she'd previously seen them, and she and Aeris had been surviving off junk food long enough that her insides had started to feel like she'd scraped them out with a greasy wire brush.

She eased up a bit once again, to allow his will to form some thoughts of its own, and spoke to Cloud.

You okay? she asked.

She received a dreamy, absent mmhm in reply. Then he added, Did you do it yet?

...Yeah, she said. I did it already.

She felt their face smile. I'm glad. I wasn't sure.

She realised this was effectively what Sephiroth had done when Cloud had staggered forward to act as his hands, informing them later that he hadn't even thought to question it, only perceiving it as good and right to do, as natural as his own actions. He probably wouldn't perceive anything Tifa made him do as her actions until after she left, if he noticed at all. Sephiroth had, for the most part, been subtle about a lot of his manipulations. To this day, they still weren't sure about parts of it.

Retroactively, it made her a little ill to think how much of him Sephiroth, let alone the people that had done this to him, had had access to. How little he could do about any of it.

Would it be more or less rude to him if she just outright forced him to do things that were clearly her own inclinations, rather than leave him to wonder? He'd said he was fine with both, but --

No. He'd said he was fine with both. It was okay. It was okay for her to be here. This was for her. She trusted him.

It was actually nice to think of things that way for once. It was okay. This was for her. The smile returned to their face, and now it was her sustaining it.

She looked up to see Barret suddenly standing there, and her body and the bed it was lying in absent. She could still sense "where" it was, which must have been Reunion instinct, maybe... she'd have to ask Cloud later.

Barret was staring at her in disbelief. Tifa realised she was still smiling, and quickly stopped.

"It's me," she said. "Tifa, I mean. This way I can still -- y'know, move around. Talk. Get things done."

"...What's wrong with bedrest?" asked Barret, still looking unnerved.

"Hurt too much," said Tifa. "And... we had a talk. About a lot of things." She offered another gentle smile. "It's okay. Really."

"He agreed to this?" asked Barret. "Thought this was his worst fear, somethin' like that."

She let out a small huff of amusement at that, which confused Barret even further.

"In a way," said Tifa. "But... in some ways, I think he enjoys it, too." She quietly sighed, even as she reminded herself it wouldn't do any good to go down that particular train of thought again. "It's -- well, you know how he is. But he can always say no later, if he wants. So can I." She knew what he was, he knew what he was. He knew she knew. That was fine. What he was was also a person.

She was here, too, making him know it. She knew he was Cloud, who had very fluffy hair that refused to lay flat, and who liked bringing their family presents, and who was programmed to want to serve through years of conditioning and torture, and who was afraid of loud bangs and the smell of gunfire, and who was fond of trash animals, and whose favourite food was fresh bread with blueberries and honey baked in. She knew that, and he was here knowing it beside her, and he was as firm and solid and here in the real world (or what was left of it) as he had ever been.

And because she was occupying his mind, she also knew that he was aware of Tifa, who was good and kind and tired and gentle, and she fought down the urge to flush as she had him think it a bit harder so she could commit it to memory, before returning to her longtime friend Barret now staring at her, or perhaps Cloud, as though they'd both gone completely mad.

"Well.. shit. Was gonna talk to Cloud, but I guess I'll talk to you." He lowered his voice. "...I don't wanna stay here for too long. There's too many ex-Shinra in Junon. You know the ones."

Tifa nodded. "We could leave, I guess. But I don't know where we'd go. Where even are we right now? I never left the bedroom, it just -- wasn't here anymore. Where would we leave to?"

"Rocket Town, maybe," said Barret. "Or Wutai, if we're up for travelling that long. We found Cloud, ain't got reasons to stick around this continent waiting for our enemies to catch up to us."

"I could go round up the others," said Tifa. "Do you think the airship is ready to go yet?"

Barret was still staring at her.

"...What?"

"Just weird," said Barret. "Hearing you talk like that, with that voice."

"What about it?"

"The accent," said Barret.

"Cloud has the same accent as I do," Tifa objected.

"No he don't," said Barret. "You're just used to it. He went outta his way to lose his. You didn't. You be talkin' all Midgar with it, though; he still talks like a hick."

"He still has an accent," Tifa insisted. "You just don't listen right."

"Hey -- you think Aeris knows she learned Standard from some central-east wannabe?" asked Barret.

"...Where is Aeris?"

"Stepped out," said Barret. "Hours ago. Ain't checked in since. Don't like to hang around here, I guess, but -- that was the other thing. This time, she took her bag."

Tifa rolled her eyes. "She didn't listen to a damn word I said."

"I sent Zack out to find her," said Barret. "He ain't come back yet either."

"I'll find them," said Tifa. "Shouldn't be too hard. Er." She hesitated for a moment, chewing their lip. "...If it's okay with you, could you load my body onto the airship? I don't wanna leave it here."

"Thought you was gonna use Cloud's?"

"...If it comes to that," she said. "I'm hoping it won't. This is just for now."

There were a lot of reasons she didn't want it to die, some of them probably pretty obvious, but the one weighing on her mind the most right now was that if she had to take over this one permanently, she couldn't really hold his hand anymore.

Speaking of which -- "...Gonna look for Aeris," she said. "Be back soon."

Stepping out of the door to the room she was in, Tifa emerged in an empty room overhanging a wide chasm of "kitchen" -- or rather, the idea of it. Pipes and shelves repeated fractally, some of them large enough to go on for several metres, others no bigger than her thumb. Tacky curtains opened up to the red sky outside and the washed out yellow-purple of upper Junon's light pollution over the sea alike. The tiles repeated over vast stretches of wall and floor, until they started warping themselves into patterns that made her head hurt just looking at them.

Cloud? she asked, withdrawing a bit again.

Mm?

How do I walk on sideways things?

You just do it.

Yes, but... she fretted. She sifted through what remained of Cloud's memories -- and the even smaller scraps of Sephiroth's, now reduced to pure information -- to try and find anything helpful.

What she found was that the trick was, in fact, to just do it.

Well, she was nothing if not a professional mountaineer. She hauled herself down over the side and began climbing down.

It became clear eventually that she'd have never made this trip with the condition her body was in. She'd been climbing for a couple hours now with no end in sight.

In fact (not that she'd ever admit it to him out loud), it was a lot easier to climb in his body than hers -- her skill and training pairing nicely with his slight frame. The strange centre of balance was something she was still getting used to, but Cloud's body had its own muscle memory to supplement hers. Did they specifically train Shinra infantry in parkour, or had he gone out of his way to learn it in his ill-fated bid to make it into Soldier?

She dropped down from the ledge of another counter and landed with a thump into one of the identical compartment-like rooms combing Junon's outer wall. MPs rushed past her, klaxons blaring over the speakers.

Gunfire rattled throughout the halls. Over her shoulder she caught a glimpse of Barret hiding behind cover, his arm bearing the old model of gatling gun he'd had before Meteorfall. Beside him huddled Reeve, obdurately fumbling with the magazine of a rifle he'd clearly pillaged off a corpse, his jaw set with resolve. They looked harried and worn, frequently checking the watch on Reeve's wrist, but they did not look afraid.

She continued climbing, the ocean spraying the metal below her. Her grip slipped, and she tumbled down the hall and landed on the barrel of the Junon cannon.

She shook her head and pinched herself hard. The cannon did not go away.

Well -- she'd made it to upper Junon, somehow, but not by walking in the direction she knew it should be. Where was she?

My child...

The voice -- not Cloud's, not even human -- lanced through her head, and she fell to her knees and winced. The world greyed and began to fall away.

Let me in let me in let me in let me in –

The call to Reunion did not tug the way it had -- the way she could already tell was pulling Cloud -- but it was horrifyingly loud. She frantically pulled them away, forced him to think about the first thing that popped into her head, and took a deep breath to ground herself. It was obvious to her she was a distinct entity from Zack, but it was less obvious that she was a distinct entity from Jenova.

From Ifalna? Did She still count as the same person in this state?

The voices in her head got louder. Cloud was still insistently contemplating a stew recipe for Aeris that he probably didn't even understand in the first place.

"...pattern, didn't I? I rebuilt it from almost nothing..."

That wasn't Jenova. Tifa blinked a couple times and looked around.

"That's not what I was asking. Forget it."

It wasn't even in her head anymore.

Zack and Aeris were before her in the colourless remains of the city. Zack was nursing a bloody nose, but seemed otherwise unharmed. Aeris was still holding that goddamn gun -- incorrectly -- and was plainly upset.

"What did my mother say to Cloud?"

"...You should ask him yourself."

"Ask him what?" asked Tifa.

They startled violently, and turned around to face her.

"Hello. Sorry. Ask him what?" she asked. "What are you going to ask him?" She gestured to the gun and smiled. "You should really put that away, you know. You're gonna put an eye out like that."

They stared at her.

They kept staring. They stared some more.

"What?"

"...Cloud?" asked Aeris.

Tifa shook her head. "...It's me. Hi."

"'It's you'?"

"Tifa," she replied.

"...Oh."

They were still staring. Tifa quickly added, "Cloud said I could, it was his idea --"

"I'm not angry," said Aeris. "It's just -- strange. Seeing it from the outside."

Zack shrugged. "Honestly, it's about time."

"Zack!" Aeris objected.

"Us cool kids have been using Cloud's body for ages," he said. "Took you long enough."

Aeris buried her face in her hands, mirroring Cloud's -- rather, Tifa's -- own rapidly reddening face.

"At least I asked permission first," Tifa mumbled.

"Wait... how are you even doing this?" asked Aeris, leaning in to have a closer look. "Where's -- where's the rest of you?"

"Still in Lettie's guest bed," said Tifa. "We're both infected, and," she frowned in distaste, "and this was technically one of his... his built-in functions, what they did to him, so -- it was his idea, I swear --"

"Man that's creepy," murmured Zack. "It's the eyes, mostly. Like, you can tell it's not him staring at you anymore. And not just because of the colour."

"How do you think it felt watching you two do it?"

"Well, you sound a lot better," said Aeris, still looking bemused. "You both do, I suppose."

Tifa frowned. "And you both look worse. Do you have any idea how unsafe this was? What if you couldn't find your way back?"

"Look, I just came out here to find her --" began Zack. Tifa held up a finger to silence him.

"You. Why'd you leave? I thought -- we came all this way to get this data, and you just leave with it?"

"I'm going to use it," said Aeris. "I would've come back eventually."

"You can't --" began Zack again. Tifa held up her finger more insistently.

"You don't need to run off into the streets of a city you've never even been to to use the data," said Tifa. "This was stupid, Aeris."

"I need somewhere quiet to work."

"Great, we'll clear a room for you." Tifa scowled. "I'm getting just about sick and tired of watching people run off to die like they think it's helping. Did you think you were sparing our feelings?"

"I already told her --" interjected Zack. He received another hiss from Tifa in reply.

"I know it would've upset you," said Aeris, her voice still evenly pleasant, smiling politely, "and I'm sorry for that. But this was something only I could do. I was going to come back, I just --"

"Aeris, you're not taking on this burden any more than you would've if you'd just stayed put," said Tifa flatly. "...It'll be there no matter what. But -- that's the whole point of this, isn't it?"

"'This'?"

"This!" pressed Tifa, gesturing emphatically. "Everything! Everything we've been doing, the whole reason we get up in the morning, is to at least try and -- and be there. I -- I know I've been stupid about that, but..." she sighed. "Look, at least come back to the airship. Aeris, you can't keep living like this --"

"Pardon?" said Aeris sweetly, her teeth gritted. "Tifa Lockhart is going to tell me how I can and can't live my life? Just because your stupid boyfriend tries to blow his own brains out if he goes more than ten minutes without being told what to do doesn't mean we all do."

...Don't hit Aeris you'll break her neck don't hit her don't hit her don't --

"You know what's a bad way to keep living?" said Aeris, her teeth still bared in that sunny smile. "Pretending you're not hearing voices in your head until one day you snap and bite the person nearest to you. And for what? So you could feel better about not being 'inconvenient'? You know what would have been inconvenient? If Cissnei had died because you'd bitten her. I should be dead, you had no way of knowing I was immune."

Behind her, Zack glanced pointedly at Tifa. Meant for Cloud, clearly. She had certainly never bitten him.

"You think you know what's best for me, and Cloud, and everyone else around you, and you know very well you don't have a single bloody idea what you're doing because you've been burnt out for years, and look where it's gotten you now! And in the meantime -- you know, you probably were itching to eat him that entire trip, picking fights with him every ten fucking minutes, no wonder he boiled over and tried to kill us all -- you were the only one with him on the ship, Cloud and Zack and I were out on the bridge, so god only knows what you said to him -- he could have helped us -- helped me to save you all, and now we can't because he's superdead or something and you ate his soul, and all because you didn't want to set aside ten minutes to just talk about this like an adult."

The shock must have caused Tifa's control of Cloud to lapse momentarily, because it was he that hesitantly spoke up to say, "Don't -- don't talk to her that way. What else could she have even done that --"

"And you!" Aeris spat, advancing on him further. "You're just as bad as she is. God, it's no wonder you had no friends. I bet they tried and got absolutely fucking sick of tiptoeing around you, because oh no, we mustn't hurt Cloud's feelings, oh look how sweet he is we can't possibly tell him he exhausts everyone around him and doesn't have a personality, and that was before everyone knew you could kill them all if you ever felt like doing it! Maybe you should've been locked up! They should've left you there, where it would've been safer for everyone else and you couldn't set anyone on fire or bite them or boil the entire sea or demand everyone's time and energy just by bloody existing when you've never done a damn thing in your life that should convince other people they should give it to you, you just -- you worm your way into everything else in people's lives. Like a parasite. Because that's literally what you are, aren't you, as in biologically, and you run in and steal everyone's time and energy and mothers, because god forbid either of you ever just talk about your problems --"

"Aeris, what the fuck?!" shouted Zack at her. She rounded on him instead.

"And I see you're already completely bought into his bullshit, aren't you? Got comfortable, started thinking maybe he knew what you were going through, even a little bit, or cared about you at all. Well, I'll tell you a secret: He doesn't. He doesn't give a rat's ass about you, he doesn't even have feelings the way other people do. He told me himself. And you knew that, didn't you? Which is why you came crawling to me, after the bridgings, after we met up. And I'll tell you another secret, which is that I don't care about you either." Her hands were shaking as badly as her voice. "You were here to help me with my project. That's all. It never meant to any of you what it meant to me. God, at least he's a freak of nature. The rest of you, what's your excuse? Do you know what it's like to sit there and have to talk with people that fundamentally can't care about how you're feeling, and then come back and tell you they're worried about you? How -- how dare you?!"

She turned back to Tifa, drawn up to her full height, daring her to reply.

Instead, Tifa began to laugh.

She almost stopped right then and there out of surprise, forgetting for a moment it would be Cloud's voice she was laughing with -- and there was another rush of surprise that got her started all over again, because it was his laugh, even out of her mouth, and she was realising how incredibly good it felt to hear it after this long. Hell, how long it had been since either of them had really laughed, period.

"What the fuck is so funny about what I just said?!" she snapped.

"Well -- your timing is a little off, for one," said Tifa. "And for another, I'll be expecting an apology later. And for a third, you're really bad at this aren't you?"

There was an awful twisting feeling in her chest now, apparently coming from Cloud. She smoothed his own emotions away for the time being; she needed to think straight, and she couldn't do that while feeling all-encompassing gut-wrenching betrayal and, well... a bit sad, honestly, that she was watching this happen.

Aeris stood there seething at her. Tifa sighed. The air seemed hazy with tension.

...And haze. The air was hazy. What...?

Aeris collapsed on top of her, out cold, and Tifa didn't have time to voice a warning to Zack about the sleeping spell to make a run for it before she too drifted off to sleep where she stood.

 

---

 

"Listen very carefully and don't move."

Tifa awoke with a groan to find a bag obstructing her field of vision.

“Those cuffs are hollow and filled with wires. If the current is interrupted by either magical interference or, say, someone ripping through the metal, it’ll detonate the bombs around your neck.”

She froze. She knew that voice.

The familiar cold metal of a gun barrel was pressed against her chin, but the sack was at last removed from her head.

Taking stock of the situation, her feet were similarly bound, the collar around her neck clipped to the wall. She couldn't see Zack from where she was sitting and couldn't really sit up properly in order to see, but she could hear him struggling somewhere next to her. To her other side, she watched another man she didn't recognise removing a burlap sack from Aeris's head.

She managed to crane her head just enough to see Rude staring at her through the green haze of the electrified forcefield keeping them in.

Welp. As far as Turks they could've been nabbed by, Rude wasn't the worst. He'd been sweet on her, according to Reno. Maybe she could use that to her advantage.

Two more Turks appeared in the space in front of their cell. For what felt like an eternity, nobody said a word. Tifa held her ground.

"You're in charge, right?" said one of the men to Tifa. She blinked in surprise, before remembering whose face she was wearing. There went Plan A.

"So much for our truce, I guess?" she said coldly.

"You're the one that broke it," said Rude flatly. "We saw what you did to Reno."

"That wasn't me."

"Who else would it be?" He turned his attention to Zack, who was keeping unnaturally still, determinedly not looking at the gun aimed at his own head. "And you. What's your story?"

"I-I don't have a story. I do science."

"I'll bet you do," said one of the other Turks. Tifa craned her neck a bit harder and realised with a small jolt it was Elena. "Your physiology's obviously Soldier, but for whatever reason we can't find any records of you ever being born, let alone on Shinra's payroll. Sound familiar?"

"I don't understand what you mean," croaked Zack, his face completely grey.

"Sure you don't. What about you?" said Rude. He was looking at Aeris now. "You're human. We all want the same thing, you know. There's really no need to go through all this."

Aeris let out a quiet, faraway-sounding titter.

"You assholes always did like doing things the hard way," said the Turk with the bowl cut that Tifa didn't recognise.

"You don't want to sell out your friends," said Elena. "It makes sense. Of course it does. But in case you hadn't looked around lately, we're a little bit past that. We're providing solutions here."

"Most of this is your fault, Cloud," said Rude, narrowing his eyes at Tifa. "And if I had my way I'd deal with you myself, on my own time. Might try it later anyway, if we're all still alive. But at the end of the day, we're Turks first. Can't let personal feelings get in the way of business, you see."

"If you had to pick," said the second man, "who would you say you trust more?"

Tifa's face suddenly paled in realisation. She willed herself not to look at either one of them.

Aeris had been too busy panicking to notice what was going on to begin with. Zack, unfortunately, seemed to have noticed the way Tifa had frozen up and turned to look at her quizzically.

"Nobody?" said Rude, before turning his attention to Zack. "That's a shame. Your buddy here sure doesn't feel the same way, right?"

Don't look, she told herself. Don't look don't look don't look --

"Let ask him," he said. The other man levelled a gun at Zack's face as well. Zack went stock still. "You're Avalanche. Being irrationally loyal to idiots and backstabbers is your entire thing, I thought. I bet deep down you guys really do care about each other more than anything, right? Reeve certainly did."

A rectangular opening appeared in the field as one of the panels projecting it was shut off, allowing the turks to step through it. Zack's collar was unclipped from the wall before he was roughly hauled to his feet and marched out of the cell, Aeris's fruitless lunge after all three of them ignored completely. The hole closed up a moment later.

Tifa? he asked. Tifa, what's -- what's going on?! Tifa?!

I --

Tifa, you know what's going on and you're not telling me -- !

Do what you have to, she said, okay? Just do what you have to. It's okay for you to do what you have to.

Elena stood across from them, hand on a remote, watching them unblinkingly. There was no further response from Zack. The wash of fear she could sense from him was more than enough.

What did they hope to get out of him? Obviously they held Cloud -- and by extension, Avalanche, responsible. They were the only group still around that even knew who they were, after all. As far as most people were concerned, they'd been executed on live television. They knew their director, Reno, had been killed, and the truce they'd had was always pretty tenuous at best.

Zack had information for them, but it most likely wouldn't be what they wanted. What would they even do with the information he gave them in the first place? There was no Shinra left to turn them in to. If they planned on summarily executing them anyway, they could've done that easily while they were unconscious -- or, knowing how difficult Cloud was to kill, at least made a damn good try of it. Although, it was entirely possible they might do that anyway once they'd gotten the information out of them they needed.

Either way, the sooner they escaped, the better.

If she was very quick and extremely lucky, she could rip the collar from her neck before it had a chance to detonate right away, like she'd done for Angeal. But Aeris was still in the cell with her, and the blast in a small space like this could easily kill her, and probably incapacitate herself as well. Junon was already a giant megastructure, which meant no earth for her to shift and collapse the place around her. She could still smell that they were in Junon, which meant these cells were Shinra-built. Maybe even for the express purpose of holding uncooperative Soldiers. The walls were reinforced steel, that much she could tell, and the one wall of their cell that could be switched off entirely would somehow need to be shorted out without cooking all of them alive; that was more Cloud's forte.

She closed her eyes and began to spread much more aggressively through his mind. Surely he must have some sort of --

"I'm sorry."

Tifa opened her eyes to see Aeris trying to wriggle around to face her.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for," said Tifa.

"Don't I?"

Tifa could not bring herself to reply.

"What do you suppose they'll do with me?"

"If you're cooperative, nothing," interjected Elena from outside the cell.

"Y-you --" Aeris began, before falling silent. She glanced pointedly at Tifa, then back down the hall, but whatever she was trying to hint, it wasn't clear.

"I know you've got reason to want me dead," said Tifa, "but what could you possibly want with them? Why not just kill me?"

"Killing you won't fix Reno," she said flatly. "We don't even know if it'll fix the world. Either way, you've all made a lot of people mad." She sighed. "I guess so did we, though... Reno least of all. But if this pays off --"

She immediately snapped her mouth shut and went furiously red. Never could keep her mouth shut.

Tifa exchanged another significant look with Aeris, and it was clear what this one meant.

They were being traded to the WRO. Maybe for amnesty, maybe because they were scared. Maybe both.

Whatever the reason, it was bad, and she needed out of here now. She carefully eased herself out of Cloud again, as much as she could safely manage without screwing them both over, so he could start to cultivate the smallest bit of free will and maybe contribute to the escape plan.

He blinked a few times at Elena.

"...I remember you," he said, frowning. "You punched me in the balls that one time --"

Elena went an even deeper shade of red. "I thought you were going to dodge. I was compensating for the expected angle --"

"-- and it was cold, so my puke froze to my sleeve --"

This wasn't going anywhere productive. Tifa prepared to resume control.

"-- and honestly, who just stands there when a Turk says they're going to attack you?"

"...I didn't think you would," said Cloud. "You didn't seem like you wanted to."

Elena, impossibly, went even redder and turned away with a huff, still keeping her finger on the remote.

"Just -- don't do things that you don't want to," said Cloud. He was straining quite a bit to formulate thoughts of his own, even with Tifa allowing him to. It was worrying, to say the least. "Real people don't have to do things they don't want to." He glanced at Aeris.

The moment he met her eyes, something in him seemed to give, and Tifa found herself overtaking him again. That was worrying, too.

She didn't have time to think about what that meant for the both of them for long. In the distance, through several closed doors, she could still plainly hear an agonised scream.

 

---

 

The gun didn't leave his temple the entire time they were forcing him into a chair and handcuffing his wrists to the table.

The room they'd brought Zack to seemed to be a repurposed break room. A few inoffensive photos of mountains decorated the walls. There was a large stain on the tile floor where a vending machine might have once stood. Most of the furniture had been cleared out, though, save for the table he was cuffed to, a few chairs, and a little coffee table with a toolbox on it.

"Normally we'd leave you in that cell for longer," said the second man, sitting at the table across from Zack. "There's a whole handbook, you know. They make you memorise it as part of this job. Screw with you every now and then, keep you off-balance with a lack of consistency, deprive you of basic rights and drip-feed them back. Eventually, everyone cracks."

"We're in a hurry, though," said the first man. Zack realised he recognised him -- the bald guy with the sunglasses that had been lurking outside 7th Heaven. "World's ending."

"Yeah. We'd rather just get to the point, y'know?" said ugly hair guy. He opened the toolbox and removed a pair of heavy duty bolt cutters

Zack immediately began to pull away from the table.

"Mind the collar," the bald guy reminded him smoothly. Zack went still.

It'll grow back, Zack reminded himself firmly, even has his hands shook so badly he was afraid they'd rip through the cuffs on their own somehow. You know for a fact whatever they cut off will grow back. So -- they really can't do anything to you. No matter how much it hurts, objectively speaking, you'll be fine in a week, tops. They can't do anything to you.

But -- they knew that too, surely, so -- why threaten him like this?

"We'll do an easy one first," said the bald guy, "to make sure you understand. What's your name?"

"...Zack Fair," said Zack. "Cosmologist." They'd never find a birth certificate for him no matter where they looked here, so there was no point in hiding it.

"Ain't that illegal?" asked Bowl Cut.

The bald guy shook his head. "You can study the principles. Just not allowed to apply it to any attempts at leaving the Planet."

"What's your relationship with Avalanche? I don't recognise you."

"You seem to know that already, right?" said Zack. Truth be told, he had no idea what they'd assumed about him. He wasn't sure what telling them he wasn't a member of Avalanche would accomplish.

"Where are your friends?"

Zack said nothing. Do what you have to, Tifa had said. He didn't have to do anything though. Unless she'd meant, "don't snitch"?

"I don't know if you've looked outside lately," said Bowl Cut, "but you literally have nothing to lose by telling us."

"If that were true, you wouldn't be pointing those at me," said Zack before he could stop himself, glancing at the shears.

"Well," said Bald Guy, "would you rather be alive and locked up, or dead, because the world has ended?"

Zack said nothing.

"Where is the rest of Avalanche?" said Bowl Cut. "You couldn't have gotten out of Edge on your own. Do you have someone else working on the inside? Did Strife do something to them?"

Zack said nothing. They forced his right hand open and positioned his thumb between the blades of the bolt cutters.

"Don't make this difficult," said Bald Guy.

I'll be fine. This is nothing. I can literally grow new fingers so it's fine there are no long-term consequences just short-term pain I know healing magic objectively it's fine --

The blades bit into his thumb. His train of thought abruptly crashed and burned and all he could do was scream.

"Where's the rest of Avalanche?" asked Bald Guy calmly, over the pained choking noises Zack was making.

They hadn't even cut it all the way off. They'd sliced cleanly through the flesh, but the bone was still intact.

It's fine it's fine it's fine it's fine it's fine it's just pain it's fine it's just your body and it can handle anything it's fine it's just your body it's fine --

He heard the splinter of bone as they began putting more pressure on the bolt cutters, but still it didn't give.

"His fucked up Soldier bones dulled the damn blade," said Bowl Cut casually, removing the pliers to inspect them. "Gonna make this a huge pain in the ass."

He bit back into the cut again, mangling the flesh further on the way in.

It's fine it's fine it's fine --

"I-I don't know," Zack managed to choke out. "I don't, I swear, I don't know, please --!"

Another dull crack. Bowl Cut was wiggling the cutters around, maybe trying to find a better angle.

"Should I believe that?" said Bowl Cut. "If that was true, you could've said that at the beginning."

"Let's make sure," said Bald Guy. Bowl Cut nodded.

"It's the truth, I s-swear it's true, I'm telling the truth --" He was crying too hard to be intelligible. Or maybe they could understand him, and they just didn't care. Either way:

CrrrUNCH.

Zack lost track of what he was trying to beg for as he watched the crushed, bleeding stump where his thumb had once been ooze blood, the bone splintered and broken, tendons and nerves torn and ragged. He couldn't speak coherently anymore -- Standard, English, Spanish, anything. He knew he'd wanted to ask for it to stop. They probably knew that, though.

Just a thumb just a thumb just a thumb just a thumb --

They just sat there and watched him expectantly. His hand kept bleeding.

"Don' know where i-it is, please, I don't know, please stop it, I dunno --"

"That's interesting. How don't you know? We found you in Junon, didn't we?"

"I was asleep," said Zack, "I was asleep for some of it. I-it's a house, I don't know, please --"

"Let's try a different question, then," said Bald Guy. "And keep in mind, you've destroyed a lot of goodwill already."

They repositioned the bolt cutters to surround his index finger next.

"Who is your contact in the WRO? We know it's not Reeve anymore, but clearly you still have one."

He couldn't breathe, but he couldn't stop breathing. Was he growing dizzy because there was no air in here, or because he was bleeding to death?

His hesitation apparently went on for a second too long. The now dull bolt cutters bit into his hand, and this time began to crush the flesh, rather than cut neatly through it.

"No -- please!"

They paused.

"Have something to say?" asked Bowl Cut.

"Not WRO... Yuffie helped... she helped us out of the city... she... diplomatic or s-something, please... please stop..."

"Yuffie Kisaragi?" asked Bald Guy, frowning. "Wutai pulled official support of this mess ages ago."

"She's h-here, she's with us, she's -- entire time -- please stop --"

"You know what, Zack? I think we got off on the wrong foot," said Bowl Cut. "You've been very helpful, thank you. I think we're done here for now."

They freed him from the table without bothering to wipe up the blood and practically dragged him back to the cell. His legs were shaking too badly to walk properly.

As they inched closer and closer back the way they came, the dread he was feeling only worsened, because he’d now have to look everyone in the eye and tell them he betrayed them all.

Chapter 57: Since Someone Asked Me Five Years Ago: No It Wasn't A Tom Holland Joke

Notes:

WE'RE BACK! Hopefully for good this time until it is complete, more or less. Only 61, 62, 63, and 65 still need major portions of them to be written and then this monstrosity will be OVER and I will be FREE and I will have finally completed the process of giving you all irreparable brain damage.

Anyway, guests of honour in no particular order:

aerithkinfaker read my fucking mind apparently and happened to create the exact image that popped into my head when I read this text post. Also immensely proud that my legacy is such that I am tagged with every popular post that mentions cannibalism (keep doing it I am touched).

Denebola_Leo drew fanart of the opening scene of chapter 1! Genuinely spooky to consider how far this thing has come. I set up the whole outline for it back in June of 2017, sure but I figured best case scenario I'd make it maybe 10 chapters in and then get tired.

Speaking of chapter 1, Cloud actually getting to eat that kimchijeon, courtesy of voidrotted, who actually remembered the canon lore that Cloud can't use chopsticks for shit.

voidrotted actually drew a lot of shit! another fucked up Tifa to add to the collection, Zack having a normal one, Sephiroth having an even more normal one. Love all of these so so so much.

Also they made some memes. Now this is a goddamn moodboard.

This one was anonymously submitted. thank you so fucking much to this loving rendition of the Boy Putty. If I was even worse about updating than I am I could post this in time for the anniversary of this fic, but I figure you guys would want a chapter more.

Lastly, this bit from WaifuJuju who responded to my dumb little shitpost doodle with this incredible sketch of these extremely canon events.

Thank you to everyone that helped get this thing off the ground, including but not limited to Belderiver, la-regina-scrive, DarthTofu, and probably some other people I am forgetting because all of this was spaced out across the 11 remaining chapters as I scrambled to finish them all at once and I honest to god lost track of who was helping with what. If I left anything out here, either fanart or beta crediting, DO NOT BE SHY ABOUT MESSAGING ME SO I CAN GIVE YOU THE CREDIT YOU DESERVE.

heads up body horror and gore you guys know the drill by now

Aeris looked up to the sound of footsteps growing steadily louder, and realised the glowing barrier was being shut off.

A shuddering Zack was forced through and clipped back onto the wall at gunpoint, his eyes dull, his hands bloody. As an afterthought, they tossed something red in after him before switching the field on again.

No one moved. She couldn't even tell if she was still being watched without being able to turn her head properly. Zack's failed attempts to stifle agonised sobs punctuated the silence.

"So, this is fine, but 'killing us won't solve the problem'," said Aeris, hoping the righteous fury in her voice would overshadow the trembling. The blonde woman outside their prison looked up in surprise.

"That’s how you guys do things," Elena replied. "Bombs and assassinations and hijacking submarines and airships and trains… if we're going to fix this –"

"Is – is doing – whatever it was you did to Zack" – Aeris neither knew the phrase for "mutilated" in Standard, nor did she think it was a good idea to ask right this moment – "is that what’s going to fix this?"

Elena looked away in discomfort. "Turks stick together," she said evasively. "I didn’t make it here by being afraid to do what I needed to –"

"You made it here because Barret shot Rude and they needed someone else to kill civilians while he recovered," retorted Tifa. "Don’t be stupid, Elena. You owe us. In a lot of ways."

"I don’t," she snapped. "We already let you walk away once. That won’t happen again."

"So what does need to be done?" asked Aeris, trying to make out where exactly Zack was losing all that blood from. Everyone was talking too quickly, and entirely in Standard, and it was all she could do to keep up. Too many words. None of them good. Zack making noise behind all of it, his attempts to muffle it failing utterly.

"Maybe we’ll tell you when they finish cleaning up in there, and it’s your turn," said Elena. And then she pursed her lips together rather pointedly and turned away.

The silence returned. Tifa closed her eyes again.

"A-Aeris..." groaned Zack suddenly. "N-need – landed by your foot – please – please, Aeris –"

Aeris twisted herself around against the wall to face away from Zack, towards the little scrap of meat they'd thrown in. She did her best to pull it closer to herself with the top of her foot, and leaned in to inspect it in the dim light.

"Please... Aeris, please..."

She wrenched herself back when she realised what it was, looking up at Zack in horror.

"Aeris... please, just – just push it towards me, please... need it back… I can heal…"

And then, before she had a chance to even process the fact that she was going to have to touch a severed thumb with her foot again, it sprouted several little red hair-like tendrils and scurried back towards Zack of its own accord.

Now it was Zack's turn to scream and try to back away from the thumb, but restrained as he was, there was nowhere for him to go. It lunged for him and latched onto his hand, the tendrils digging into it and sinking into the flesh as Zack tried in vain to scrape them off.

"See? It’s okay," said Aeris stiffly, forcing a smile. "It’s – it’s back on now." One of them had to hold it together, for everyone’s sake.

Zack began to dry heave.

"What now?" she asked faintly, as he continued to retch in the background.

"They'll probably go for you next, Aeris," said Tifa. "They're figuring Cloud will be the hardest one to crack. This show's for my benefit, mostly."

"I told them about Yuffie," stammered Zack. "I'm sorry – I told them everything I could, I'm sorry –"

Tifa sighed. "I told her this was going to start an international incident," she said.

"I’m sorry – I’m sorry, I sold us all out again, I’m s-sorry –"

"You did what you had to," said Tifa firmly. She opened her eyes again to try and look at him. Zack quickly looked away. "They were always gonna find out whatever they wanted to. Everyone cracks eventually."

"It was just a thumb," he slurred. If it weren't for the blood already covering his fingers, one would have never been able to tell it had been severed at all. "It was just a thumb, Cloud spent years with way worse, and I caved because of a couple fingers –"

"Do you even hear yourself?" said Aeris in disbelief. "Maybe you didn’t see firsthand what Shinra does to people, but I did. Did you think you were going to macho man your way through this somehow?"

"No, but I should’ve – I should’ve tried to – it came back –"

Aeris just shook her head in disbelief. Elena was now looking them over with suspicion in her eyes.

"...That is Cloud we have in there, right?" asked Elena with a frown. "He talks about himself in the third person now?" The frown deepened. "What's with the gibberish parts?"

"...You didn’t say what your plan was," said Aeris. "You don’t even know, do you?"

"I’m not falling for that," she said brusquely.

"I don’t either," said Aeris. "I thought I did. But the world is ending, you know? And – and I'm supposed to be fixing it, and I haven't – it's not –"

She didn't have the words she needed. Elena was not willing to compensate by just letting her use English in spots, and in fact did not know it was a language that existed. Aeris sighed and turned to Tifa.

"...I need to talk to Cloud," she said.

"I don't know if that's safe," Tifa replied. "Can't you just talk to me?"

"I'll need him to translate. I... Zack probably shouldn't be doing it right now." Beside her, Zack merely grimaced. "I want his permission."

"I don't think you're getting it. Even if it was something he wanted. He isn't... I mean, look."

Aeris looked. Cloud locked eyes with her. Nothing in them indicated he recognised her. She was scarcely even sure he was still in there.

She held his gaze, afraid of what would happen if she looked away. Had she imagined it the entire time, how easy she'd thought he was to read? He opened his mouth. A low, reverberating droning issued forth, and it did not sound remotely human.

It stopped as a loud gunshot ripped through the bars of the cell.

"The next person to say something cryptic gets shot," said Elena. The radio at her belt, previously only emitting static and distorted voices, gave way to alarmed shouting.

"Everything is fine," she said, answering it with one hand, keeping the gun trained on Cloud. "Just – discouraging bullshit. The rest of you idiots. Explain."

"Tifa is dying," said Aeris quietly. "Cloud agreed to let her have his body. Cloud's dying, too, in a way."

Elena didn't reply right away. "...Tifa's infected now?"

"Yes."

"I can speak for myself," snapped Tifa. She narrowed her eyes at Elena. "You're pathetic, you know that? Shinra's not even paying you now. What's justifying any of this anymore?"

Elena stood there, appraising them through the yellow-green light of the laser field.

"You wouldn’t understand," she said eventually. "You're right. Once a Turk, always a Turk."

"What’s a Turk?" asked Aeris.

"We recruited for Soldier, mostly," said Elena. "That, administrative research, and managing delicate political situations."

"They’re fucking Stasi," supplied Zack helpfully through his teeth.

"But… Soldier was gone, I thought. How do a bunch of secret police think they’re going to put a stop to this?"

"Officially, we’re just civilians now," said Elena. "But unofficially we – um –"

She immediately went silent.

"So you don’t have a plan," said Aeris. "And the WRO thinks they might have one. So – really, it’s in both our best interests that I help, isn’t it?"

Tifa frowned. "Aeris?"

"Tell your boss I’d like to go in now."

Elena gave her an appraising look, then raised the radio to her mouth once more – thumped it a couple times to clear away the static, which still wouldn't quite go away. "Ready for the next one when you are. The lady we found wants to volunteer information, and her Standard's not great. Need to move a few bodies."

A few moments later, and the two of them were led under heavy guard up a set of cramped, dingy stairs, feeling Tifa's eyes boring into the back of her neck. The bald man they'd seen earlier – Rude – offerred Elena a curt nod as they reached the top of the stairs and stepped through a doorway.

Tifa – Cloud – was seated next to her at the table, a gun pressed insistently to his temple. Cloud did not even flinch, likely because he was incapable of feeling fear at the moment unless Tifa ordered him to. Aeris tried not to think about it.

There was a woman seated across from them, decidedly better dressed than everyone there, with a badge identifying her as an "Event Director" for the WRO. She watched Aeris expectantly.

They did not cut anything off. Aeris began to recount her entire story, as best as she was able. She had nothing to hide from them now.

She fumbled with her words, unable to bring herself to meet anyone’s eyes, her mouth dry enough that she wasn’t even able to get words out halfway through, and they had to awkwardly allow her to sip water without uncuffing her. Some technical things just weren’t going to translate, she realised quickly enough, especially with Zack out of the picture – neither Tifa nor Cloud had even finished high school. And some other things weren’t going to translate either, no matter how specific they got the wording.

Cloud, on the other hand, did not react as Aeris had him recount how she pushed him into a nervous breakdown. He did not give any indication he minded one way or another that the things done to him had made him an ideal vessel for more than just Sephiroth, and that even her own equipment had failed to consider him a person. He impartially relayed the fact that she was the one that had sent him into a coma, that she had been the false positive that had gotten him incarcerated, that all the instruments that could've helped them were destroyed by the same thing laying waste to both their universes, that her project had leaked something into their universe that had nearly destroyed their civilisation twice – perhaps three times – over. If Tifa had any thoughts on any of this herself, she wasn't having Cloud express them.

She did not tell them about the rats, or the chocobo ride, or the photos she'd taken. It wouldn't have helped. It was none of their business.

Cloud probably didn't even remember those things by now.

They removed the gun from Cloud’s temple, and she tensed up expectantly for it to turn to her instead. The woman nodded curtly. "Thank you for your time. That will be all, I think," was all she said.

By the end of it, it was decided that, the WRO being just a relief organisation (albeit one in the middle of filling a massive power vacuum), they did not actually have the right to detain her. She, unlike Cloud, was just a human, and therefore had caused no actual harm.

She would be moved to holding, pending release. No charges would be pressed.

She screamed and thrashed and fought all the way down the hallway as Cloud and Rude vanished around a completely different corner than the one she was rounding. Holding had a longer bench in the back, and someone had thoughtfully put out blankets on the end of it. She screamed and threw them at Elena through the bars, where they thwapped uselessly to the floor.

She closed her eyes. In this world, for all intents and purposes, she was part of Jenova – she had no soul the way they did. She shared genetic material. She was a piece of something from another universe that did not belong in this one, shoved into it like a splinter. So – she should be able to do the same things that Cloud had, shouldn't she? Walk through walls? Talk to the others? She'd done it once already, without even realising it, when she'd reached out to Cloud.

She pushed against the bars. They remained solid. She remained human and powerless.

Aeris sat down on the bench in her cell and clenched down on the lump building in her throat.

"Not at fault," they’d said. She’d wanted to laugh in their faces. Of course, they’d said the same thing about Cloud – it wasn’t as though he’d chosen to have those things done to him, or to volunteer for this project. Though he probably wouldn’t be able to appreciate their pity for him from the induced coma they were setting up for him, before shipping him off to the actual feds. And as far as the Turks were concerned, they seemed all too happy to have him out of the way.

Most of them did, at least. Elena was sitting across from her, chewing on a hangnail and watching the ceiling fold itself up into infinity.

"Oi. You. Fash woman."

Elena looked down and scowled at her.

"You know, just because the WRO isn’t interested in trading for you doesn’t mean we can’t –"

"I’m sure you could. Why would you? What are you getting out of this? You didn’t answer my question." Aeris sat against the padded bench and glared at Elena as hard as she could. "You’re really that invested in local politics, are you?"

"It isn’t just about the WRO," said Elena. "This position… I worked my ass off to get here. You wouldn’t understand." Aeris let out an ugly snort. "They don’t let just anyone apply to be a Turk, you know, or even an intern. And when you’re in… it’s – it was hard work. You have to be able to stick to your convictions, and that means being able to stick with one another, too."

"To do what?" said Aeris. "Your company’s gone. Your boss is dead. There is no ‘Turks’ anymore –"

"Yes, there are," said Elena sharply. "I’m here, Rude is here. We’ve come too far to –"

"You’ve come too far, you mean," said Aeris. She sat down on the bench, pulling her knees up to her chest. "Because… because after years of this – putting aside everything you thought you believed in about yourself, you can’t… and for what? Because the – the world’s ended, and all the people you cared about are dead or dying, and if you can just – just prove to yourself that they didn’t die in vain, then – well – well maybe they did!" she shouted. "Maybe they didn’t get to die for something big and important and good! Maybe they’re just dead now!"

"What the hell do you know?" spat Elena, her face white with fury. "What would you know about it?"

"Maybe you shouldn’t stop," said Aeris, picking at some of the blood that had dried on her sleeve. She had no way of knowing whose it was anymore. "Maybe it’s what we deserve: just sitting here until the walls collapse in around us."

Even if the world hadn't been deteriorating around her, nothing felt quite real. She slouched against the wall, mussing up her hair even further, tangling the end of the ribbon into her braids.

I should fix that, she mused, even as she continued to sit there and listen to Elena's footsteps retreating into the distance.

 

---

 

…Zack, I’m sorry, but I have to go.

Huh?

Keep your head down. Don’t react.

Beside him, Cloud could hear Zack’s thoughts cutting across his own loudly enough to give him a headache.

Return of the poker face. Only thing you’re good at. Sitting here and lying and lying and lying and –

You need to stop panicking, said Cloud. This is important. I have to warn the others that they’re here.

They probably know, said Zack. I was sent out to find Aeris. You were sent out to find me. None of us came back. No way they don’t know something bad’s going on.

Probably, said Cloud. But they might not know where we are. If we even are in a "where". Or a "when". We could be twenty feet away from one another, for all we know, and we’d never find each other. I could find you all easily from the outside, through Reunion, but I can’t be in Cloud’s body to do it. Someone has to warn them.

So then why are you telling me?

…I think I’m the only thing holding Cloud together right now, said Cloud. I don’t even know if he’ll be here by the time I get back.

…I’ll take care of him, but there’s probably not anything I can do. I’m the one subsuming him.

I know. Just… try. And if he is gone by then – well – he knows. If he didn’t before, he does now.

And then – and then everything stopped making sense.

Things had before. He had been thinking clearly – talking to someone about things, and – there was an interrogation coming, but he couldn’t…

Mother was growing inside of him. He could feel her moving through his flesh, burrowing beneath his skin in a way She hadn’t in years. How long ago had they implanted Her in him? He’d done his best all this time to be a warm, wet place for Her to incubate, to multiply in, to grow Her song. He vaguely remembered not even being particularly good at that.

There was a man in the cell with him with very tired eyes and bloody hands. He couldn’t move his neck to look and find out why.

Cloud was looking at him blearily. (But wasn’t he…?) At least he hadn’t set off the bomb collars yet.

"You feelin’ okay?" asked Zack quietly.

The words cut their way around him, burning at his edges. He looked back up at the green light.

There was something behind him – things moving around in his skin, eating him from the inside out, gnawing at his fingertips. He knew if he forgot for even a moment about the ground beneath him and allowed himself to slip through it, he’d never get back up again.

His head tipped forwards. Though he was no longer moving, he felt as though he were still falling, his body lurching forwards forever. The things under his skin buzzed angrily.

It got darker, and then there were more men, very close to him. Zack’s breathing quickened.

It's okay if they take us somewhere else, he told him. He had gone limp, the best move possible when in a cell, so nobody would mistake it for resisting, and so he would not be an interesting target. It's only scary if they stay in here.

There was a needle, then, sliding under his skin with the rest of them. Before the fog claimed him, he felt its point sharpen the rest of him. The way his heart pounded against his ribs in alarm reminded him he had a body.

He woke up next to Cloud next to Zack next to Cloud in a clean, white room, the walls carefully padded. The floor was as well, which was fortunate, since their arms and legs had been cuffed once more, and nobody had bothered to hoist them onto the bed in the corner.

"Where...?" he slurred, as he attempted to sit up and nausea rolled through his stomach with the motion. No one answered.

Beside him, Cloud twitched and shuddered intermittently, his eyes darting around in a panic, and then –

 

---

 

– simply stopped moving. Zack let out a quiet sigh.

They'd been moved, that much was obvious. He had no way of knowing where, though, or even how long it had been. They'd been sedated for the ride – it could have been days, for all they knew. Although, who even knew how long a day was anymore?

He could still sense Tifa somewhere out there, but trying to speak to her made his head pound as static rushed through to meet him. She was still alive, at least.

He could see a cotton ball secured to his arm by a bandage, and Cloud was sporting a matching one on his own arm. They'd already drawn blood, at least. He tried not to think about what else they could have potentially put in, as well.

Time passed. No one came in to haul them up onto a bed, or even help them sit up. Sometimes the air smelled funny, and he would wake up vaguely aware that he was missing time. Sometimes, he would look to his left, realising his eyes were simply skipping over where Cloud was without registering he was even there, the way one didn't inspect the walls of a room they had been in a thousand times.

The cycle repeated, and then repeated again. Cloud seemed to be slowly regaining awareness, thrashing and snarling against his restraints to no effect. Zack was considering whether or not it would be worth it to stop him, since this was the next best thing to being able to actually converse with someone, and if there was anything that seemed to keep him awake and extant, it was being trapped in a perpetual state of fear.

Until someone cut the lights.

The room was dead silent save for their own breathing. Zack strained his ears, listening for any other sound, and realised the hum of electricity in the background had died off as well.

There was something – footsteps. Approaching quickly.

Get ready, he thought to Cloud as he tensed up. The door swung open. He flinched as he was momentarily blinded by the flashlight of whoever had just barged into their cell was carrying.

Before he had a chance to recover, a strange pressure washed over him, followed by a sensation of falling – no, he was falling. Quite a way down, too, before landing in something soft. He tried to stand up, but he must have broken something, because his back wouldn't straighten the way he wanted it to, and he felt his legs bent at a strange angle. They didn't feel broken. They must have been broken, though. But they weren't broken. Were they?

Zack's thoughts were scattered again as something unbearably hot and oily and rough wrapped around him, and he struggled against it.

Suddenly he was plunged into a pool of blessedly cool water, and something else splashed into it next to him. The ceiling shut itself in closer around him, and he felt himself being jostled about as the room tipped and lurched around him. He tried to warn Cloud and opened his mouth to cry out, but all that escaped him was a high pitched trill.

He froze. He'd heard that noise before. He made it again.

He knew where he'd heard it – late at night in the distance, lying in bed, back in Guatemala. It was a frog noise. He flailed around in the water, and in the low light caught a glimpse of splotchy blue arms. Not arms. Legs. Toes?

He was a frog now.

Zack immediately began thrashing harder against what he realised must have been a plastic container filled with pond water. He was a frog. How was he a frog? He didn't want to be a frog. He didn't know how to stop being a frog.

He tried to calm himself – if he panicked, it wouldn't help him stop being a frog. Probably. He still had four limbs, and two eyes. Already an improvement over... before. The lid was much bigger than he was, though. Judging by what had presumably been a hand earlier, he wasn't very large in the first place.

Would Cloud know how to fix this?

Cloud – he'd almost forgot. He let out another trill, as loud as he could muster, before he realised he could still feel Cloud nearby. Maybe they hadn't gone far.

Stop, said Cloud rather firmly. I'm here. Stop it.

Zack managed to paddle himself around with some difficulty and saw Cloud floating next to him in the container.

I'm a frog, said Zack plaintively. There was a lot more wrong with the current situation, of course – that they had been dragged off to an unknown location, that it was very dark in here, that Zack didn't know how he hadn't drowned yet – but everything but the simplest of thoughts seemed beyond him for some reason, like trying to do too much math in his head.

Yes, said Cloud. He seemed tense, but was manoeuvreing about the plastic container with much more ease than Zack had.

How? he asked.

Magic, said Cloud. Of course. Of fucking course it was magic, sure, naturally, what else would it be?

How to not be a frog? asked Zack. I don't want to be a frog forever.

They fix it. Or, seven days about. Wait. Don't know who they are.

How do you know?

I've been a frog, said Cloud simply, as though that explained everything, and kicked his way to the surface of the water to perch on one of the exposed walls.

There was a sudden jerk, and then a brief halt in the water's movement, and Zack hoped that perhaps it meant that they'd be found. He raised as much of a racket as he possibly could, but after another few minutes, there was a sudden jolt of movement again, and then a low rumble. The world around him tipped again, and he found the container being set under the seat of a car.

Zack noticed that Cloud had been swimming aimlessly around their container, and hadn't made a single sound.

You didn't help!

Does it matter? We're out.

We're frogs!

Frogs aren't so bad. It's nice.

Zack would have glowered at him if he'd been physically capable of it, but Cloud could probably feel it anyway.

It could be worse. We'll run when we're out. Frogs now.

Zack floated there angrily for several minutes before realising Cloud was at least sort of right. They were out of their cell. It didn't hurt to be a frog. The water felt nice. And he still didn't know how to not be a frog.

 

---

 

Cloud had been doing some thinking.

That was a lot harder than it sounded, especially like this – his mind, or what was left of it at the moment, was in no fit state to do magic. He couldn't really handle complicated thoughts right now, and the threshold for what counted as a "complicated thought" was suddenly much, much lower. Still, Cloud had had practice, and he let the ideas build very slowly as the road rumbled underneath them.

They were out of the cell – that was good. The man he had bitten was still with him – also good. He wasn't very good at moving as a frog yet, but maybe that would come with time. Or maybe not. They might not be frogs for long.

Who had taken them? It could be a rescue, but this was a strange way to do it. Tifa would have just told him. And frogs – who made them frogs? That made the list much smaller, and worrisome.

Turning someone into a frog or shrinking them down was an easy way to get a lot of people smuggled out of their homes into human trafficking rings. Any sort of transformative materia was therefore tightly regulated, to prevent... well, this exact sort of thing from happening. Maybe they'd be found – it was against the law to bring frogs across any sort of provincial line. But maybe not. Maybe no one would find them ever.

Cloud wasn't sure if that was other man’s thought or his, but he had a nasty feeling it might've been his. He needed to focus.

So, who knew how? Cloud had access to the materia on his travels. Some cartels, maybe. The one that was good at paperwork had mastered it, but he was – busy being a spy and undercover, because he wouldn't just betray them, so it couldn't be him, probably.

It was all of it very worrying, for a frog.

He looked over at the other one, who was steadily getting used to moving around with his new configuration of bones. Cloud didn't terribly mind being a frog – there was a strange sort of peace it brought, not being able to dwell on more complicated thoughts. And the water was nice. He didn't like being useless, but he'd been that half the time anyway lately, so he might as well be useless and comfortable.

He didn't much like the way he looked, either. Most people made much bigger frogs, maybe because they were bigger than Cloud. And they were green and splotchy grey. Cloud was a muddy brown with bright blue spots, and probably wasn't even half the length of his finger. The noises were bad, too – he sounded more like a bird than a frog, he thought.

It wasn't much of a surprise to find that the other Zack his name was Zack man made a much better frog than he did, but what was unusual was how. He was about the same size as Cloud, which was surprising in and of itself. But the sounds he made were much nicer than his own high pitched squawk. Cloud couldn't see as many colours as a frog, either, but he seemed to be a brilliant shade of green with blue patches along his belly, and Cloud thought he looked lovely.

The ceiling opened up again, and someone was trying to grab him. He did not want to be grabbed.

He was grabbed anyway. Awful. He complained as loudly as he could.

Cloud found himself sprawled in the back seat of a car, soaking wet and disoriented. The other frog that wasn't a frog anymore was already angrily snatching back a set of clothes being handed to him by –

He – he knew her name, he knew it – glasses, mousy hair, waiting for the artificial gravity to kick in as the stars hurtled around them – she was a ship, too –

"...Aeris?" he said, though he knew that was wrong. The woman stiffened.

"We don't know," said the woman. "We might not have been able to come back for you, either, but this was originally the escape plan we had cooked up for you anyway. Before you broke out on your own, I mean."

He hadn't broken out on his own, though... there had been a voice in the fog, and...

"You're with Avalanche, then?" he asked – no, the other man asked.

The woman nodded, stowing a glowing green sphere. "Shera. I helped them hijack a space shuttle, but I never joined officially, and I limited contact for personal reasons. They weren't watching me as closely."

She'd helped him escape. So why wasn't she here? She had been with him when he had escaped. He was meant to teach her about – about rats, or maybe words – though none of them would stick together long enough to pass his lips.

"Cloud? You gonna finish putting that shirt on?"

"We – we left her behind," he said, fumbling with the sleeves. Smelled familiar. Cigarettes and gunpowder. Hiding in the damp, mud in his socks.

"None of us know where she is, Cloud," said Shera. "And with the world the way it is –"

"We left her behind." Moving was easier now, made more sense. Something was terribly wrong. She had said – she had said you didn't leave people behind. She came back for him.

It was the worst thing that could happen, to leave someone alone in the dark, where they could sit and sit and sit and make themselves think they deserved it.

"What the – ?!"

"Cloud, no!"

He made the car stop, and he jumped out. He couldn't remember her name, or even his own, and his head kept filling with thoughts that weren't his but he didn't need to worry about that anymore. He just needed to go to where she was.

The path was clear before him. He began to walk.

Chapter 58: ｎｕｌｌ ｐｏｉｎｔ

Notes:

Thank you so much to Belderiver, DarthTofu, and la-regina-scrive for betaing. Couldn't have gotten this far without you.

He walked. The world came with him.

Bright colours surrounded him, as he simply went to where he needed to go. All places were mostly the same as other places, because "places" was just one idea. He sang a song as he travelled, the notes coming to him easily through his own flesh.

He vaulted out of the truck and tore after Cloud --

himself --

Cloud, reeling back as the world began to bend around him, the sky collapsing in on itself towards them, fingers snatching and clutching at their skin --

Someone was following him. He remembered vaguely that it was a friend, and he began humming the same song that he was singing. They walked together. The stairs collapsed into themselves, into walls and gunmetal grey corridors. He

stumbled, digging his fingers into his flesh. His friend wasn’t chasing him anymore. He could scarcely remember he was standing here. He kept walking. He

flinched away from Cloud as he disappeared around a corner that shouldn't have even existed, in a direction Zack had no name for.

"Cloud!"

Cloud did not reply. The world kept drawing nearer, and nearer, and nearer.

There were many people here, all with guns. They began firing at him. He ducked and wove his way past them, through angles in the music. The men began screaming too, but eventually he couldn't hear them over the notes.

Zack stood and stared as the world continued to compress itself into a hellish kaleidoscope of stairs and windows and gore. Cloud continued to walk forward, dragging the world with him, oblivious to the way his own body seemed to seep in and out of shadows and reflections, until Zack could scarcely tell where he even was.

He reached a very tall building. It too was brightly coloured, made of different kinds of patterned paper, music written out across its faces. She must be in here, he reasoned; she, too, was made of paper, just like him. She had told him so.

His new friend did not follow him into the paper building -- only paper people could enter it, and he was far too heavy. He would surely rip right through the floor, and perhaps he knew that, too.

The walls began to recede from Cloud as he approached, like water boiling away from flame, and underneath he saw their true shape -- writhing hands in the dark -- white walls, streaked with blood -- the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen -- soldiers screaming as they were thrown aside by whatever force he'd manifested, them melting into the walls, their eyes pleading for death -- Zack called out his name again, but Cloud didn't seem able to hear him --

-- rustling paper filled with music, the ink slowly running and bleeding onto the floor. It was making it sticky against his bare feet.

The bullets in his flesh, the ones he hadn't gotten away from in time, kept biting into him, reminding him that he was himself, and not part of the music just yet. His lungs felt wet, and his tongue felt heavy, but he didn't know enough words for it to be worth speaking anyway. The Walls were screaming at him now, clawing at his flesh the way they always did. Little pieces of him came off in their grip. He kept walking.

He knew there was a way to make it stop -- he had had a sword once, hadn't he? He couldn't really remember how to use it. It didn't matter much, anyway -- he was almost to her now.

Zack frantically chased after Cloud, stepping over the carnage in his wake -- both his blood and whoever had been in his way. He had no idea where the fuck he was, if he was anywhere at all, and the world was shuddering and groaning around them at Cloud's mere presence, space twisting in on itself, shaped by a million shards, sharp as static. Something wet and sticky began trickling from his ears the further he pursued Cloud, the more he looked directly at what was happening, the more he listened to that horrible, beautiful noise, and he forced himself not to think about what it could be.

Noises began jutting in, trying to talk over him. Their own sounds jutted through him, out of step with his own. He kept walking.

Cloud wasn't even trying to dodge. Didn't seem to care. The one time Zack had managed to pluck up the courage to run into the gunfire and attempt to tackle him to the ground, he hadn't even made it five steps before the sound overwhelmed him, and he was curled up in the ground in agony, clutching his head. Cloud continued to bleed. Not just from the gunshot wounds anymore, and there were many, many more of those now, too.

Tifa, say something!

He's not listening -- he's not listening to me, I don't even know if he can hear me --

The paper went on and on and on, and he was beginning to get dizzy.

Someone appeared to him in a rush of ink. She didn't know how to sing, which he thought was a bit sad. But --

"You're here for Aeris, right?" she said.

Was he? The music on the paper changed. He wrote the sound of rain against glass in an empty field. He could hear his new friend singing too, urging him to follow her. He did.

"She said no one was coming," said the new woman. Short blonde hair like [nobody and no one]. "Do you think she was lying to me? Or did she think you just wouldn't show up?"

Sticky, sticky floors. He slipped. She caught him and helped him back up. A new song tingled its way through his body.

"What's so special about her, that you've decided to die for her? Or are you just doing all of this because you 'might as well', too? Because you've 'come this far'?"

She, too, knew how to make holes in walls with her heavy, heavy arms.

"She was right. I'm not winding up like either one of you. Not after today."

She was already running away, but there behind the wall --

He wished he knew her name. He wished it so badly it hurt.

It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurt -- he pulled away from Cloud's mind again -- too much blood, too many men screaming, dying, killing --

She was staring at him. He didn't know what her face was doing, or what she was saying any more than he had the last one, but at least she was here. Now he just needed to bring her away from here.

Here was -- was bad. Couldn't leave her behind. Nobody deserved to be left behind.

Nobody? asked the Walls.

The hands were tearing at him faster now. Opening the hole to her was making a racket, causing lights to flash. More men with guns, more bullets. More wet, ugly noises.

"Cloud, look out!"

They tore through him as readily as the Walls. His own face stared back at him, dripping tar from the mouth.

It was all he could do to pick her up and run with her, but directions simply weren't anymore. But -- his friend. His hungry friend that he kept forgetting he wasn't. He knew where he was.

More bullets. More pain. Grounding.

Aeris was shouting something at him, she realised. Begging it.

"Cloud, please, just leave me there -- !"

He ignored her. This was a gift to her.

He pulled her into the paper, where it was quiet. They slid along the surface of it, the way a shadow would be cast by an object, dark silhouettes permeating betwixt and between everything that was and wasn’t.

"...Cloud?"

He smiled at her, unsure if she could even see it. He couldn’t make out her face this way, being nothing more than a projection cast on the underside of the curve of the world, and if he hadn’t felt blood running from his nose and ears, hot and sticky like ink, he couldn’t have been sure he even had one himself.

"You don’t belong in this world, either," he said, smiling, "like me. We can stay here and be safe."

Around the edge of the curve and off the sheet of paper, there was darkness. It would be easy to slip into it, where their own outlines would be no more distinct than it would.

"I -- I can’t, I have work to -- I -- where are we, what did you do --?"

"I did love you after all," he said. "I’m sorry I didn’t think I did. Do you know what that means?"

She shook her head in spite of herself.

"It means that -- if you’re like me, you can love people, too," he said. "If you ask --" he frowned.

The paper they were on flashed into white as a light was shined on it. The world, the real world for real people, had found them hiding under it, and everywhere the light shone, the silhouettes gathering at the edges ceased to exist.

"Or… did I explain it to her?" He felt awful again. Afraid. He should know her name, but he didn’t, the words weren’t there anymore.

"If you can act like a real person… maybe you could be -- maybe you could repair things. Doors and pipes." That wasn’t right. That wasn’t what he wanted to say, but the ideas weren’t there properly anymore.

The light washed her back out into the real world for real people, and without thinking he reached into it for her, forgetting what it was --

There was an immense burst of pain that tore up his arm and into his torso. The roar of gunfire faded into Mother's relentless tide. The world lay heavy around him.

It started to die down. He couldn't move so good anymore, but he did his best to look up.

There was a gangling meat thing filled with music, tearing past them on its many limbs, disemboweling whatever unfortunate soldiers that had been caught up with them when Cloud had brought himself and Aeris and a decent chunk of their building into this field on the way back.

He wanted to get away from it, his body wouldn't listen to him. He opened his mouth to ask Aeris to help him up, and a wet, metallic mess flooded past his lips.

She crawled out from under him, and as she gently flipped him over on his back, he realised why his own attempts to do it weren't working properly. His left arm had been torn clean off, shredded beyond belief. He couldn't move his legs. The world was dimming at the edges.

There were no more gun sounds. A truck was pulling up behind them.

Aeris, drenched in his blood as she was, did not have a scratch on her. Cloud smiled.

Now we're even, he thought triumphantly.

 

---

 

Zack stood there, his bones slowly crackling back into place and his flesh settling into the shape of a normal human man, more or less, as his brain struggled to catch up to what his eyes were telling him was happening.

He'd killed five men. His body had remembered it was nothing but Jenova cells, and he had carried himself forward and dismembered the people shooting at his friends. And now they were dead.

And for what?

Cloud lay cradled in Aeris's lap in a pool of his own blood, motionless. His left arm had been torn clean off, and the wound extended into his chest, leaving a dark hole gouged into his torso, his breaths gurgling around his chest as blood dripped from his mouth and nose. The gash extended up to his neck as well, and with every beat of his heart more and more blood gushed from the wound onto the ground.

Zack's knees gave out from under him, and he knelt by Cloud.

"Hurry," croaked Aeris. "He -- he needs --"

Zack nodded. He could heal. He could heal him, and it would be fine. He looked around for the arm Cloud had lost and found only bloody shreds. That was fine. It would be fine. He placed a hand on Cloud's chest and called forth his magic. He could feel the spell working, but -- there was just so much blood -- but it would be fine, but there was just so much blood --

His eyes met Cloud's. Cloud gave him a pleading look and feebly raised his remaining hand, an act that was clearly taking every bit of strength he had left. Zack quickly grasped it tightly with his own and squeezed.

"It's okay," he said frantically, pulling it closer. "You're gonna be okay, I've got you -- you're gonna be fine."

Cloud's eyes flickered down to where Zack's blood-soaked hand was intertwined with his own, then back up to Zack. He smiled.

did good

His grip went slack, and his chest stilled. The healing spell seemed to hitch and stutter, no matter how much energy Zack tried to force into the body in front of him.

"Cloud?" Zack's voice came out in a strangled whisper.

...Zack? asked Tifa slowly. What just... what just happened? I can't -- I can't see through Cloud anymore, and I don't -- I don't know why that's -- I --

Zack stared down at Cloud as Shera pulled a screaming, sobbing Aeris off his body and into the truck. Maybe -- maybe this was shock. Or the entire thing was a bad dream. Maybe it was all just a bad dream, all of it, and he'd wake up in the facility to Aeris offering him gummy bears, and none of this would be real, and Cloud had never existed in the first place.

"Come on," said Shera gently. "We can't -- we can't bring him with us, we have to go..."

None of this... he wasn't real...

"Sure!" said Zack. Shera stared at him in stunned silence. "Sure, just gimme one second here to clean up."

He closed his eyes. He could already feel the parts of his mind that were blended together with Cloud growing quieter and -- no -- that were his, and they were fine. Cloud didn't have a body, and as Zack had just demonstrated (his own clothes now shredded and bloodstained as well), he was really nothing more than a part of Zack's biomass -- and, by extension, was just renting part of his corner of the horrible alien hive mind they were stuck in.

A growing expression of horror began to appear on Cloud's face.

No -- no, please, Zack, you can't --

I'll come back for you, he promised. I'll come back for you as soon as I can, okay?

No! No, please just let me die!

Zack, what's going on?! demanded Tifa.

He's been hurt bad, said Zack. And -- we're too far away for him to get help in time, but that doesn't actually matter. He's not real anyway --

Zack, no! he begged, now trying in vain to drag his mangled body away from him, unable to do much more than twitch. Tears began to stream down his face, thinning the blood already smeared across it. Please, no, just let me die -- please, Zack, you can't -- please don't, please, let me die, you can't, please -- !

What the hell are you doing?!

He can't bleed out if he doesn't have a body. And he can’t have a body if he’s not cognisant enough to know he should have one..

Zack, I don't -- he -- I can't -- I don't think --

Tifa, he didn't even give a shit when you mind controlled him against his will. How is this any less for his own good?

I-I...

ZACK, PLEASE! PLEASE, LET ME DIE AS MYSELF, PLEASE, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO --

He just had to focus on Tifa. Ignore the screams. They weren't even happening, anyway.

ZACK, PLEASE, I'LL DO ANYTHING! I'LL DO ANYTHING, ZACK, PLEASE, NO

The screaming went quiet. There was no longer a corpse in front of him, just an unaccounted for puddle of blood. Zack stood and wiped his hands off on his pants.

"Right," he said. He felt as though if he stopped grinning, he'd vomit everywhere. He still might. "So -- we have to go, right?"

 

---

 

 

 

 

"Wanting something doesn’t make it true."

 

 

 

 

---

 

Aeris was still sobbing in the back seat of the truck.

"He's not dead," said Zack. His face hurt from grinning so much. His stomach was churning. His heart was thrashing in his chest. It felt awful. He couldn't stop.

"Wh-what?"

"Look," said Zack. "He's been ceasing to exist on and off for weeks, and it's only gotten worse. I just kinda -- forced it this time. And when we're back with the others, I'll just dig him out again like I've already done, and we can help him properly."

Aeris stared straight ahead looking strained. "...What if he bleeds out anyway? What if you did it too late?"

"...Then at least I tried," said Zack. "A small chance is better than no chance. How far are we?"

"No idea," said Shera truthfully. "Distance and direction aren't reliable anymore. We just -- drive until we see something that looks right."

"Right. Okay. Alright."

Aeris pulled her knees up to her chest and tucked her head into them. He reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, even though she was covered in so, so much blood.

So was he. From the five people he'd killed. The thing jack-knifing in his chest spasmed even harder. He fumbled with the window roller, and barely managed to lean his head out of it in time to throw up.

Some of it didn't clear the rear tire. Whatever. He'd clean it off himself later, if they even noticed.

Aeris put a hand on his shoulder. That... this wasn't right at all.

"They’re going to kill me, you know," said Aeris, "when we come back, and they see the shape he’s in."

"Why’s that?"

"He came back for me."

Zack did not reply.

Eventually, he heard the whir of the airship’s engine, and looked up to see the thing practically on top of them. Shera swerved violently as she slammed on the brakes and nearly flipped the truck over, until it skidded to a stop not far from the loading ramp. As she drove the truck into the airship and carefully parked it in the cargo bay, Barret was there waiting for them.

"Where’s Cloud?" he asked immediately.

"He’s safe," said Zack. "I’ll explain later."

"Couldn’t turn him back?" he asked, glancing at Shera. She held up her hands in defeat. "Well -- whatever. We need to get the hell outta here. Original plan was to set up in Kalm, so that’s where we’ll go. At least that way they’ll have more of a job coming after us."

"How’s Tifa?" asked Aeris hoarsely as soon as she was out of the car.

"Seemed awful upset about somethin’, but she was hurting too bad to tell us what it was. I can guess, though. You two, go get changed."

Zack nodded, staggering out of the car on his own. Aeris wandered off in a daze, shaking badly enough that she seemed to be having trouble walking.

He didn’t bother explaining what he’d done until they were safely into the air, which turned out to be a good decision after all. Cid was their best healer, apparently, and Yuffie even had some innate ability with it. They’d readied a cot and every last medical supply they could find on the ship. None of them were medics, but Jessie had obsessively been reading the manual for the defibrillator on the wall while they were getting set up and while they were drawing yet another bag of blood from Zack, and it was the most they could hope for under the circumstances. A few of the crew that had basic experience with materia had volunteered to help. Nobody spoke.

Cid gave Zack a terse nod, and Zack took a deep breath and closed his eyes, then reached for that place in the back of his mind where he could feel something thinking that wasn’t him.

He couldn’t find it.

Probably still woozy from the blood he’d just given. And distracted by the fact that he was a murderer now. Needed to try harder. Cloud was counting on him.

He sifted through his thoughts again, looking for any other presence in his mind.

There wasn’t anything there. Not just a weak presence, or one that wasn’t properly aware. There was nothing left of Cloud Strife in his mind anymore.

He wasn’t -- he just wasn’t looking right.

Tifa, Cloud’s -- he’s avoiding me, somehow. He’s probably still pretty upset. Can you give him a nudge?

He could tell Tifa had heard him from the wave of dread that began to emanate from her, but she didn’t reply.

"He’s -- he must be -- I’m just not focusing right --"

"What do you mean?" asked Nanaki, his voice still distant.

"I can’t sense him. I’m just not looking for him right, or -- or maybe he’s hiding from me, he’s not anywhere. That -- that shouldn’t be possible, right? There was always something before, always, and now I can’t --"

…Zack… he’s not there anymore, said Tifa. He… Cloud… She seemed unable to bring herself to say it.

"He’s still here!" he snapped out loud. "He’s not, I just -- I’m just not looking right, I promised him I’d come back and I have, so what the fuck does he think he’s trying to pull?!"

Barret staggered over to a chair and sat down. Yuffie was staring at him. The crew were exchanging uncomfortable looks.

"I just -- I just have to -- he has to be here somewhere, he can’t be dead, he’s not dead -- he’s not --"

"Zack," said Aeris, finally speaking up for the first time. "Zack, look at me."

He did. Her face was gaunt, and her gaze was dull, and there wasn’t any emotion left in her voice.

"Zack… Cloud is gone."

Chapter 59: Great Piss Joke, Now Say Something Beautiful and True

Notes:

Wow, okay, shit. The story's done being written. (If anyone was curious, a lot of this was typed years ago! The last thing to actually get physically written was 62.)

Due to some very nasty real life stuff, I had to bust ass to finish this by March 15th. Things wound up working out, but I didn't know that at the time, so I would like to give a huge, huge, huge thank you to Belderiver, la_regina_scrive, DarthTofu, Denebola_Leo, voidrotted, and Ash for jumping on board to help finish after I declared an all hands on deck state of emergency. I genuinely could not have done this without you. Also thank you to everyone that provided their support which was, in a lot of very tangible ways, just as crucial to getting this mess done.

On a lighter note, fanart!

I don't know if this even counts as fanart because it doesn't happen in the story and mostly just spawned from shitposting during the workshopping phase, but it DOES have a bird in it, so I will be sharing regardless. Thank you Tofu for making this dream a reality.

This, on the other hand, did happen! Thank you voidrotted for this incredible interpretation of chapter 58.

The first time Cloud had "died" on them had barely been a blip on anyone's radar, let alone Barret's.

Of all things, it had been a stupid snowboarding accident. He'd been screwing around, showing off the way he'd been inclined to in the early days, and Soldier reflexes could only account for so much idiocy before the last "stunt" had ended with a bad landing and a one-eighty twist on his neck. Then his head had simply twisted itself back around with a hideous crunch, and he went back to twitching in agony and requiring an urgent healing like a normal person a moment later.

The next time had been a bit more of a scare, sure, but Cloud had been MIA before. He'd survived the drop to Sector 5 with no worse than a few scuffs and bruises. Was falling directly into the Lifestream and then being ejected from a crack in the Planet's core into some hadal trench before floating to the surface of the ocean and washing up several days later on the shores of Mideel really that much worse? A vegetative state was still bad, true, but it was still just a vegetative state from something that should have killed someone else a thousand times over. Sephiroth's reveal was little more than a formality; if nothing else had confirmed to Barret that the person he'd been travelling with over the last few months truly wasn't human, that certainly had.

He knew rationally that people spliced with Jenova were still very much mortal, or their fight against Soldier -- and by extension, Sephiroth -- would've been over before it had begun; and so for a time, he did still worry on Cloud's behalf for every stray bullet and fast-acting curse he sponged. Watching him get dissolved screaming by the White Materia was the first time Barret had considered that this time might actually stick -- and then he'd gone and wound up with egg on his face when Cloud showed up not even six hours later, mumbling nonsense about things in the dark and that idiot Reeve declaring it a second chance from the Planet, something that had never happened even once in the history of the world, and probably never would either.

By the time the geostigma diagnosis had rolled around, he'd been more frustrated Cloud had never told them than concerned he'd contracted a disease with a one hundred percent mortality rate. He certainly hadn't expected Cloud to worry about it. (In a way, he was also a little surprised he was capable of falling ill at all. Maybe Jenova-based diseases were still on the table?)

Barret couldn't even blame it all on the not-human thing, either. If Tifa was to be believed, he shouldn't have lived past the age of ten. And then there was the Nibelheim Incident to consider.

Regardless, the bastard was notoriously hard to kill, and it absolutely wasn't for a lack of nearly everything in this universe and a few others trying.

So it was for those reasons that he refused to break the news to Marlene. Barret just didn't believe it. Fool me once, shame on you. That was all. The idea that Cloud Strife was dead was prima facia ludicrous and that was the end of it.

Granted... he didn't pop back into existence four hours later, the way he had with the White Materia. Or a day later. Or two days. Or a week. Or two....

Of everyone that he could see, he was at least handling it better than anyone else.

Perhaps not unexpectedly, Yuffie had been the only one to resort to immediate tears, and the one to cry the longest and the loudest with immediate, obvious grief. Nanaki had thrown back his head and howled with her. They'd both been uncharacteristically quiet, especially Yuffie. Occasionally Barret would catch her sniffling quietly to herself when she thought no one was looking.

Nanaki was mature enough to be more up front with his deal: "I was always going to outlive you all. But I would have liked a bit more time. What if I forget his face in four hundred years?"

But then, he was very young, too. He spent a lot of time curled up in the corner, head tucked into his paws.

For a moment, Barret contemplated calling Reeve, just to tell him what had happened. On the one hand, fuck Reeve. On the other, he wanted that bastard to know exactly what his backstabbing had cost them.

But, of course -- it hadn't cost them anything. Cloud was fine. Just dragging his feet to make a dramatic entrance, the smug asshole. Wouldn't have been the first time. Had the backflips been necessary? No. Had he done them anyway? Sure had.

Maybe it was about goddamn time that jackass died. Maybe it was even good. No more needless suspense. Thank god he was finally dead.

What an awful thing to think, he realised immediately. The thought wouldn't go away, though.

He shook himself and went back to cooking. He wasn't the best at it -- that would've been Tifa -- but he was decent enough to satisfy Marlene. And Marlene had the excuse of being eight. Nobody else had their shit together enough to try and feed themselves.

Least of all Aeris. He knocked on the door of the closet she had shut herself in to "concentrate", and when she didn't respond to the noise at first he wondered if it had imploded into some geometric hellhole and taken her with it. A moment later, however, and the door opened a crack, a bleary, bloodshot eye peering at him through it.

"Hi, Barret," said Aeris. "I’m a little busy right now."

"Learn to multitask," said Barret, "or you'll starve."

She reluctantly opened the door and cleared a spot on the floor for him to set the plate down. Barret didn't move to give it to her.

She glowered at him and reluctantly emerged, following him back to... well, the room they were designating the common room. It never looked the same one moment to the next, but as long as someone stayed in there, it meant it was a location that someone could confirm existed, and was therefore somewhere people could go. Too many people had vanished into the void for them to risk getting too far from one another.

That was how Zack had explained it, anyway, and Cid had then said a bunch of things about what relativity was that had gone clear over his head.

It was Cid's turn to camp the room this time, which meant Zack was, as predicted, sitting next to him as well. Must've been shy, he supposed, since he never really spoke to anyone but him and Aeris.

Across from them was Marlene, colouring on Zack's discarded drafts. She, too, had been quiet, and Barret hardly needed to guess why. She'd only been an infant when Eleanor (and, as far as she was concerned, Dyne), had died, and she'd only been four for Biggs and Wedge. Now, though, she was eight, and Cloud had allowed her to paint his nails and feed him kitchen sauce concoctions far too many times for her to not know what it meant that she wouldn't get to do that anymore.

She perked up as Aeris came into the room after Barret. Marlene seemed to like her, and it was a good distraction for the both of them. A less observant man might have been convinced she was even handling things well. Either way, it still grated at his nerves every time.

He set down lunch (breakfast? supper?) in front of her, then mentally took note of who else he'd have to round up, before sighing and deciding to tackle the biggest hurdle first.

He did not look forward to visiting Tifa these days. Least of all because of the state she was in -- an ever-present reminder that she'd be following Cloud into an early grave any day now. But maybe it would be kinder, since -- with the things she was saying, the way she was acting --

There wasn't any polite way to put it: poor girl had apparently gone mad with grief. She'd lost so much over the years, after all -- parents, family, friends, homes, loved ones. Nearly all of them violently, with an ugly breakup or four thrown in for good measure. Cloud's death, it seemed, had finally been too much. It was awful to even consider; she deserved better than this.

Still -- for the time she had left, he at least owed it to her to humour her for a while.

When Barret entered the room, he found Tifa lying in bed, staring vacantly at the ceiling -- the way she had been every day he'd gone in to see her. She did not move to acknowledge his presence, nor did she look at him.

"I've decided," said Tifa evenly, evidently by way of a greeting, "that he was right. It is music."

"...Jenova, you mean?"

She nodded. "The pattern remains the same, but it takes on new shape depending on who's singing it. Think of how many people have carried it, over all these aeons. How many voices."

"That so?"

"Yeah. He was right about nearly everything, in a way. Even the bad things."

"You had something to eat?"

"Later. In an hour. I'll remember," she muttered. "You know... when we found out what he was, and we weren't even sure who he was, and I left to stay in Mideel and take care of him, I couldn't bear the thought that everything between us up to that point was fake. You remember, right?"

Barret nodded uncomfortably. He did remember.

"Everything was gone, everyone else was pretending it hadn't happened at all.... That boy from Nibelheim was all I had left. If Cloud wasn't a real person... if I lost him... I don't know. I don't know what I'd have done.

"In a way, though, I did lose him anyway. We weren't friends -- I didn't even like him, I thought he was creepy. He bit people. Everyone thought his mother was a prostitute... he was a bastard from some Shinra manager twice her age, so maybe she was for all we know. I was the mayor's daughter. I wasn't supposed to hang around with boys like that. I love what I gained, but... I lost him the same day I found out it really was Cloud Strife from Nibelheim, because the boy I was so afraid of losing along with him was never really real to begin with.

"And then, you know, I got to thinking afterwards... if that was the case, how much would it have mattered if he had been a clone? If I'd never known Cloud from Nibelheim in the first place, it wouldn't matter, would it? Would I have felt the same way? Would it have changed anything? How real was Cloud to begin with? What they did to him in the lab... he kept persisting through brain death because he was part of Jenova -- do we have any way of knowing if that was Cloud?" mused Tifa, more to herself than Barret. "Or something that crawled into his head and became him when the human part of his mind died?

"And was it the same thing that came back to us when he ceased to exist four years ago? Something persisting because he thinks he should. A piece of Jenova. What was it we rebuilt in the Lifestream, before that? What did I find in the trash, that shaped itself with my memories, with the things it wanted? How many versions deep are we, of an idea that an idea of an idea had?" She smiled. It did not reach her eyes, as gaunt and sunken as they were. There was something else behind them now that Barret didn't quite recognise.

"I wonder what it feels like for him." She let out a slow, dreamy sigh. "I read this book once that argued when you sleep, the you that's experiencing, reacting, being -- that was made from all that electricity in your brain -- it dies, and someone else gets up and walks away with your neural pathways the next morning. I wonder if he can feel it happening."

"...Doesn't sound like a very good book."

"It wasn't," she said. "The couple on the cover were embracing, but the main boyfriend guy just insults the main character all the time, and he just sits there swooning over him. I guess that's supposed to be sexual tension. Maybe Sean read that one, too."

Well, if she was griping about her exes she was at least somewhat lucid. Maybe he could test her on the date.

"...You remember when it was I knocked his teeth out?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied, after a moment's thought. "5755. You used the arm with the gun on it. What if he'd called the MPAF on us? They'd have come to the bar, and then what?"

"The hell was he gonna tell 'em? 'I walked into someone else's bar and caused a ruckus, but I think I should get to stay 'cause I was dating the owner'? MPAF won't give a damn."

"Mm. Well, it was a very nice birthday gift," she said with another smile. This one seemed more genuine. "...Though, we've missed a lot of them lately. Maybe yours, too. Now I don't know if it's coming up, or if we missed it already, or what day it is. If it's any day at all."

"...Don't you go and worry about things like that right now."

She sighed. "I guess you're right. We can do another makeup party, maybe..." Her gaze lost focus again. "...What kind of thing were we feeding and clothing for four years? Did it like the presents we bought it?"

Barret sighed. Four years ago, it had been him pointing out Cloud might not even be capable of intent, and Tifa angrily shouting him down.

"...You promise you'll eat in an hour?" he said.

"I promise. I just need to look for something."

Barret finally lost patience.

"Tifa, he's gone," he said.

"I know," she said in the same tone of voice. "I just need to look for something."

Barret strode from the room, slamming the door behind him.

"I could talk to her, if you like," said Nanaki from behind him, causing him to jump.

"How long were you standing there?"

"Perhaps an hour. Hard to say. Parts of it kept happening over and over again."

"...Well, go find Yuffie if you can. Tell her lunch is ready."

"I'm not hungry."

"If you're worried about there being enough food, I'll send Zack out to find more later. Eat something."

Nanaki stood there, apparently mulling it over, before acquiescing and leading Barret back to the others.

By the time he got back, Aeris had already wolfed down most of her meal and was now trying to engage the rest of the table in conversation.

"-- and it’s a shame about that forest, really," she continued, eerily chipper. "You’ve got a lot of uninhabitable wastelands here, you know, and I kept wondering why the whole time we were travelling."

"...It’s not all wasteland," said Nanaki uncomfortably. "Cosmo Canyon is very lovely."

"Perhaps I’ll see it later, when this is over, after I’ve left. Of course I’ll need to find somewhere cheap to live. What is the rent in Edge like?"

"...It’s free with citizenship," said Jessie. "First come first serve. You get bumped up the queue if you agree to help repopulate."

"So you have to have children?"

"Don’t have to. Donate eggs or sperm. Agree to surrogate for nine months. Adopt a preexisting kid," said Cid, frowning. "Or just wait extra. You gonna run out on us again?"

"Well, once I’ve done my job," she said. She let out a short giggle that was just a bit too high pitched. "I mean, what’s keeping me here? He’s not getting any deader."

Nobody said a word.

Zack actually stayed put at the table this time, and ate in complete silence without making eye contact with any of them, which was now remarkably social by his standards. It didn't take a genius to notice he'd always duck out whenever Tifa was feeling better.

"...Any progress?" asked Barret. He hated to nag her about it given what was on the line, but it was about the only thing she'd talk about that didn’t make everyone uncomfortable.

Aeris exchanged a glance with Cid.

"Don't think we can get any kinda fancy liquid gallium setup here," said Cid. "Shera says there ain’t nothin’ on the ship that she can risk cannibalising, even if we know how to build whatever contraptions she had. But the hard part was broadcasting a signal from one universe to another, and Aeris is here in the flesh."

"I still haven't made contact with anything yet," said Aeris tiredly, pushing her rice around with her spoon instead of eating it. "And I don't even know how to stop Meteor once I get there. If that's even what's causing all of this."

"It's the only thing we have to go off of," said Jessie. "Might as well take a crack at it. And you're guaranteed to succeed, since you already did it."

"I'm not, though," said Aeris. "If that were true -- time has been falling apart around us this entire time. All of you remember when it wasn't doing that, so things haven't always been this way, meaning none of this was always going to happen. And I'm not interfering from the outside anymore. Meaning -- meaning... what if it isn't? If this is happening because nothing is fixed in time -- because multiple outcomes are trying to happen at once -- then that means there's nothing I'm meant to do when I get there."

"Kid, quit talkin’ and eat your food before it stops existing," grumbled Cid. "Plenty of time to fuss over the end of the world later."

"Maybe, maybe not," said Aeris, rubbing at one of her eyes. "But, you know, even I’ve found time to work on things that aren’t the world ending thing. You’ve got to manage your time properly if you want to be successful, you know. Helps you stay positive, handle the grieving process. Here."

She retrieved a folded sheet of paper from her pocket and handed it to Barret. Unfolding it revealed a lot of crude sketches of flowers, as well as some slightly misspelled descriptions of various plants in Standard, apparently copied out of a book.

Barret stared at it. "The hell's this for?"

"...He liked flowers," said Aeris. "Kept trying to boast to me about the ones he'd seen. I wrote down some ones I think he'd like, but... he -- you knew him the longest, right?"

"...What are you gettin' at?"

"Even if she were right in the head, Tifa's in no fit state to organise a service," replied Aeris. "If -- when I figure this out, then -- afterwards, someone will need to."

Barret said nothing.

"...Do you hold services for the dead here?" she asked, a bit more pointedly. "I didn't want to assume, but it seemed like the sort of thing --"

"Bastard always did like makin' me do all the hard work," grumbled Barret. "In Nibelheim they just burn the bodies, which we ain't got. There's some ceremonial shit that I don't know, so that takes care of that. Problem solved."

"Oh," she said, a bit more quietly. "...If you're sure."

"If I knew anything about him, he wouldn't've wanted us to make a fuss about it," said Barret. "Probably wouldn't even wanna go for the burning. 'Too much wasted oil, to get the pyre that hot! Just find a nice ditch and let the rats take care of it.' That's what he'd say." He looked over her list again. "Yeah, see, look at this -- lily of the valley, lavender... roses. That ain't a small amount of gil, for roses."

"I picked ones that smelled nice," she replied. "He said... well -- anyway. You knew him better."

Barret shook his head. "I'll give you this much -- you're right, he would've..."

Would've loved the idea of having flowers that smell nice -- would've hated the idea of them spending any amount of money on his funeral.

His funeral. Cloud's funeral.

Barret quickly rose from the table as his vision began to blur, and barely managed to round the corner into the "kitchen" before tears overtook him. He ought to be used to this by now. He'd been gone for over two weeks. It took him a year before he'd even managed to perform a service for Myrna, as small and purely symbolic as it was.

He could still hear Aeris prattling away in the kitchen.

"I think roses would still be worth the effort to get," said Aeris. "It’s not typical funeral fare, of course, but think of how nice all the colour would be."

"...Aeris," said Cid, with far more patience than Barret would’ve ever expected from him, "not right now."

"If not now, when?" said Aeris calmly. "He’s been dead for a while now. You know, when I lost Mum and Dad, the healthiest thing I did was --"

"What the hell would you know about healthy?" snapped Zack. "You haven’t slept in two days."

"At least I’m trying to stay positive about this so I can fix it --"

A loud slam. Dead silence. Barret didn’t even bother to check who it was. Didn’t want to walk in there without a dry face anyway.

 

---

 

Zack left to find supplies without another word, closing the door none too gently on his way out.

As far as holdouts of the population were concerned, they were in better shape than most. Zack (and in theory, Tifa, were she not dying) could risk venturing out into what was basically a minefield, the landscape dotted with pockets of non- or lesser-existence. He'd been wandering around various thinner parts of reality long enough to know how to work his way to and fro, and Reunion instinct could guide him back. It wasn't as though he could get infected again. Aeris, in theory, might have also made the trip out safely, but had no way to get back, with space as unreliable as it was now.

At first, he also used it as an excuse to go looking for Cloud. After all, he hadn't come back plenty of other times, but he was always somewhere out there, screaming in the back of his head, or at worst, not even really conscious.

There was nothing like that left anymore.

Physically, on the other hand, there was evidence of him left dotted across Zack's own body: the bite mark on his arm; the scar on his chest from where Cloud had tried to kill him (on accident); the scars on his cheek and forearm from where Cloud had tried to kill him (on purpose); the fact that he now weighed about three hundred fifty pounds, up from two hundred twenty-one, and that he was doing a very, very good job at hiding that; the serial number tattooed on his wrist; a pair of earrings he didn't even have pierced ears for....

Sometimes he'd step through a patch of, well, less of the world, and hear things moving. They might have been people once. He didn't know what they were anymore, dragged this far out from reality, besides a bunch of maybes unable to make their way back under their own power.

And then he'd step back out and leave them to their fate. He had supplies to gather.

The sun wasn't working today -- or at least, they were in a slice of reality where its light wasn't reaching them for one reason or another -- and so Zack was stuck with creating a fire in the palm of his hand.

Another thing he'd taken from Cloud. He'd just sort of assumed that at least his soul would still be intact -- had even believed, a little bit, even though he knew factually it was wrong, that Aeris, and Tifa, and even Sephiroth were sending out theirs to inhabit Cloud's body. But now he had it in him. Cloud's soul. Except it wasn't Cloud's anymore. That was part of Zack now, too, and there was nothing left in it he could find that indicated anything to the contrary.

And so, after a week and a half, Zack had stopped looking, too.

So it was his connection to the Planet that he now had calling up magic to light his way through the city. The shadows cast by the flame did not move in time with the light source creating them. Some of them left entirely. Others joined. Zack tried not to look at either.

In spite of all of this, he readily took these trips. It meant he didn't have to be around the rest of Avalanche, avoiding accusatory stares. Avoiding Tifa.

Of all of them that must have blamed him for Cloud's death, she must have blamed him the most. She had been there to hear that last awful conversation -- Cloud begging for mercy -- pleading for anything but what Zack had done to him --

They had all heard what he'd done, but only she was capable of truly understanding exactly what kind of person had done it.

The rest of the community didn't care, at least. In fact, they'd sort of come to rely on him. If he didn't make these trips, no one could.

Well, Cloud could've. Probably would've been more ideal for the job, even. He had more experience with this Jenova shit, and Zack couldn't fit himself into the little crevices he'd seen Cloud worm his way in and out of without warping his own flesh to fit. At least now he’d gotten into the habit of remembering to take his clothes and his bag off first.

He was never shaped the same way twice, whenever he stopped pretending to look human. Just meat and limbs and teeth and eyes, and sometimes feathers.

Once, in private, he'd tried to make himself look like Cloud, hoping it would spark some sort of awareness somewhere in the mass of Jenova cells that was his body. All he'd done was discover a whole new way to be disgusted with himself.

He returned this time not just with food, but with medical supplies he'd found in an abandoned convenience store. He'd just stuffed things at random into his bag, unsure what some of the bottles even did. Lazard might've known, maybe. But then, it was an alien planet. He couldn't even start to guess what was in the drink he'd been given for spell exhaustion.

He'd looked for some of that, too, but hadn't found any. Bit of a pain, since the headache was already setting in. He still wasn't very good at pacing himself, and no one had taught him how.

They had a healing materia, at least -- the one Zack had found in the first aid kit was long since haggled away, but he still had the one Cloud had retrieved from the tower. Not that they did much to help Tifa. How did one heal a gaping hole in the torso that seemed to go on forever with magic designed to counteract snake bites?

As per usual, he handed off his finds to Aeris for her to eventually give to Tifa.

"Any survivors?" she asked him, the way she always did.

"Not this time," he replied, the way he had for over two weeks.

"...Spot me?" she asked him once again.

And then he would nod, and borrow Cid, and together they would fill a bathtub and turn off all the lights, and she would lie there in the water motionless until her fingers would start to prune and her lips would turn blue.

"I just need to try harder," she said through chattering teeth. "It's -- I'm used to reaching for -- for the last contact point, I just need to -- to remember it's a different one --"

He would fetch her a towel, the way he had before all of this had gone to hell. And they would sit together on the couch, waiting for her to warm up again.

"I just need to try harder," she would always mutter to herself in a daze, the bags under her eyes deepening with every day. "If I just... if I just try harder. I'll do it. I will."

He would put his arm around her shoulder, the way he should have been doing this entire time -- his entire life. She never told him to take it away, at least.

And then, as always, she would shuffle off to the closet, where it was dark, and she would try again.

He got back up. He should get more sleep. Talk with Cid tomorrow about building a proper tank with what they had, and whether or not it could be done in time. If they even had any time left.

Tifa was the only one with her own room, for ease of treatment. But if Zack snuck into the other bedroom early enough and managed to crash, he wouldn't have to talk to anyone that came in after him.

The door behind Zack slammed shut, and he spun around to see Tifa frowning at him with her hand against the wood.

"Stop avoiding me," she said immediately and matter-of-factly. "And don't you dare say you're not. You obviously are."

"...I-I was just --"

"The only one that blames you for what happened is you, Zack Fair," she interrupted. Zack had nothing to say in return. "And I'm sick of idiots making that my problem. Anyway, if you want to keep ghosting me, you can do that tomorrow. For now, we're going to have a chat."

Chapter 60: The Fabled Orgy Chapter Is Here at Last (Haha This Is False I Have Done a Joke Yet Again)

Notes:

Motherfucker Of A Chapter To Write that I prepped years ago and then I just sat on it and now it's here oh god oh god oh god: 2/4. Not completely happy with it (frankly I think 55 turned out a hell of a lot cleaner and not just because it got its own point across way more succinctly), but then I'm never happy with these things. Them's the breaks!

Thank you to Belderiver, la_regina_scrive, DarthTofu, and sub_divided, as well as Denebola_Leo, Asin, and Ash for making this possible.

And also you should know that this chapter contains suicidal ideation, graphic depictions of self-harm and gore, and allusions to non-consensual sexual behaviour.

Zack did not move. He didn't dare, with Tifa looking at him like that. (The extra eye didn't help matters.)

Her breath slowly sucked in and out in a rattle, and her long, white hair hung lank and unkempt in her face.

"Dunno if you should be walking around like that," said Zack. "What did the doctors say?"

Tifa shrugged. "Tumours," she replied after a moment. "Benign, they said. They operated yesterday, but... I mean, what's the point if I'm gonna grow another three somewhere else? Without being stabilised..." she trailed off.

"...I'm sorry." What else was there to say?

"For what?" She looked up at Zack. Her face was still utterly blank. "If anyone's owed an apology, it should be you. You never chose this."

"Neither did you."

"No," agreed Tifa, "I didn't. But... I think I would've. I wish I had."

Zack merely shook his head and sighed. Being crazy meant she wasn't tearfully blaming him for Cloud's death yet, at least. Small mercies.

"Does it help?" he asked. "Moving around like that."

"...Probably not," she admitted. "Been behind on weight training, though."

"Not like we need it anymore," said Zack. "...Gonna miss it."

"Who says you have to give it up?" said Tifa. "Cloud didn't. We used to work out together all the time. Spar and stuff. The weight training was just for me, though." She gave him an appraising look. "You run much?"

"Sprinted. Hundred yard dash."

"I guess I can see it. I was more into jogging than Cloud was; he's more into his bike, you know?" She smiled. "We'll make a day of it later, when all this is sorted. Maybe try and drag Aeris into it. She could do with a little physical activity."

Zack said nothing.

"So, about you avoiding me," she said pointedly. "That's really rude."

His mouth opened on instinct to explain how he hadn't been -- to say how he just wanted to give her space, how he was sorry he'd made her feel that way -- as smooth and as natural as he'd ever said it, every time, without missing a beat.

He closed it again. Swallowed.

"Wasn't sure I could take it," said Zack. "...But I guess it's not about whether or not I can take it, is it?"

"You're being really stupid about this," she said, crossing her arms. "I've been trying myself, obviously, but we could've made this a hell of a lot easier if you'd pitched in."

"Made what easier?"

"Bringing Cloud back," said Tifa, as though he were a bit slow. "You're the one whose subconscious ate him. I can only do so much digging in Jenova itself, but we both know he's not in there anymore."

Oh.

The others were right, Zack realised with a pang. The poor thing really had gone mad with grief.

No -- no, he'd read about this. One should be gentle about these things, let her realise they were delusions on her own by presenting the facts.

"You know," said Zack as supportively as possible, "I'm not sure he's there to bring back. I -- you know how hard I looked for him."

Even now, just as before -- no matter how frantically he'd looked, there still wasn't even a shred of another awareness left. Even before, there had always been something, but now...

He could tell Tifa that, of course, but she probably wouldn't --

"Yeah, I know," she said. "You're not the only one that's infected. That just means we need to be a little more creative."

"Tifa..."

"I watched him dissolve, and that still didn't get rid of him," said Tifa flatly. "Of all the stuff that's tried to kill him, you think you're gonna be the thing that does him in? Guy who got his thumb chopped off and had a nervous breakdown?"

"Yeah, I do," snapped Zack. "I'm sorry, okay? I really am. But there's nothing left."

"I know you know magic," said Tifa, "and unless he stashed all that materia in some hole I don't know about -- which, I guess that's possible, actually," she said, frowning at her own midsection, "...but still, you got all those memories from him."

"It's just data," said Zack. "Just more memories, and they're my memories now, not his. They're not doing anything."

"But you remember it."

"That's just how magic works," objected Zack. "I mean, of course I remember it. How do you even remember something you --"

Tifa waited expectantly.

"...you don't... know you remember..."

She smiled. It looked terrifyingly lucid. Zack began to stammer.

"But -- but I looked -- there's nothing there, there's no -- there's gotta be a person there, right?"

"He's come back from less," said Tifa, as though this were obvious. "Or -- something like him, anyway. There's always a little piece of him willing to get back up. And until you've checked -- really checked, and it doesn't sound like you have -- then I don't want to hear it's not there this time."

"Okay, but -- but how?" he stammered. "How am I supposed to know I have a memory I don't know I have? How am I supposed to make him start remembering it if he doesn't even exist to remember it?"

"That's up to you," said Tifa. "You're the one that knows your own head, right?"

"I -- I don't..."

Zack sat himself down on the bed next to her, surprised to find himself shaking. This wasn't going to work. It might work. But it wasn't going to. But it could, maybe he was alive and it could work, but it wouldn't, and it would mean his heart hammering in his chest hard enough for it to hurt would be for nothing.

"What did you try?" he asked hoarsely.

"Sitting really still for a while and meditating," said Tifa. "I'm just as new to this as you are, though. Plus I was coming down off sedatives."

"If you couldn't find anything like that, no way I could," said Zack. "You wouldn't even know what to look for. I wouldn't know what to look for. You'd have to... you'd have to know what it feels like, I think, to remember things as Cloud."

He jumped to his feet. "Wait --"

Zack's bag, as caked in filth as it was, still had the first aid kit they'd filched from the basement of Shinra Manor. He’d hocked the healing materia in it weeks ago haggling for supplies, but he’d never been able to palm off the second one -- the one Cloud had retrieved from Vincent’s grave -- onto anyone before Yuffie had attempted to steal it. He retrieved it from the bottom of the bag and brought it in to show Tifa.

She didn't seem particularly impressed.

"Don't think," he said, more to himself, "remember. Easy."

"He tell you that?"

Zack nodded.

"He also tell you Time magic is Black?"

"...Is it not?" asked Zack. "He seemed to know his stuff, so I thought --"

"It's White, and I'll tell him he's wrong myself when I see him again." She offered her hand. "Not that it'll do anything for me, but it'll give you a target and a mana supply. Give it a shot."

Zack grimaced and gingerly took her hand. This time probably wouldn't be any more pleasant than the last. He took a deep breath, and remembered how to heal --

-- remembered what it was like to immerse himself in the will of the Planet, for just an instant --

-- remembered slamming the door to his coffin as a child pleaded for him in the dark --

He dropped the materia and jerked away. The room was empty, and the lights had gone dark. Tifa was nowhere to be found.

He didn't have to try to push into the in-between places anymore. They were all practically swimming in it.

A strong memory, he thought, as the world shifted and warped like scrunched fabric around him. Something that would matter to Cloud, that the both of them were there for. What did Cloud even like?

Food. Aeris and Tifa. Casual tactile affection. The choice was pretty obvious.

He heard the television before anything else. He remembered watching the extravagant cake one of the contestants was making and wondering if he'd ever be able to pull it off himself, and was stunned at the absurdity of how normal the thought itself was after everything that had happened.

And Cloud had offered to sleep next to him, he remembered. Though, he hadn't seemed too fussed about it either way. Less affection for Zack, more just a lack of regard for boundaries.

He looked over and saw Cloud curled up next to Tifa. That lady was nearly as twitchy and unstable as he was. Which he frankly found ridiculous, given she clearly had her life together a thousand times more than all of them put together.

Aeris, the furthest one from him, seemed to be stealing blankets from the three of them anyway. Probably not used to sharing with anyone but her cat. He wished, for maybe the millionth time, she'd gotten involved with any other project but the one she'd been doomed to work on since birth. She deserved it.

This was no good. These were all still his thoughts, his memories. None of the foreign sensation of finding a memory in his brain he knew wasn't his. What else did he have to work with?

Maybe something happy wasn't the way to go here -- if he'd learned anything about Cloud, it was that pain seemed to follow him a hell of a lot further in life than anything good.

He himself certainly wouldn't forget the sensation of being psychically thrown into a tree, that much was for sure. He tried to lose himself in the feeling of bone colliding with bone, of Cloud screaming in his face, the white hot rage of the moment, of being told he could only ever...

...It was still just him. And he didn't really want to think about this himself, either. Something else. He needed something else.

He'd seen once -- something about spreading out a blanket in front of a window, looking out at the sky. He closed his eyes, trying to find the rest of that memory, but it seemed to stop at his own hazy recollection of the recollection.

Maybe -- maybe the stars?

He rolled over onto his back in the grass and stared up at the night sky, of the liquid black scattered with white and green and pink and gold, like crushed diamond.

"She should've been here to see this," Zack felt himself saying. "She deserves to."

"...She got a kick out of chocobos," replied Cloud. "How much did she tell you about them?"

"A third of the transcript for that visit's worth. And another third was about magic."

And then he'd taught Cloud -- or had promised he'd teach him, and Zack had offered to teach him to cook, and now he was gone --

The stars were winking out, one by one, leaving him in total blackness.

It was dark here, but not empty. Something dripped onto the ground with a rhythmic tapping noise. The whir of the air filtration system competed with the faint hum of the generator. Zack found himself reaching up, and, as though he'd always known it was there, flicking on a light switch.

The sixth ring was empty, aside from himself, and the nude figure huddled in the corner.

"You gave me clothes," Cloud had said. Over and over and over again. If there was anything he remembered, that would stick somehow....

He felt himself moving in time with the memory, digging out a spare outfit from the rest of his supplies, and stepped closer to Cloud. Cloud shied away from him even further.

"Thought you might want these," he had said. And then he'd set them down and moved away, and Cloud had taken them, hands trembling.

Then he simply blinked out of existence as the memory grew fuzzier. There was nothing else cutting into them, blindingly clear, filled with tears, with quiet thanks. There were no memories but his own. There was nothing here left of Cloud.

There was nothing left of --

He couldn't believe that, he couldn't -- this had to work, after everything. It had to.

"...Is anyone here?" he asked. No one answered him. The Gainsborough compound was still intact, and completely abandoned, the doors to their living quarters open, the airlocks unsealed. Jazz music, tinny and distorted, wafted through from the speakers in the ceiling, the screens flashing with numbers as they recorded the notes into the transcript.

He wanted to laugh, finding himself back here after everything and still having nothing at all to show for it, but it would not have been a happy sound. He'd wandered the halls of this place in his dreams a thousand times while going over the blueprints, long before he'd ever imagined he'd actually get to go there. And after all this time...

The glass wasn't glass -- merely a sheet of rainwater, pouring from the sky when it had been ripped open. He stepped through it and emerged into the fifth ring. There was no one left here, either. The walls were lined with cages upon cages of rats. The doors to their cages were all unlocked, and they were staring at him unblinkingly.

"Cloud?" His voice sounded strange in his own ears. "I came back. Like I promised."

The sound of the rats burrowing through bedding produced a steady scratching sound like radio static, punctuating the silence.

Zack closed his eyes. None of this is real, he told himself. So -- so when I open my eyes, Cloud's going to be standing there in front of me, and he'll be okay.

He forced himself to believe it -- to be sure of it, the same way it was so easy for him to believe the world around him was fake, and then real, and then fake, the way he was sure he was Zack.

He opened his eyes. Cloud was sitting in the office chair, staring past him, offering his earrings to thin air.

"I promised I wouldn’t lose them," he said. "I promised. And you deserve them."

"Cloud?" Zack rushed over to him, but froze as the figure didn't react. He reached out cautiously to touch him, and his hand passed through it, disturbing the image, which began to dissipate like smoke into the air.

"I promised I wouldn't lose them. I promised. And you deserve them," it repeated, as more and more of it was churned into the air. "I promised I wouldn't lose them. I promised. And you deserve them. I promised I wouldn't lose them. I promised. And you deserve them."

Eventually there was nothing left of it but a smear of colour. Then that too faded, leaving him in silence but for the ever-present whispering.

The rubber ball he'd smuggled in was still sitting on the computer chairs. He snatched it up off the chair and threw it at the wall of rats with a scream.

It punched a hole through it as neatly as though it were paper. Water began to trickle in, a slow, steady rushing, whispering, a thousand thousand voices --

There was nothing here. Nothing but Her. He forced himself not to listen.

This was such a sad place. Not just because of the deaths; this was where things were supposed to be better, for him and for Aeris. And now look.

He sat and watched as the rats swarmed away from the walls as the place flooded. Another memory took him, and he sat down next to them and scooped one onto his lap, scratching its ears. He wasn't supposed to be doing this, he knew, it wasn't allowed --

Another memory, slipped in beside it like torn, forgotten paper. Wasn't -- something wasn't...

He looked down at the rat, which suddenly squirmed away from his hand. It looked up at him, its eyes wide and terrified.

"...Cloud?"

He sat there for a moment, barely daring to move, then scampered down Zack's leg and streaked off down the hall.

"Hey -- wait!"

Zack practically tripped over his own feet following him. The water was collecting around his knees, slowing him down. He stumbled over to the door for the sixth ring and threw it open, racing down the long, empty hallway. He could no longer see the rat, but he could faintly hear something squeaking in the distance.

He dove for it, barely managing to grab the wriggling ball of fur before cradling it desperately to his chest.

"Don't go," he begged. "It's okay. It's okay, I came back, just please don't go --"

The steady warmth it gave off suddenly vanished, and Zack found his arms empty.

He felt around for it frantically, but the hallway was empty. There was a door before him (had it always been there?) and he could hear quiet, tremulous breaths coming from behind it.

He burst through the door at the end of the hall and sawrememberedfelt Cloud, rail thin and not even through his first growth spurt yet, practically swimming in the filthy hospital gown he wore, huddled in the corner of his cell. His eyes pivoted to focus on Zack, but his thousand yard stare remained fully in place.

"Is that -- are you really here?" asked Zack, scarcely daring to believe it.

Cloud began to tremble more and more as Zack drew near, and did not reply. The blank look on his face was beyond terror, the product of fear sustained over weeks upon weeks without end.

Zack carefully knelt in front of him again, and saw there was something he was keeping shielded from view. It squeaked.

"...Can I see?" asked Zack, as gently as he could. Cloud looked him up and down, face still devoid of any recognition. Zack forced a smile.

Cloud slowly turned and revealed the white rat huddled in his arms. Probably an escapee from the lab cages.

"What's his name?" asked Zack.

Cloud looked back up at Zack, then back down at the rat. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times uncertainly, his panic growing as he failed to come up with an appropriate answer.

"That's okay," said Zack. "He doesn't -- he doesn't need one."

He returned to gently scratching the rat between the ears. It relaxed against him, its beady red eyes bulging faintly.

"...soft," said Cloud, his voice barely more than a rasp, the barest hint of a fond smile flickering across his face.

Zack opened his mouth to reply, but a hand -- a hand much bigger than any hand had a right to be, reached down and wrenched the rat from Cloud's grasp. Cloud stifled a cry as he reached for the rat, and quickly shrank back a moment later as he saw what it was attached to.

Hojo, Zack realised. Only he was massive -- ten or fifteen feet tall, the cell warping around Cloud and himself to accommodate him, his body stretched and distorted, and he peered down over them with a predatory hunger. The light reflecting off his glasses rendered his expression unreadable.

"Where did you get that?" came the cold, sharp voice. The rat continued to twist in Hojo's grip, high above their heads. Zack moved in front of Cloud, not knowing what else to do, even as his own heart hammered loudly in his chest.

Cloud shook, too terrified to speak, awaiting the inevitable. He'd only just gotten his tongue back -- was so close to clothes, and now --

Hojo disappeared. Cloud sat there, his eyes glassy and unfocused, tears slowly sliding down his face.

Zack shook himself and reached for Cloud's shoulder. "Hey --!"

He didn't even flinch when Zack touched him, his face papered over with vacant acceptance once more. He looked down at his hands in confusion.

This memory -- this was the only piece of Cloud left? Or just the only piece he could find, the rest torn to shreds, disconnected across Zack's own memories? Was it even "Cloud" experiencing this, the way he understood it?

"Can you hear me?" Zack asked. Cloud did not reply.

He did, however, suck in a shuddering gasp when Zack pulled him into a hug. Cloud tensed in his arms, then buried his face into Zack's chest. When Zack finally pulled away, Cloud still clung to Zack's shirt, looking up at him with nothing less than awe. The way a rat would look up at God. The tears were still streaming down his face, perhaps because it had not occurred to him how to stop.

"What do you say we leave here, huh?" said Zack. "You can wake up and see your family. They miss you."

Cloud stared at him for another moment and swallowed nervously. "...don't understand," he said quietly.

"Your family," repeated Zack, growing more desperate, "they miss you. Don't -- don't you want to leave here?"

"...Not allowed," said Cloud, gaze still unfocused. "It's bad if it tries to leave. It's safe here."

"Safe? It's safe? How the fuck is it safe?"

Cloud's shaking grew steadily more pronounced. The same look of panic he'd had on his face when Zack had asked if the rat had had a name had returned with a vengeance.

Zack took a moment to ground himself, to remember that it was Cloud feeling these things, not himself, and that they were two different people.

"What if I said you were allowed to go somewhere else?" said Zack. "If it was safe there too, would you go?"

Cloud did not move to get up, so Zack stood and slowly helped him to his feet. He did not resist the effort. At this age, Zack towered over him, and his hands could easily encircle bone-thin wrists and have plenty of space to spare.

"We're going somewhere safe," said Zack. "Do you know where we're going?"

Cloud remained silent.

Zack nervously approached the door, tried to think of somewhere sunny and quiet. With the world gossamer and brittle as it was, he barely felt in control of any of this. He pushed open the battered wood and the door swung forwards, illuminating an unlit closet with the golden glow of afternoon spilling in from the windows. Positioned behind rows of his father's leather shoes and between his mother's dresses was a laundry hamper, where two boys could be heard stifling giggles. And he remembered --

-- another piece. Not his.

Tifa, looking less haggard than Zack had ever seen her, pushed past him and removed the blanket from the closet, shaking it out and laying it across the floor of the smallest, dingiest bedroom he'd ever seen. He remembered a nearly-empty, barely-lived-in room, a bed -- more of a cot, really, with a single blanket on it, and a single beat-up looking dresser. He looked around at the empty room, before he remembered --

-- that his bedroom was lavishly decorated with everything he'd received from his nine day birthday party. Instead of the cardboard box he'd been keeping his few clothes in next to his toolbox, there was a wooden dresser with three drawers dedicated to it. Sitting on top of it was a new leather jacket -- a really, really cool one, the kind of thing he'd always wanted but hadn't ever had the means to get, that he'd always imagined himself wearing but hadn't ever been brave enough to really try. On the wooden desk next to his phone were a camera and a few picture frames. Most of them were empty, filled with default photos of fruit he hadn't replaced yet, but one of them he'd swapped out for the only photograph he owned so far. The rest of Avalanche smiled and waved back at him from behind the glass.

The room itself was pretty nice, too. It was the best one in the building, in his opinion. They'd had another room, too, a regular-looking one, but he had picked this one. It hadn't been used before he'd been invited to live here due to it actually being the custodial storage room, but there were four big windows that let in the light, and a fifth one in the ceiling that was actually a janitorial skylight so he could go onto the roof whenever he liked. It was full of light and sound, and all throughout the day he could hear water gurgling and clanging through the pipes, and at night the vents would buckle and rattle loudly as the air conditioner switched on and off, so it was never completely silent. It was a soothing, peaceful space.

Tifa vanished. The sun shone down on an empty blanket.

Cloud, bound so deep into him his thoughts seemed to sift in and out of Zack's own, staggered over to it and sat there in front of the window. The sky was wide and blue -- dull red with Meteor looming in the distance -- speckled with alien constellations and faraway worlds -- blank, paper white -- blocked off behind thick wooden boards....

The buzz of fluorescents beckoned from behind it, and the air smelled of antiseptic.

There was a scream welling up somewhere in Cloud's throat, and he seemed to distort and warp and flicker, the skin on his back tenting, crackling like dry leaves, until there was a second Cloud, desperately tearing its way out of the first one's back like a cicada moult, an expression of utmost terror on his face. As he clawed his way out of the first and scrambled desperately towards Zack, hundreds of hands burst through the wooden boards, and grabbed onto the first Cloud. He was dragged, kicking and begging and screaming bloody murder, back to white sterile walls. Then the window slammed shut once more, hiding it from view with the midday sun shining through the dirty glass.

Zack lunged for the window and pushed it open, and saw only the street below.

"You can't help him," said the Cloud behind him. Zack whirled around.

The new Cloud was his age, perhaps a bit younger. While he still looked unhealthily pale, his gaze was more alert, and Zack could no longer see every bone poking through his skin, in part due to the uniform he was wearing. It seemed a bit too big on him. Zack wondered if he had any clothes that actually fit.

"What do you mean, I can't help him?"

"It's what he's for," said Cloud. "That's why he made me. I haven't been in a long time... we didn't think I'd need to."

"'Haven't been'? Who are you?"

"I'm Cloud," he replied. "I'm here to live, and be happy, and not be ruined. That's what he's for."

"But... he's you. I should..."

"No, he's not!" Cloud's eyes -- human eyes, aside from the glow -- narrowed. "I'm me. And I'm out here, and I'm safe... when they hurt him, it doesn't matter, because he isn't me. Otherwise -- no one ever came back for him. How else were we supposed to escape?"

"You could walk out!" said Zack. "There's nothing stopping you from just walking out! You could've escaped a hundred times --"

"You don't know what it was like in there!" screamed Cloud. "That isn't... he ruined everything, it's his fault we had no one. He's the reason nobody came back for us."

"Vincent did," said Zack.

"Why didn't he do it sooner?" asked Cloud, and suddenly he was very young again -- maybe six, maybe even younger. "He was there the whole time. Why didn't he do it sooner?"

"I don't... I mean, I don't know, but he still --"

"It's because he hated me," said Cloud. "He hated me. All I did was bother him, and he was punishing me, and then he finally decided to give me a chance to not ruin everything, a-and I --"

Why do you care so much if I just pretend? said a voice -- Sephiroth's? He couldn't be sure.

"Wanting something doesn't make it true --"

A hand snaked around his throat, cutting him off. The windows had banged open again, and he, too, was dragged off into the white again. This one didn't even fight.

"No!" Zack lunged forwards to try and catch him, but it was far too late. He felt something grab his arm and pull him through the window into nothingness as well.

He tumbled head over heels in the darkness, unable to orient himself, sheets of clean white paper fluttering around him like snow. They began to litter his arms with little nicks drawing infinitesimal drops of blood, until his skin burned with it. There was liquid green all around him, and he screamed and gagged around the tube fed down his throat into his stomach, lungs full of oxygenated liquid mako, some sort of cable surgically inserted into the back of his neck stinging sharply every time he thrashed, the IVs in his arms trailing through the water along with his movements like some sort of ghostly sea creature.

Someone stepped in front of the glass, and he recoiled from them before recognising their face. It was Aeris.

He opened the glass cylinder, and the liquid came rushing out, tugging at all the plastic embedded in his skin as it flowed past. He gagged again as his own body weight dragged the tube from his throat, tasting the chalky substance it had been pumping into him as he fell to the floor of the tank. The burning sensation was replaced with the icy chill of the air on his drenched skin.

"Aeris?" he rasped, looking up. Aeris was not there. Cloud was instead, sitting in front of the cylinder looking anxious. He reached for Zack's arm, and for a moment Zack thought he meant to help him up. Instead, his fingers trailed over the serial number on his wrist in fascination.

"This was mine..." murmured Cloud.

Zack saw him look down at his own, and recoiled in horror at the place his left arm used to be.

"No -- no, where is it -- where is it?!"

Zack hauled himself out of the tank. The uniform fit on him much better than it had on Cloud.

"I thought you said it would grow back," said Zack. "It'll be okay, if we can just --"

Cloud did not seem to be listening. "My number. You took it -- you took it from me -- !"

He knelt there on the floor, rocking back and forth, clutching the jagged stump where his arm had been, eyes wild.

"Give it back," he begged, tears welling up in his eyes. "Give it back, please, I need it --"

"You think I want this fucking cattle brand on me? You don't need it. Neither of us do, all it is is something they did to hurt you. That's all it is, it's another fucking bullet hole, and god knows neither of us need more of those --"

"It's all I have," said Cloud. "Please, give it back."

"No, it's not!" shouted Zack in desperation. "What about -- what about me? Why don't I count for anything?"

Cloud looked up at him. "You...?"

He wanted to ask something, but the words were gone again. He could see it swimming through the air, though, cold and alone in another kind of cell entirely.

"You gave me clothes," said Cloud with halting uncertainty.

"Yeah. Yeah, I did." Zack swallowed thickly, blinking his own tears out of his eyes. "Do you remember why?"

It was easier to reach for the memories that weren't his now. They'd finally started reaching for themselves, too, a thousand points across his own consciousness he hadn't even realised were there.

"Aeris said she was --"

He froze.

"Z-Zack?" he croaked out.

Zack fell to his knees and pulled Cloud into a hug as his own breathing started to catch. "I came back," he said, his voice breaking halfway through the sentence, the tears now flowing in earnest. "I came back for you, like I promised."

"I'm sorry," said Cloud quietly.

"It's okay," said Zack. "It doesn't matter."

"I didn't mean to --"

"It doesn't matter," repeated Zack. "It really doesn't. Okay?" He swallowed hard and managed a smile. "I'm just glad you're here. We all are."

Cloud managed a small nod.

The lab had no doors, but it didn't matter. This place wasn't real anyway.

"Ready to go?" asked Zack. "Everyone's missed you a lot."

Cloud did not reply right away.

"Cloud? We're -- we're leaving. You ready?"

"...If you want me to come back," he said slowly, not meeting his eyes, "then I will. Do you want me to?"

"What the hell kind of stupid question is that? I --"

Why did it still feel wrong to say it? It shouldn't. He meant it.

Didn't he?

"...I care about you. We all do. Everyone is waiting."

"If that's what you want."

It wasn't as though they had far to go, at least. Even the "real" world was a disorienting haze. Zack took a deep breath and pushed --

The figure in his arms vanished.

 

---

 

If Cloud had truly had a voice, he would have been screaming.

As it stood, he had been left behind in the dark, names slowly slipping away from him, dissolving into the thousand, million voices like tears in rain.

He'd tried that time. Really, really tried. Which didn't actually mean anything, either -- he never hadn't been trying his hardest to get out. Didn't seem to matter either way.

He didn't even have enough energy left to cry by the time Zack returned them both to the in-between place, letting him out of the dark. He felt wrung out and exhausted, as though there wasn't any space left in him to fit any emotions with the overwhelming knowledge of what would happen to him soon enough.

"I'm sorry!" blurted Zack, who seemed to be compensating for them both with the naked panic clearly displayed on his face. "I -- I must have fucked it up, let me -- here."

He grabbed Cloud's remaining hand. His skin was warm to the touch, and he was Cid, hauling him up a ledge as the icy wind bit into their cheeks, the ache that had welled up in him at the feeling of someone holding his hand sharper than the windchill, and he reached as much as he could through the veil of cascading water that suddenly roared around him --

And again, he was left in the dark with no body, unable to scream.

The third attempt went much the same way.

As did the fourth.

"This time," said Zack frantically. "It -- it has to work, you're here, you're real -- I promised I wouldn't leave you here, and I won't, we just --"

"...Maybe," Cloud said softly, "there's just not enough left to save anymore."

"No," said Zack. "You're here, and you're real, and -- you're trying to come back, right? You don’t want to stay here, right?"

He shook his head, still feeling numb.

"What -- what do we do, then?" asked Zack. "C'mon, you must know something about this, right? Some way to -- to get you away from Jenova --"

"Zack," said Cloud. "Jenova's all that's left of me. Remember? It's been that way for years. And now..."

"But..."

Cloud managed a small smile. "You came back for me. So... thank you."

Zack stood there. Cloud couldn't bring himself to look up at his face, but his voice was thick with grief.

"We all would have," said Zack. "We tried to find you, I swear, but I -- it was my fault, no one else could reach, and I just didn't look hard enough -- Tifa kept trying to tell us, and none of us bothered to listen, and -- I'm so so sorry --"

"Don't be," said Cloud. "You came back. That's all I ever wanted anyone to do."

"So now what?"

"...You can't keep putting me back together forever," said Cloud. "Pretty soon, no one will be able to. I probably won't even be here anymore, once you go back for real."

"...What should I do?"

"Say goodbye," said Cloud. He rubbed his neck anxiously. "It's okay. I won't be dead -- the pieces will still be around. You found them okay the last time."

"But you wouldn't be you anymore," said Zack. "That's what you told me before."

Cloud nodded. Managed another smile. "I'd be part of you instead. So -- it's for the best, isn't it? I'll finally be someone good. And -- I'll be useful to you. And I'll have my number back, in a way --"

"I'm not leaving," said Zack firmly.

"You'll have to eventually."

"Yeah." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "But until then, how about -- how about we just sit for a while. So you're not by yourself, when you... when it's time."

Cloud felt another pang. Forced it away. Reminded himself there was a reason these things hurt.

"You -- y-you don't have to do that."

"I know," said Zack. "I'm choosing to."

Cloud hesitated before nodding, rubbing at his eyes a bit. "...Thank you."

Another hug. Warm. Grounding.

"You're sure messed up, Cloud."

He wouldn’t even die. Worse than dead, he had thought of it, before. He’d been an idiot to think of it like that.

It was okay. It would be okay. He’d just be part of Zack. He wouldn’t be able to do anything else but help, wouldn’t have anything left to be selfish with, to hurt with, to want...

He felt something very deep in him that had been bent and mangled and warped beyond recognition finally snap.

He knew where he wanted to be, for the end. Even if none of this was real.

Zack helped usher him into the memory before he'd ever had a chance to say anything aloud the line between his own thoughts and Zack’s as blurry as it was. But the bar was sunny and warm, and his family was there -- his wonderful, amazing family, that he couldn't even begin to understand how he'd built. They smiled at him, welcomed him home. He was home.

The idea was comforting. That's all this was, he was just coming home.

He couldn't be sure if he was inhabiting the memory, or remembering the dream. In a place like this it didn't seem to matter. But that wasn't for him to think about. His body moved to follow orders easily, as he couldn't help but follow them. He lived for them now, these kind people with their gentle smiles, and how wonderful it was that he could exist to make them happy, that he should exist for such a worthy reason. He brought food, and fixed doors, and washed clothes, and it was bliss, here at the end.

Time seemed to pinch and stretch as it needed to, the way it had in that silvery void. Minutes bled into months bled into years. With it came the same peace.

He cooked meals so Tifa wouldn’t have to, and was told they all tasted wonderful. He brought his family food, and filled their glasses, and cleared away the dishes. He washed them all without making a mess.

He watched Marlene for Barret, allowing her to paint his nails, pinning her drawings onto the fridge where she was too small to reach. In this place between places, he didn’t even need to climb up on the counter first to reach high things for her.

He helped Cid make repairs, was repaid with approving smiles and more things made functional and whole. So many more good, useful things were put back into the world, and all because of him.

After a few months of forever, he decided he wouldn't need his name. They knew who he was. He was theirs. He was loved. And just like that, he forgot it.

On occasion, he made mistakes. He took too long in the shower, enamoured by the warmth of the water. He spoke out of turn while Yuffie was telling a story. He dropped a plate of food, scattering it across the kitchen floor.

He did not apologise, because "I'm sorry" was a useless phrase that would not un-take the shower, or un-say the words, or un-spill the food, or truly make up for what he’d done in any meaningful way.

Instead, he was struck across the face for wasting time. He sat obediently as his tongue was cut from his mouth, and did not cry out even once during the process. He offered up his arm without comment, and did not struggle or fuss or complain as it was pressed against the burner until it was decided it was time to let go.

His arm throbbed and burned, and every bite of pain that jagged its way through his nerves as he returned to cooking was a precious gift; he had paid appropriately for his mistakes, and so every kind glance and gentle touch was no longer unearned in the face of his debt. They had absolved him.

Every evening, two more of his family, now dressed like guards, escorted him back to his cell at gunpoint. It was all a formality, though -- they knew how good he was, that he would never dare hurt them.

At the end of the day, his family would determine whether or not he had done a good job. And if he was very lucky they would decide he had. They would nod to one another, and one of them would sit down next to him somewhere soft.

Then they would smile at him, and hold his hand.

They would sit together like that for a little while. Not too long -- not when there was work to be done for them, not when they had better things to do -- but for a wonderful minute or so, there would be another living being touching him that cared that he was alive, too.

His room had many windows, and if he was not receiving orders he could look up and see the sky, and feel the sun’s warmth on his skin, smell the fresh air, and it was everything he ever wanted, and he would know he was free.

He was free.

And the years coiled into one another, every day more or less the same, and everything was perfect. Except -- except...

There was someone he hadn’t made things up to.

He couldn’t remember her face, nor her voice. When she appeared to him, she was little more than a silhouette. Still, she radiated warmth. He smiled back at her. At Ma.

He had vague, fuzzy memories of the people in Nibelheim, and the words hissed from their mouths that followed her everywhere.

He remembered how tired and sad she always looked, giving up food so he wouldn’t go hungry, working herself to the bone so he would have clothes. He hadn’t known how young she was back then -- how she’d given birth to him at sixteen or so. Yuffie’s age, or maybe younger, and if someone had done that to Yuffie...

He remembered Father -- his only memory of Father, screaming about the broken condom that had forced him into both their lives, of Ma hiding him in the closet -- of the man that wouldn’t stop hurting her, that had been hurting her since she was twelve, of how he was living proof of that, of how his existence had gotten her branded as a harlot, of how, in a better world, she’d have had home tests that could’ve caught it early, medicine that could’ve stopped it, wouldn’t have even met Father in the first place --

And he’d repaid her by abandoning her to the flames. He hadn’t even let her pierce his ears.

He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone. He’d wanted to make up for everything he’d put his family through, and all this time he’d forgotten about Ma. He’d been ruining lives ever since he was born.

Even though she didn’t have a face, he could tell she was smiling as she placed a hand gently on his cheek. He didn’t know what he could possibly say to fix the damage he had caused, but she seemed to understand anyway.

Her hands settled on his shoulders before moving towards his neck. He smiled up at her in return.

Normally, when he thought these kinds of things (in secret, always in secret, but he had no secrets from anyone anymore), they were accompanied by a nervous, shivery guilt at best, or a deep pervasive disgust with himself at worst. But the thing that told him it was wrong seemed to be gone now, and he couldn’t remember why himself, and he was just happy.

She began to squeeze. He did not fight her. He would fix it now. He would let her make things right.

Something lunged for him, then, and tore the warmth of Ma’s hands away from him.

He cried out in protest, but Zack had already dashed her to pieces. He seemed furious and horrified beyond words and he went appropriately still, ready for the first blow to land, but he did not move to defend himself.

Instead, Zack grabbed the edges of the world and tore.

He felt it in his chest, as Zack continued to rip apart everything he was. Everything that had ever made him happy. The countless years he had spent here were burning and shrivelling inside him, and something sharp pierced him, like a splinter of glass. Cloud -- his name, the one Ma gave him, that his family gave him, Cloud, a real name, his name --

"S -- stop it," he choked out, dragging the words through the door he'd locked them behind. "Stop it, please!"

"No," said Zack, looking shaken. "No, I won't. Pick something else. I don't care what."

He tried to pull away, to drive the splinters out, or keep the pieces being taken, but everything he pushed with was shredded all the same. Zack didn’t want him thinking these things, and now they were being taken away from him, and he couldn’t -- he couldn’t...

"Stop it!" he begged louder. The world lay in shreds on the ground, with the rest of the paper, and he desperately clung to a scrap of it -- the bit where they'd gifted him a number tag for his ear. Zack ripped it away from him, and another physical pang went through his body as more and more of himself was torn to bits. He tried to put them back, but the damage was too great. "Please, stop, it hurts -- you're hurting me --"

"Then make me!" spat Zack. "Just make me for once in your fucking life instead of rolling over and -- and fight back!"

"I'm trying. I have been. I --" he swallowed. "You can't tell, can you? No one can ever tell."

Zack paused halfway through dragging him out of the remains of his home. Cloud remained curled up on the floor, sobbing quietly as the world continued to flake and crumble. When he tried to close his eyes and go back to the calm place he’d created in his head, it was gone. The chunk of his mind that had kept him safe had been rent to pieces. There was nowhere left for him to hide anymore. Zack continued to burn outwards.

"Please stop," he begged. "Don't hurt me, please, you're hurting me."

The room was in tatters anyway. Cloud did not sit up.

"Please, you're hurting me -- !"

Too much. It was too much, and he couldn't stop it -- didn't know what Zack wanted. He'd just wanted to help, and Zack was still hurting him, even though there was nothing left of himself he could possibly give --

He frantically crawled towards Zack and sat on his knees in front of him, curling his hands into fists to keep them from shaking. He waited.

Zack stopped tearing then, and Cloud could feel his eyes on him. He seemed confused. And if he didn’t know he was being offered something, he’d start up again, or worse yet decide to take it for himself.

“Please don’t hurt me,” he managed to choke out. “I’ll do -- whatever y-you want --”

He was shaking so badly he barely managed to grasp his shirt firmly enough to begin pulling it off --

Zack shoved Cloud away in revulsion. Cloud did not move to get up.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!" he shouted. Cloud did not reply, now shaking worse than ever, his eyes unfocused and his face blank.

"I would never," said Zack hoarsely. "I would never." He began to back away.

Cloud curled in on himself, and wished the dark would swallow him again.

"No more," he said. Tears steadily leaked from his eyes, and Cloud was too wrung-out to bother to make them stop. "No more."

"...Cloud --"

"No more."

Too much.

Aeris, threaded through his own skin, smiling through his face and digging their hand into feathers.

He had nothing left to give.

Waking up every day, the scent of warm bread filling his room, wondering why in the world someone had decided it should be given to him.

He had nothing left to lose.

Barret, standing next to him on the balcony of the Shera, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze every time he looked back at the Northern Crater where he'd disposed of the only thing he'd ever truly earned.

He had everything left to lose.

"No more," he repeated softly. He didn't know to whom anymore. Whoever would listen, who would make it stop -- make it all stop. "No more. Please."

A hand rested on his back. It burned like heated metal, stung like needles through flesh. Cloud did not bother to pull away. One way or another, it would all be over soon, at least.

"Don't do this to yourself," said Zack. "Please don't."

"No more."

"Cloud, you shouldn't just... I mean, you can't..."

"Please just tell me what to do," said Cloud. "Or just... just let me go, so it won't matter, and you can use me how you like. I don't know how to make you happy."

Zack was silent for several moments.

"There is something you can do."

A lifeline. A single ray of hope at the end. Cloud's breath caught.

"Anything. I'll do anything you want."

Zack reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of pewter earrings. He gently took Cloud's right hand and placed them in his palm, then folded it closed, with his own fingers clasped around them.

"I can't even wear them," said Zack. "They should stay with you."

Cloud stared at his own clasped hand, trying to process what had just happened.

"I-I -- but they're yours," said Cloud. "I can't. I can't keep them. You're the one that deserves them."

"I'm giving them back."

"I never earned them," said Cloud. "Not really. They aren't..."

This was all wrong. They were supposed to have made Zack happy. They couldn't be his, not like this. Not like this, not when everything was falling apart....

Hadn't Tifa said, though? Hadn't she said -- she said -- he wasn't supposed to give of himself like this, that it only hurt people, but...

He looked at the crumbling remains of the one place he had left to him where he could be happy. Every time a little more flaked away, he could see the walls of his cell behind it, the guards ordering him into position, eyes from every angle raking his body; south of Mideel as his arms moved of its own volition and he floated peacefully, his hands growing wet and sticky and red; standing over Barret's sleeping form, begging Aeris for mercy; always helpless, every time, no matter how hard he fought, and so all he could do was --

"Hey," said Zack, "how about -- what if I picked out somewhere nice for us to go? How does that sound?"

Cloud said nothing. Tears continued to stream down his face. The earrings tumbled out of his fingers and into the darkness.

When he blinked, Zack was gone. The air smelled of flowers.

A hand closed over his mouth.

He did not resist. Aeris wouldn’t hurt him.

He felt her body press against his, growing warmer and warmer, until suddenly it began to go numb. He was melting into her, he realised. His limbs felt unresponsive as more and more of them were consumed, and then she settled down on the couch, looking not quite like either of them.

Zack sat down next to him, passing him a bowl of strawberries.

He sat there once more, a passenger in his own skin. The rain pelted against the glass for now, but later on it was supposed to clear up. The rain would be good for the garden, Aeris had said. Shithead drooled onto his leg from where she was curled up on Zack's lap.

It was good. It was peaceful.

His mouth parted, and it was her voice that issued forth.

"So, why are you doing this?" she asked suddenly.

Zack blinked, hoping his immaculate poker face didn't give away the uncomfortable lurch his stomach just did. "What do you mean, 'why'? I mean... why wouldn't I?"

Aeris sighed. "Tseng said to... to not lose sight of the project. But -- well, I'm sure you've noticed."

"...Depends on what you think I noticed."

"Well..." she sighed. "I'm not even sure what the project is anymore, now that we know it's not just a bunch of sponges over there. And either way, in a few days we'll either have the whole thing shut down against our will, or we'll be forced to continue even if we think the right thing to do would be to quit --"

"You can't really think that," said Zack quickly.

"I don't know what I think," said Aeris. "None of this is what I thought it would be." She stole Shithead from Zack's lap and gave her fur a gentle scrunch. "And you can't tell me it's what you thought it would be, either."

Zack picked a bit of cat hair off his lap and shrugged nonchalantly. "Doesn't matter what I think about the project," he replied. "You said it yourself."

"So then why does it matter what I think?" said Aeris. "Or rather -- why does it matter to you what I think?"

The mask slipped. He fought to keep it in place -- it was the only thing projecting his bare face from Aeris.

"You're the one who actually had to work to get here," said Zack casually. "It's your project, isn't it? I'm just here to help, like everyone else."

"...I'm not sure I ever could have done anything otherwise," said Aeris, picking at her fingernails.

Zack suddenly reached out and grabbed his shoulders -- his shoulders, not Aeris's, and now his face was flaking and peeling as well.

"You actually tried," said Zack. "Don't you care about how much you tried? Do you think people don't even see how hard you work?"

"It doesn't matter -- it's never mattered --"

"It always matters," said Zack. "It's the first thing I admired about you, and you won't even --"

It hurt. The hurt was back, and now Zack was crumbling away entirely with the rest of the world, and he was drowning in green, until someone caught his hand and squeezed gently.

The roar of the engine rattled through the Highwind as he sat there and wept, everything from the lab flooding back, half expecting Tifa to let go of his hand and take back everything he'd been permitted to have: his clothes; the food he'd been given; his name.

Cloud shook his head, pulled away. "No -- stop --"

But he could stop these memories no more than he could preserve the safe haven Zack had destroyed, and the sky opened up into a yawning void flecked with stars as Cid, stationed on watch duty with them, pointed out each constellation, and the ways you could use them to navigate, even without a compass. Cloud opened his mouth to reply but all that came up was blood, staring defiantly down the blade of the sword buried in his heart, and made up his mind right then and there that there wasn't a force on earth that would keep him from tearing apart the man holding the other end of it, the metal biting into his fingers as he drove it further and further into his own body --

For -- there had been a reason he'd done that, but now he couldn't...

He could hear laughter and conversation wafting up from the back room, and the sizzle of meat on a grill.

Cloud sat on the couch holding the box containing his new earrings, feeling like his head had been stuffed with wool. It was day two of his birthday party, and he'd barely said anything the entire time, the words catching in his throat whenever he tried.

"Lunch is ready," said Barret, leaning in from the kitchen. He'd insisted he get to cook at least once, and Tifa had been more than happy to let him, likely having worked herself half to death just getting everything together the day before. Reeve and Tifa on either side of him got up to grab themselves a bowl. Cloud watched them, still looking bewildered, and did not rise from the couch.

"...Not hungry?" asked Tifa.

Cloud shook his head. "You guys can have some."

Tifa sighed heavily. "Tell you what -- I'll get you a small plate anyway, just to snack on, and if you don't finish it you can always just microwave it later."

He nodded.

Tifa eventually returned from the kitchen with a plate piled high with stuffed peppers, and set it down on the folding table in front of him, along with a large glass of bourbon with a little umbrella in it.

It was hard to keep his attention on the food. Instead he kept opening the box, looking at the earrings, closing it again. Opening it for another look.

"...You could just wear them, you know," said Tifa finally.

Cloud went a bit pink upon realising he was being watched, and hastily stuffed the box back into his pocket. "I was just thinking, was all."

"'Bout what?"

Cloud blinked, having not expected her to actually ask him to tell her.

"...How much did these cost?"

She crossed her arms. "It's considered rude to ask that about gifts, you know."

"A lot, then," said Cloud. "Plus the rings. It must have cost a lot."

"They're a present," she said firmly. "And the rings aren't even yours. Why do you even care?"

Cloud didn't reply, feeling the knot in his throat tighten.

"We weren't really sure what to get you at first," said Tifa quickly, before he had a chance to lose his composure and start crying. Again. "But... you know, you'd already named that bike, so why not wolves?"

"You really shouldn't encourage that stuff," said Yuffie from across from them. "You know he actually named his swords, right?"

"It's cute," said Tifa defensively.

"Wasn't supposed to be cute," mumbled Cloud.

"Don't worry, it's not," said Yuffie reassuringly. "It's actually ultra embarrassing. 'Vendetta'? 'Avenger'? Who the hell are you avenging, huh?"

"Well, I think it's cute," said Tifa firmly.

"Whatever. He's lucky he's too ripped to be a proper nerd or I'd take his lunch money right now."

Cloud just grunted and finally took a swig of his drink.

"If you did want money, though," he added thoughtfully, "I could --"

"Oh my God, Cloud, I was kidding. Sheesh."

The white noise of conversation washed over him as he opened the box, closed it, opened it again --

The faint rush of the sea swelled and ebbed in volume over Jessie excitedly talking him through the finer points of the airship they'd seen docked at the airbase in Junon. It was a little hard to keep up with some of it -- Cloud had never worked on anything as advanced as an airship before -- but it was soothing, sitting here on the pier with his feet in the water and listening to someone that wanted to spend time with him. He could definitely get used to this whole girlfriend thing, he decided, as he picked a bit of grit off the towel they were sitting on, watching as Nanaki splashed about in the waves, listening to Jessie explain how an autopilot worked.

Plus, there was the excitement of even being able to say, “I have a girlfriend,” which was weird because he’d definitely had a partner or two when he’d been in Soldier, hadn’t he? Because what kind of Soldier couldn’t manage to get laid? So he must have. But when Cloud tried to remember his name, nothing came up. He supposed they just weren’t that close, if he couldn’t even remember his boyfriend’s name.

He finally had his first girlfriend, though. He couldn’t remember ever dating a woman before, now that he thought about it. He couldn’t remember ever dating a man either, he had only been fourteen, so when had he been an adult and had a --

And now Yuffie was laughing at him too, she and Barret and the two friends she'd invited with her giggling at his attempts to use chopsticks and assuring him he was doing just fine as the rain battered against the screen windows of the restaurant. Cloud looked down at the box he was holding and waited for Aeris to slide her fingers through his, damp and alone in an empty field.

It wasn't entirely empty, he realised. There were other children there with him.

Just in time for school, Mom had said. They'd planned the move carefully, so as not to miss any of his schooling. Not to mention trying to figure out what class they should place him in. There was a class for smart kids, which Mom said he was, and a class from kids that didn't speak English. The dumb kids, he'd heard.

They didn't look that dumb, though. Zack already knew Spanish and English, but there were kids here speaking languages he'd never even heard before.

“Hū-ī! New kid!”

Zack turned to find a boy his age waving at him, holding a football -- a soccer ball, he reminded himself. He was in America now.

“We need a goalie. You like join us?”

Zack blinked. The boy stared back at him.

“You deaf, lolo? We need a goalie.”

But the classes were in English. What if they thought he was dumb, because they thought he didn't know the language, and they put him in the dumb kids class --

When he introduced himself, his English was flawless. Nobody was any the wiser.

Cloud stared out across the playground. The rubble of Sector 7 piled up behind it crackled steadily as it burned.

Zack came up behind him as they both watched him on the swing, the steady creaking of the set almost melodic against the harsh snap of the flames.

"...Do you realise how much you all meant to me?" Zack asked quietly.

Cloud looked up at him.

"Do you know how jealous I was of what you all had? How awful it felt to feel jealous in the first place, when my whole life I..."

"...I don't understand," said Cloud.

"You do," said Zack. "Better than you think you do. I didn't really... I had a lot of friends growing up, but -- it -- it never felt right.

"It was like I was lying. And... I don't know, maybe I was. Maybe I lied so much I stopped knowing how to tell if I was lying or not. But even when I thought I wasn't, it was like I was -- was tricking everyone somehow. Like... whatever image they had of me in their heads, it wasn't real. And when they found out..."

Cloud stared at Zack. "But... you shouldn't have to lie. You're -- look at you."

"It never felt like me, doing those things," said Zack. "None of it meant anything. It was someone who was born with good genes, or someone who just got a scholarship, or... a bunch of other things I never actually decided to be." He rubbed his neck. "But every time I screwed up, I had no one to blame but myself, right? Especially when I had every chance to succeed.

"It took me a little while, but I figured out what Aeris sees in you. What everyone does. 'Cause I found it too. To keep going, to keep getting up in the morning every day, even if you wound up failing, after all of this... not anyone could do it. I don't know if I could."

Cloud swallowed thickly. It hurt.

"It was you that let me in first," said Zack. "Do you remember?"

"No. No, it was -- it was you," said Cloud. "...You gave me clothes."

Zack nodded slowly. "...And you said... I was a good person. And you trusted me."

"Because you are."

"You had to decide that," said Zack. "You decided I was good, even though I hadn't even earned --"

"I don't have a choice!"

Zack went quiet again. The tears had long since dried up, but the hurt was as sharp as ever.

"Don't you get it?" said Cloud. "I don't have a choice. I've never had a choice. Everything that's ever wanted to hurt me, or could -- Hojo, Sephiroth, Aeris, Tifa, you -- you've all always been stronger than me. It's never mattered what I've decided about any of you. At any minute, someone could decide to take my body from me -- or my name, or -- or stop helping me out of bed if I have an episode, or throw me out on the street, or -- or --"

Cold sharp white Mother whispering in the dark hands all over

"I can't ever do anything to stop any of you, and I don't know how to be alone, and I just have to hope you all decide not to hurt me, and that -- that's it. I just have to decide it's okay for you to do these things to me, because what other choice do I have?!"

He'd been wrong. There were still some tears left in there after all.

"I can't -- I can't be on my own anymore, I can't go back to that place, I can't do it, and I don't know how to make it stop so someone always has to help, I just have to keep hoping they -- they want to, and why would they want to?"

His vision blurred, distorting the earrings lying in his palm.

"Why do they want to? What if they do decide to make me go back one day? What then?"

He turned to look at Zack.

"You have a choice, though. So why... why don't you...?"

"Cloud," said Zack simply, "why do you even care about me in the first place?"

"No." He shook his head. "No, no -- you're a good person, you --"

"Earn it."

He shrank away from the cold voice on instinct, and realised he had to keep moving -- he was used to the hail of bullets raining around him, had learned how to duck and weave and block with his sword, had managed to cut his way through more traitors to the state than he could count, until he tripped and fell.

He fumbled for his gun, even as the woman standing over him stared down at him in shock -- concern --

(Compassion?)

And then she wasn't looking at anything at all, because he'd shot her.

She gently placed her hand on his cheek. He could hear the scratching, tapping rustle of a thousand fingernails trying to claw their way in (out?).

No -- not her. A different woman. He didn't know her face -- the flyaway blonde hair, the delicate features, the unremarkable blue eyes. He wasn't even sure he knew this memory.

"You know, Cloud --"

The noise grew louder. The wind echoed, howled, screamed around him.

He couldn't hear what she was saying over the din as she continued to speak. The rushing, roaring sound of the deluge surrounding him was too much, washing it all away, and he fought through, pushing against the tide, only managing to force a single hand through for an instant as it brushed against hers. The woman smiled.

"-- I'll always be your mother."

The world was washed away as he was battered by the current, and there was only grey, and the endless silver of the ocean around them. He was trapped beneath the surface again, frantically trying to push through. The dark miasma at the bottom that had once seemed so comforting was seeping out into the rest of the water, curling around his legs pulling him down into the abyss. It was just ink in water, but now he was no more substantial than it was.

A hand burst through the surface of the water and reached out to him, catching hold of his wrist.

"Cloud, answer the question!" demanded Zack as he tightened his grip. "Why do you care about me? Why do you care about anyone?!"

"You gave me clothes," said Cloud. "You can -- you can let go if you want, I'm sorry, I don't know how to earn them --"

"You don't earn clothes!" Zack shouted. "Nobody does! Nobody decides to risk their life for someone because they gave them clothes!"

"You didn't have to! You could have left me there. You could let go right now, even, but you won't."

"That doesn't mean anything --!"

"It does." Cloud closed his eyes. "Because not everyone decides you should have them. It's just -- it's just luck, that you were a good person. It's luck that I've met as many good people as I have, and anyone else could have found me, but instead it was you. Instead it was my family."

"You deserve clothes, idiot!" Zack screamed. The ink-in-water -- the music -- curled higher around his body, sinking into his skin the way his number had. "You didn't deserve what happened to you, and you still don't, and you know it! It doesn't matter if I'm a good person or not!"

"Why don't you want to be?!"

Zack's grip slipped a fraction of an inch. He reached in with his other hand, even as the music bit into his skin as well.

"...What?"

"What if -- what if I decided you're a good person?"

"I -- I didn't earn -- of course I do, but you can't just -- I want to be good, I want to have done something good for once, you can't just decide I'm good!"

"All you ever did for me is what my family did," said Cloud. His wrist slid further out of Zack's grasp, and the latter quickly readjusted his grip, even as Mother did the same. It was getting harder and harder to think. The music was beautiful. He could finally be whole.

"That isn't true," said Zack. "It's not. I never had what you had, I don't know how to do what you do, where you're just -- I don't know -- there’s a difference between deciding something’s good enough for you, and actually doing enough for someone else, and it isn’t -- it’s not even for you anymore, it’s for me --"

"You gave me clothes," said Cloud. "That's it. It matters."

His arm felt numb. Zack was crying now, but he couldn't manage to make his fingers contract anymore.

"Don't let go," Zack pleaded. "You can't."

"A family lets you wear clothes," said Cloud simply.

Through the water, the sky stretched out into forever above him, paper white, filled with holes, leaking thick, dark music.

"Different kinds... more than one, sometimes."

The jacket he'd always wanted, that Cid wouldn't take back. The knit wool shirts, warm and soft and sturdy. The canvas pants he used for work, that came with loops on the side to hook a tool from. The dress Tifa let him borrow, helping him zip up the back, telling him with an earnest smile how pretty he looked...

"And -- and they let you touch them, sometimes. Just 'cause you want to."

Curled up with Nanaki on a chilly spring day, watching pedestrians. Aeris, breathing for him -- with him -- promising one day he’d be able to look back on all this with a smile. Barret, his hand on his shoulder at the end of the world. Tifa, trying on the cowboy hat he'd bought her for her birthday, trying to teach him how to dance, neither one of them knowing how to do it, and the both of them laughing like nothing was wrong, like he didn't poison everything he touched, like they were happy --

"And they give you other things, I guess... like... like a name, and things for your birthday that you don't even need, like a chair, or a new jacket, or earrings, or tools, so you can fix things."

Reeve informing him in no uncertain terms that he couldn't just sleep on a bare mattress, and showing up the next week with a set of sheets in a nice peachy-looking colour he said was called "beachside whisper". Jessie rubbing his back as he emptied his stomach into a trash can at the Gold Saucer, dismissing his apologies and promising they’d visit the arcade next instead. Yuffie bringing him snacks he didn't know the names of, demanding she swap for spellcasting techniques. A pair of bony hands angrily insisting he wear a shirt that wasn't full of holes, dumping a week's worth of clean laundry into his arms.

"And... and they give you all these things, and then they tell you not to be grateful to them. You have to be ungrateful for the gifts."

Zack, offering to teach him to cook.

"And then they tell you that you deserve it. They tell you you deserve the gifts. All the time, whether you've earned them or not. They tell you you should always deserve them. And..."

The stars were low overhead. He used to watch them through his window all the time.

"...and they tell you these things, not because you did anything first, or because they think maybe you won't do anything for them if they don't do anything first. Even if it doesn't make any sense, and you try to tell them, and you can't ever find the right words to do it because when you say it it suddenly just does. They just --"

Zack's hand was warm, and for a fleeting moment it wasn't the only one wrapped around his own anymore. They were here -- they had spilled out of him at some point without realising.

He had been torn open and laid bare too many times.

How nice, he thought suddenly, that they could only ever see all of him.

"They just tell you that you deserve it because you're you."

How beautiful it was. He wondered if Zack knew.

The sky tore open, and the music sank its claws into him. His left hand twitched, and then closed around his earrings. The water shifted. Rippled. Cracked.

Zack pulled.

 

---

 

Light.

Noise.

The grass beneath his fingers, the weight of his body as he was carried.

Quiet.

 

---

 

He was floating, buried under an impossibly thick layer of silk and fog and cotton. He was too weak to try and push his way out, but it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. He allowed himself to drift.

"...What if he doesn’t wake up?"

"He’ll wake up."

Fabric shifting against wood. "Should I grab Aeris?"

"Nah, let her sleep. First time in days. He’ll still be here when she wakes up, we’ll tell her then."

"You’re awful sure about this, considering he's not even there when you look half the time."

Work-worn fingers carded gently through his hair. "He’ll wake up. He’s never backed away from anything in his life."

"...Sounds like him. Bravest man I ever met."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It’s terrifying, this family business."

His chest felt funny again, his heart beating insistently against his ribs. The words and the cotton soothed him back into the current. He sank again.

 

---

 

Cloud dreamt. It was a good dream.

The sun was high overhead, warming his skin. The wind was picking up. It would rain soon. The air smelled sharp, and a little bit like garlic and fish sauce. Above him, a wind chime swayed. His beer, balanced on the lid of his toolbox behind Seventh Heaven, was mostly full, and the bar was empty.

Fenrir's front half was strewn about the cheap folding table he'd set up. There was plenty of upgrading to do, as he sat here alone, content and absorbed in his work.

"Did you make that yourself?" said a voice. He looked up. Ma was there, watching him, her face so much like his own.

He nodded, motioning her to take a closer look. "The engine's my own design, too."

They stood there for a moment, taking in everything he'd made. Ma was smiling.

"I'm proud of you," she said warmly. "You've come so far."

The first drops of rain began to fall. He'd have to pack up soon, move things inside. He reached for her, to get her attention, and his fingers met fabric instead.

He was lying somewhere soft. He was warm. For a moment, he thought about going back to sleep.

Instead he opened his eyes and sat up, from where his head had been resting on Tifa's lap, dislodging the blanket that he’d been wrapped in.

There were an awful lot of people sitting here, waiting for him to wake up, he realised.

Nobody spoke for a moment. Barret looked too exhausted for words, a sullen-looking Marlene leaning against his leg. Cid looked as shaken as he'd ever seen him. On his other side, Aeris had maintained a death grip on his remaining arm, turning his fingers an ashy grey. Nanaki had evidently been resting his head on Cloud's chest, and was now sitting at rapt attention, gazing at him expectantly. Jessie had at some point decided to sit on the floor against the couch, and was quickly scrambling to her feet. Yuffie was frozen in place next to Zack, who'd been the only one to pull up a chair, and looked dead on his feet.

At some point he’d been bathed and dressed in clean clothes, and what remained of his left shoulder had been carefully bandaged. Beside him on a TV tray sat a glass of water and a pair of earrings.

No one broke the silence for what felt like an eternity.

"...I -- I missed you," said Cloud. The words felt strange in his mouth. He hadn't spoken much over the last month. Not with his words going or gone.

He glanced at his earrings on the table, then back at his family. He picked them up, casting another look around the room. Nobody moved to stop him.

It was hard to put on earrings with one hand, he quickly realised. The one on his left was manageable, but he kept fumbling with the one on his right, eventually dropping the backing. He froze, acutely aware of all the eyes watching him. He swallowed thickly.

Marlene darted forward to pick it up off the floor, and pressed it into his hand.

He nodded and tried again, and the second earring snapped neatly into place as well. There. Much better.

"I didn’t even get to see you for ages," said Marlene, "and then when I did you were asleep."

Cloud rubbed his neck nervously and looked away. He looked out across the rest of his family, who were still staring at him intently, their faces tense.

He helped himself to a drink of water, and his head cleared a bit more. Nobody stopped him from doing this either.

He tried to say something else; his heart was pounding in his chest, and he thought for a moment he might have the courage to beg for gentleness, and perhaps receive it.

The next thing that escaped his mouth instead was a strained whine forming in the back of his throat, until it escaped as a broken sob. And then another, and then another.

He sat there, and he cried, and cried, and cried. Harder than he ever had in his entire life, until he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to stop, until he was choking down air in wet gulps around the strangled sobs wracking his body, as though whatever had finally burst inside him was threatening to tear its way out of his chest entirely. And the tears only came faster and harder as someone resettled the blanket around his shoulders and pulled it snug, and eight pairs of hands all pulled him into an embrace, Nanaki nuzzling up against his hand from below.

He was crying too hard to possibly speak, but he had to say something. At least once.

"I --"

It was all he could get out. A hand closed around his and squeezed.

It was enough.

Chapter 61: If He’s Your Man Then Why Have I Gradually Replaced Parts of Him Until All Original Components Have Been Swapped Out?

Notes:

god i missed the free dopamine i get when i manage to update on time

FANWORKS:

Here's a book cover-type thing that was made by Denebola_Leo and Ash that itself spawned from a shitpost, as most fanart for this thing (and in fact this story itself) did.

Also not so much an art but a playlist curated by Tai of a lot of very cool vibes and mood music. Once again, stoked someone even likes this thing enough to put something like this together. Very cool!

Thank you to the beta squad for doing your beta thing love you guys

It took entirely too long for Cloud to stop crying, and his head was killing him by the end of it. When he'd finally finished, he felt exhausted and wrung out and would have liked nothing more than to go back to sleep had he not just woken up.

Instead he sat there in a daze sipping his water and allowed everyone to catch him up -- apparently he'd been gone quite a while.

He was either in Kalm, or Rocket Town -- it wasn't really clear. They were sure it was Kalm for a while, but Cloud had definitely woken up on Cid's couch, so perhaps not. Edge (specifically, the WRO, which had rapidly been merged into the provisional government due to the state of emergency) was after them, and Wutai (specifically, Godo) was after Yuffie. Zack had leaked information to them under duress, which Cloud had apparently been there for but didn't really remember. Nobody knew how useful it was going to be in tracking them down when none of them even knew what city they were in.

Aeris still needed to stop Meteor, somehow. She was sad and tired all the time, Barret had said (albeit not in those words). Zack and Cid had been trying to supplement her efforts, but at the end of the day it was all on her. That didn't seem right. Cloud would need to talk to her about that later.

If it was any consolation, Zack seemed as wrung out as he was, his own thoughts mingling readily with Cloud's. Neither one of them were all that up to trying to filter them out, not that it mattered all that much; they were both in a state of muted weariness, unable to do much more than occasionally offer a quiet nod at anyone that acknowledged them.

There was motion near him -- them -- him, Cloud. He shook his head and hastily un-shared his consciousness with Zack and looked up. Tifa was being escorted away.

"...Need to lie down for a little while," she said apologetically. "Get some sleep."

"When you’re up again, I’ll be here waiting for you," said Cloud pointedly. "For as long as you need."

"...Even if --"

"I meant what I said."

Tifa responded with a single, solemn nod before moving around an angle that shouldn’t have obscured anything hanging in the empty air like that, and disappeared.

He could feel Barret’s eyes on him. "What?" he said, without looking away from the spot Tifa had disappeared in.

"...Brave thing you’re doing. You really sure you know why you’re doin’ it?"

"Not really," said Cloud disinterestedly.

Barret continued to stare at him.

"There’s not an answer." Cloud shrugged. "I’ve made the choice I’ve made."

"It’s a big decision you’re making," said Barret, as gentle as he’d ever heard him. "If you wanted to back out, well -- awful thing to decide, y’know, your life or hers. Not anybody could."

"If it comes to that," said Cloud. "Reeve’s still busy getting mako. He’s cutting it awful close, though."

"Thought Yuffie filled you in on that already."

"Huh? Yeah, I mean, she thinks he’s a traitor or something stupid like that."

"Cloud --"

"Not you too. Look, I know he did the -- that thing, that one time, but --"

"I tolerate the man. For your sake. And now I’m warning you about him for the same."

"After everything we went through, Reeve wouldn’t just sell us out like that. You’ll see."

Barret did not reply, but his clenched fists said more than enough for him. Cloud rolled his eyes. Arguments between Barret and himself could go on forever if both parties were willing, and at the moment Cloud was still exhausted. He let the silence return.

The pain coming from what was left of his arm was making it hard to focus on anything, too. It wasn't the worst pain he'd been in by a long shot. It would grow back later. He'd be back on his feet in no time at all.

Still felt bad, though.

"...My arm hurts," he said eventually. "Is there any ibuprofen here?"

Barret, who had clearly been angrily mulling over a thousand things he’d wished he’d have said now that the moment was over, looked up at him in surprise.

"I'll ask," he said. "Might not do much, though. Took me a while before my arm stopped hurtin'."

Barret turned out to be right. The ibuprofen did not help. He continued to be in pain.

Well, he'd asked, at least. So there.

Nobody else seemed to want to leave him. He wasn't about to tell them to, either.

Thoughts that weren't his continued to drift in and out of him. He needed to help Aeris with the bathtub (what?) but he was so tired, and anyway Aeris was finally sleeping for once (she hadn't been sleeping?) so he might as well rest too --

Zack hunched over on his chair and blinked hard a few times. Cloud's own head cleared a little.

Physically, he felt awful. He couldn't remember much from his ill-advised rescue attempt, but there had been a lot of bullets involved, and not a lot of sensible dodging on his part, and an attempt to be in a part of reality he had no longer remembered how to be in.

So -- he had a body, then. Perhaps. It had felt like he'd had a body before, though. But --

He couldn't be properly real, that much he was sure of; he was thinking, which meant he was very clearly not experiencing the brain death his physical body should have been exhibiting all these years.

He could find out quickly enough if he could just press himself through to -- had it been honey or water? Whichever one Zack had designated the most -- well, most.

He closed his eyes and tried to push forward, only to realise there was nowhere left to go.

"You're here already," said Zack suddenly. Cloud stared at him. "Sorry. Just-- you were thinking it, and then I started thinking it, and -- you're louder now... is this what you were dealing with the entire time?"

Cloud shrugged. "Sort of."

"This is it. We're not actually back yet. And... I guess you're still not real yet either." Zack raised a hand, and it began to spread out into a mess of tendrils, muscle and sinew and blood vessels undulating gently in an unseen wind, not unlike the roots of a plant, before turning back into a hand. "I'm still sitting here with a lot of extra biomass."

Cloud said nothing.

"Well... you vanished on us a couple of times, but you came back on your own. So, here's hoping."

Zack smiled. It looked as exhausted as the rest of his face, but it seemed genuine.

"Not on my own," said Cloud.

"That was --" Zack began, before closing his mouth. "...Thanks," he said instead.

They sat there in silence, looking out the window at the end of the world. Zack slumped in his chair, and disjointed images of silvery water and ice cream bars began playing behind his eyes. Cloud didn't bother waking him.

Aeris, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, finally spoke up herself.

"I'm --"

"I'd do it again in a heartbeat," interrupted Cloud.

"All of it?" asked Nanaki.

"All of it," he replied. "...Though -- there's probably better options than that for me to take first. Now that I think on it."

He felt strange. It wasn't a good strange: he had become unmoored. He had been scraped raw and fashioned back together from almost nothing, and as far as Cloud was concerned it showed. The world felt soft and far away and loomed huge around him, and he felt smaller than ever in it. Even for the state of deterioration it was in, and for someone that existed only because he had decided he had, nothing quite felt real.

But it wasn't entirely a bad strange either.

For now he just wanted to sit for a while in his clean clothes, and not say anything, and hold onto the blanket they'd given him. Nobody stopped him from doing it.

Nanaki put his head back on his lap, and he began to scratch his ears.

"I missed you," he said. "Everyone did."

Cloud nodded.

"We may all still die," he reminded Cloud.

Cloud nodded again. He knew that too.

Nobody owned him. There were no more orders. No one was going to hit him, and if they were, it was the sort of person he was permitted to hit back. Everything was quiet. It would be this quiet from now on.

He wasn't really sure what to do with himself.

Maybe he could just -- just think for a while. Jenova was rasping against his consciousness as She always did, but -- that was okay. He would just sit and think.

…He could try, anyway. His not-an-arm-anymore hurt too much to think. He curled in on himself further.

People came and went around him. He was alone. As alone as he ever was, apparently.

Cloud didn't know what it was that Zack had rescued from a pile of inert information, and neither did Zack. And yet here he was.

Mother wasn't real. Mother was -- Jenova was an entity that was an idea that was an entity that had pushed itself into the world.

Cloud was part of Zack's body. But, Cloud was also a person that wasn't Zack. But...

"You’re awful quiet," came another voice from the doorway. Marlene. She was staring at him again. "Papa says ‘all you do is run your damn mouth’ normally."

"He tell you to say that?" asked Cloud. "Sorry. Just -- just thinking."

"‘Bout what?"

"...Some stuff I remembered," said Cloud. "It’s…"

Not a lot, honestly. So much was gone and never coming back. But his mother’s face -- his mother’s face, and she looked so much like him… hadn’t he been proud of that once? That he’d turned out like her, and not Father?

He tried to move a hand he no longer had to his ears out of habit and shame.

"I think this is the first time I’ve been mad I don’t really remember being a kid," said Cloud. "I just… missed a lot of stuff, I guess." Among other things. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to get into some of them with Marlene, and others she might not have an appreciation for anyway.

"That’s okay," said Marlene, patting his arm. "I don’t remember being little, either."

Cloud let out a chuckle that disintegrated into a flat, wet cough partially through. "Kid, you’re… what, five? Four?"

"I’m eight and a half!" she said, pouting.

"Three?"

"Stop it!"

"Two?"

"Cloud! Papa, he’s making fun of me and he’s saying I’m a baby and I’m not!"

"Everyone behave!" came an exhausted, disinterested shout from another room (now somewhere above them).

"I’m sorry. You’re a very mature young woman," said Cloud.

"You’re still making fun."

"I’m not," said Cloud, and he actually meant it. He couldn’t imagine handling the shit Marlene had been through at her age. Hell, he was barely handling it right now as an adult. A behavioural problem in school or two was honestly a pretty fair tradeoff.

"Are you gonna get a prosthesis now?" she asked.

"No point," said Cloud. "It’s not easy work, learning to use something like that. And anyway, it’d just grow back by the time I did."

"How fast? Next week?"

"A few months, maybe."

"Aw… well, I can’t arm-wrestle you right for a few months, then. My left hand is my good one. Where were you all this time anyway?"

"...Not really sure I was anywhere."

"You mean that tall guy killed you, right? Nobody would say, but that’s what he did, right?"

He opened his mouth to smooth things over again, and then hesitated. There were things he needed to explain to her -- not about Zack. About himself. He owed her the truth. Maybe Barret had already told her some of this, but --

"...Did your dad tell you about… about what’s been happening?"

"He said it’s like there are -- he said there’s dreams, and nightmares, and other things that aren’t real, and that they’re getting mixed up with what is."

"...Pretty much, yeah," said Cloud. "And…"

Maybe Barret would be better at telling this to Marlene. Maybe he even should be the one telling her this. But he wanted her to hear it from himself.

"Jenova, that monster that tried to destroy the world… I’m a part of Her," said Cloud. "So are Tifa and Zack. Aeris, too, in a way." Marlene scowled at their mention, but nodded and allowed him to continue. "...You know Tifa is really sick, right? If Reeve doesn’t get here fast enough, she might have to return to the Planet."

"I know," said Marlene quietly. "Papa told me."

He nodded and gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.

"Right. Then -- Tifa and I, we’ve been talking. And we’ve come to an agreement. And you should probably hear it, in case it comes to that. Okay?"

Marlene nodded tersely.

"When I was a kid, Shinra did a lot of bad things to me. They wanted to create creatures that Jenova -- that Sephiroth could use for hosts, like a --" he hesitated. There was a word he knew he could use that very well described what he was meant for that Marlene would know, but Cloud refused to give him the satisfaction of using it. He refused. Period. "-- like a proxy."

"What’s a proxy?"

"...Like a puppet," Cloud finished in exasperation. Whatever. He couldn’t be smug about it if he was dead. "Sephiroth is gone now, but… the things they did are still there. If someone like Sephiroth came along, they could do those things to me, too. And Tifa is like him now."

"But Tifa isn’t like Sephiroth at all, she wouldn’t -- !" Marlene began to object.

"I know, I know, don’t worry. But… listen. She’s… she’s very sick right now. Her body isn’t handling Jenova well without any mako, and Reeve’s taking too long to bring her some. So… if we’re able, I’m -- I’m going to let her have my body. I’m giving it to her."

Marlene stared blankly at him and did not obviously react.

"Depending on how things go, you might not see me anymore as me if it works. Or… if it doesn’t work, Tifa might return to the Planet. But… whatever happens, one of us might not be around anymore. So… I love you, okay?" It still felt wrong to say it. Like he was lying, somehow. "I just want you to know that. Tifa loves you, too."

"...That isn’t fair."

"I know."

"It’s not fair!" she shouted. "We just found you guys after looking for you, and now -- a-and now --"

She angrily shoved the table beside the couch over. His glass shattered on the floor.

"Marlene!"

"It isn’t fair!" She turned and ran down some hallway apparently she was perceiving and he wasn’t and vanished into thin air. He could still hear her crying in the distance.

"I know, kid," mumbled Cloud to himself. Because it wasn’t. He couldn’t put his finger on why anymore -- why, when previously it had been all he’d ever wanted to give everything he was to his family, even if (especially if) it destroyed all of it, the thought of disappearing like that now filled him with anger and fear.

Did he not love them as much anymore? Maybe. He wondered if perhaps he wouldn’t still give himself to them in a heartbeat if they asked, and decided he would. So, maybe not. But it was -- poisoned now. The unbridled joy was gone from it now. It felt raw and stretched too thin, like the rest of him.

Too much thinking. He’d done enough thinking to last the entire month. At least Tifa using his body would mean he’d get to stop. He willed the shards of glass into the air, but, unable to find a bin to send them to in time, they simply disintegrated into the ceiling.

He took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly, letting the sound reverberate around the room, updating his mental map of it, and more importantly informing him of the fact that Aeris’s bag was in the corner against the wall. He raised a hand and it floated over to him, hovering in midair as he dug through it for Ms. Suk’s radio.

It still wouldn’t produce anything more than static around him. He sighed and shut it off again.

Not long after, they had to pack up and leave. He and Tifa both needed carrying onto the airship. He could walk, but his legs did not feel reliable enough to manage the ladder, a fact he greatly resented considering he was supposed to be there for Tifa to escape into. The one thing he was supposed to be doing was maintaining himself physically, and he hadn’t even managed to do that.

Cid wanted to remain airborne as little as possible to prevent another Sephiroth incident, until they could find somewhere else to hunker down and the airship could be repaired (the latter of which probably wouldn’t be happening for the time being anyway). He couldn’t reach any of their contacts with the phones just making a horrible droning noise. The plan had been to find an abandoned building with a bed or two, and perhaps the illusion of working electricity. Empty buildings were in no short supply in established cities like Kalm ever since geostigma had decimated the population.

One found them, eventually.

When the first overgrown tower passed their window, Cloud had thought that perhaps they’d wandered back into Edge by mistake; and perhaps they had for all they knew. It certainly looked like it. Then another pane of glass passed them, and another. Cloud leaned out over the railing of the observation deck and looked down.

They were soaring over a vast expanse of cracked tile floor, grass peeking out through the gaps. On either side of them were what probably used to be clean white walls, now smudged and filthy as roots pushed through them. Flowers hung from vines high in the air above them, growing through gaps in the ceiling where the sun peeked through, water dripping onto stainless steel gurneys. The walls had been vandalised, both with spray paint, and with chalk drawings of cats and dragons and crude depictions of people.

It was green and growing and cold and sterile, and as Cid kept trying to navigate the ship through gaps in the ceiling to reach the "outside", Cloud learned it also went on forever.

They didn’t have much choice but to land the ship indoors next to an infinitely replicated patient room hanging over a broken down stairwell, both overrun with moss that had grown out the window and was now twisting into a rope that snaked off into the next room some distance away across a bottomless section of operating rooms.

At the very least, though, there was a bed, which meant there was somewhere to move Tifa so she could rest quietly.

She continued to weaken every day.

Cloud knew Reeve was doubtless just trying to get mako for her, regardless of what the others thought, but now there was a serious concern as to whether or not he'd pull it off in time. She was worsening too quickly, and it was worrying that he was clearly so behind in his endeavour that he hadn't even called to tell them how it was going.

Tifa couldn't get out of bed anymore for the pain she was in, and had all but abandoned her own body -- Cloud spent most of his time as her, only aware of being himself as himself for a couple hours every day.

He usually spent those hours by her bedside as well, holding her hand, offering her healing spells that he knew by now were mostly symbolic. It was a lot easier to make himself lie next to her, holding her close and trying to offer what warmth he could. She was either going to die with her own body, or successfully take him over completely and he would spend the rest of his life as a vessel with no free will. Either way, they wouldn't get to do this together for much longer.

He could think of worse ways to go, and he would be lying to himself if he said he hadn't in fact enjoyed it, regardless of why. But... he wanted to be here. He wanted to be here for those people, too. He was brave. Zack had said he was brave, and nobody had disagreed. Maybe when Tifa was awake, he would ask her for a hug. Maybe… maybe she’d say yes.

Barret’s question -- Tifa’s question -- still grated at him. Maybe he never would know if it was years of being someone’s property, or actual affection driving his decisions, and maybe he could even learn to be content with that. But there was something else that didn’t sit right with him, if they were right. If it really didn’t matter, or if someone else deciding it mattered made it matter in turn.

Tifa liked what he was -- whatever that happened to be. Maybe she might even love him, he dared to think to himself. She could. She might.

He gave himself another moment to blink back tears and recover from the thought. He’d known for a long time, of course, when she’d propositioned him under that airship, but it felt -- different, to think about it now like this.

And Zack said that he -- Zack thought he was brave, and had worked hard, even though Zack had done so much more. Zack thought he might be smart and brave and kind, even though -- even though Zack was --

He took another moment to collect himself. Everything still felt like too much right now. He couldn’t even remember properly what he’d been afraid of, but the anxiety remained behind, churning away in his gut.

Probably just the idea of losing his family hitting him properly. He had never really lost a loved one, at least not in the way he might be about to.

Father had died when he was barely old enough to remember it, and Ma had been so long ago, and in such extenuating circumstances, he didn’t even know if he’d really ever process it right. He’d only just remembered her properly, after all.

As awful as it had been to lose Vincent -- to realise at long last there was another person in the world that cared if he lived or died, and then to know that they were gone in the same instant -- that he hadn’t even been permitted that one kindness -- to know that he had nothing, not even --

He had to stop again. For a while, that time.

…As awful as it had been, he’d never gotten to properly know Vincent, and now he never would. He doubted a former Turk that he’d done nothing but annoy would have ever cared about him anyway, though. And he’d seen a lot of people die -- even people whose names he knew, people who had smiled at him and offered to pour him a drink -- Biggs, Wedge, half the original crew of the Highwind.

But Tifa… he’d never lost someone he’d loved before. Not like that.

He’d been meaning to speak with Aeris, after what Barret had said. She’d had years to deal with these things.

She was hard at work again with Zack, chattering animatedly. Discussing the pattern, what it meant to be a part of it. Even when spoken of, it was still beautiful.

"Hey, Aeris?" Cloud began. Aeris shrieked and tipped over backwards in her chair, and Zack reflexively threw the pencil he’d been holding at Cloud, which pinged off the bridge of his nose before clattering to the floor and rolling into some ivy.

"...I can come back later."

"No, no, it’s fine," said Aeris brightly, her smile making the bags under her eyes more pronounced, as Zack swore under his breath and let out a sigh of relief. "Just didn’t hear you come in."

"Oh." Cloud considered this. "...Maybe I didn’t."

"What’s up?" asked Zack, as Cloud willed the pencil back to him.

Cloud glanced between the two of them. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all. Almost everyone in Avalanche had lost somebody. Barret had lost his wife, something Cloud couldn’t even imagine. He could ask someone else, probably.

"...Tifa’s asleep," he said instead. "Just -- I just wanted to hang out for a little."

"Of course," she replied. "I was hoping you would, actually."

"Mm?"

"You don’t have to if you don’t wanna," said Zack. "We totally get that you don’t spend a lot of time --"

"I want to use your body for a bit."

"...Most people do," said Cloud. "One of these days, someone will finally tell me I’ve got a great personality and a cutting sense of humour."

"It’s for practice," she clarified, unfazed. "The way I used to."

"I’m not Sephiroth."

"You’re a contact point in this universe," said Aeris. "So -- the part we’d need the machine for is already taken care of, right? And I did the other part on accident to even get here, so I just need to learn to do it on purpose. I have more experience with you than Sephiroth."

"You can’t just ask that!" said Zack. "Seriously, read the room a little."

"This needs to happen," she fired back. "One way or another. Nothing is working. It’s supposed to be working, there’s nothing that would be stopping it that wasn’t also in the way of all the other times. If you have a better suggestion, please share it."

"I’m fine with it," said Cloud quietly. "It’s -- it’s my body, right? You’ll have to ask Tifa for permission when it’s hers, though. I like helping."

"Right. Yes, I suppose you do." She sighed. "I’d be asking Tifa, but she isn’t -- I didn’t really have control last time."

"She’d be a better fit," said Cloud, sitting down on the floor in front of her. "Stronger will. Intact brain. Like Sephiroth."

Aeris made a quiet noise of discomfort and sat down as well.

"Whatever," muttered Zack. "I’m gonna fill the bathtub." He left without another word.

"What’s with him?" asked Cloud.

"He says I need to be taking breaks," said Aeris disdainfully. "Who knows, perhaps he’s right and I’ll wake up and someone else will have solved this mess for me."

"Why the bathtub?"

"It’s a bit like the tank, isn’t it? It’s for later."

"Maybe. Do what you’re gonna do."

Aeris lay back and closed her eyes. Cloud did his best to steady his breathing.

It stuttered and skipped a beat as his mind went blank. His consciousness came and went as Aeris’s own control waxed and waned.

He twitched. His skin began itching in spots. Something was pushing its way through his body, none too gently. (Her, he reminded himself as he willed himself to stay calm. It was her. Just let her do it.)

He stared down at his arm and watched as little green shoots began to sprout from his skin, unfurling into leaves and small white flowers.

He felt Aeris leave him, and a moment later she sat straight up and leaned over to examine them in morbid fascination. He didn’t dare move, even though the growth had already stopped.

"G-get them off," he pleaded. He could feel them on his face and neck, and began to claw at them. He felt his fingers on the petals, as though it were his own skin. When he pulled it off, it stung sharply. "Please, get them off of me --!"

Aeris immediately reached out to begin plucking them off, and stopped as soon as she pulled the first one and he winced sharply. "How…?"

"I don’t know. I don’t know what they are, and I don’t know how they got there -- just --"

"Do they hurt?"

"No, but -- but I can feel them there. Please."

It would have been better if they did hurt. If they weren’t part of his own flesh.

They wound up using the bath after all, if only to "preserve his modesty" so she could get the ones on his back. He’d just as soon do it out of the bath, since she’d already seen him naked before, and should know what naked people looked like at her age. He wasn’t even really sure what she was preserving at that point.

"This never happened the other times I took control of you, did it?" she asked, examining one of the leaves she’d pulled off him. They didn’t seem to grow back once pulled, at least.

"No," said Cloud, pulling on his clothes again while her back was turned. "Aeris, I think -- never mind."

Aeris, instead of never minding, crossed her arms and stared at him expectantly.

"I don’t… I don’t think I’m a real person."

"And what’s that supposed to mean?" she snapped. He blinked, taken aback at how quickly she’d lost her temper. "You said -- you told me --"

"Aeris," said Cloud, "four years ago, when you found me -- brought me back -- what did you save? Did Zack tell you what he found, when he went looking for me?" he said. "Did Tifa? When she found me half-dead in the trash, when she did it?"

"...He just said he found you."

"He found a memory that wasn’t his, that he tricked himself into experiencing it as me. And -- and past that, I don’t know. This -- this keeps happening. From Zack, from Tifa -- twice, and the first time was an accident so god knows what we actually did, from Jenova. From you, apparently. When I tried to use the White Materia, and you saved me. It would’ve only been a few months ago for you, but it was years ago for me. And at least before, I had a body, but now that’s not real, and…

"Look. I don’t -- I don’t know what the hell you guys brought back, but -- there was nothing left of me. What even am I anymore?" He slumped against the bathroom wall and kneaded at his eyes with the heels of his palm. "We already knew this body wasn’t real but what -- what if I’m just whatever you all wanted me to be, and I’m just --"

"Do you feel any different?" said Aeris, staring at the dead blossoms all over the floor that were rapidly turning to dust.

"I don’t know. I -- how would I know if I did? Are you even talking to anyone? Did you just make me up? Like the radio?" He swallowed. "If I just -- if I had something to check, some kind of reference point --"

"It wouldn’t help," said Aeris quietly. "Trust me."

Neither one of them spoke for a moment.

"I think you’re lucky, actually," she said. She still hadn’t met his eyes. "I thought the flowers were pretty. And… everyone around you wants what’s best for you, so you’d turn out alright. At least you have that."

"I don’t know." He pulled his knees up to his chest. "I just want to be me. I want to go back to whatever that was. Just -- do what you’re going to do."

"We can stop if you want."

"No. You were right. We need to do this. And --" She still wasn’t looking at him. He grabbed her shoulder, forcing her attention on him. "And I trust you with it. Okay?"

"...Mm."

By the end of the first hour, there were enough flowers and leaves and vines sprouting from his skin that they began to obscure his face. By the end of the second, Aeris had managed to regain basic motor control while allowing Cloud brief moments of partial awareness as the sprouting gradually lessened -- though at times, his face didn’t quite look like his own anymore.

By the end of the third, they had paused in order to take part in a mutual panic attack. He wasn’t quite sure which of them had started it.

"Just try him already," muttered Cloud, not lifting his head out from where he’d tucked it into his knees. He’d forgotten how motion sick the process made him. "If this helped, then try doing it to him."

"I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to upset you."

"It’s not you," said Cloud. "It’s -- it’s me. It’s one thing, that I decide to let you all use my body. You can do what you want to it. I know you wouldn’t do anything bad. But it’s another, if -- if I’m -- you’re changing the subject," he sputtered. "You’ve been working so hard on this, and you’re still avoiding it anyway."

"I’m not avoiding it!" she objected. "I’ve been trying, I have, I just -- I needed to do something I knew how to do. To prove it was still working, so at the very least I wasn’t just sitting here doing nothing."

"None of this is real to you," said Cloud, finally looking up at her. "You don’t belong in this universe anymore than I belonged in yours. You’re halfway there already."

"I know," she said quietly. "But I don’t know what else I can --"

They were interrupted by Shera bursting through the bathroom door behind them and slamming it shut. She immediately held a finger up to her lips.

Cloud realised there were a lot of people in the rooms adjacent to theirs that hadn’t been there before. Radio chatter. The shifting of metal against body armour.

"They took the airship," she whispered. "It’s just me that escaped. They found us."

"How many are there?" asked Aeris.

"Ten," said Cloud, listening a bit more closely. "Nine of them armed. I think there’s more coming."

One of them had a really nice radio voice, too. His jaw clenched.

"Think you can melt these ones into a wall, as well?" asked Aeris.

Cloud blinked. "Huh?"

"Never mind that," said Shera. "How did they find us? Space doesn’t behave reliably anymore. Zack leaking information would’ve helped, but how did they track us after? The only reason I can find you guys is because the idea is one I’m familiar with --"

"It’s Reeve!" said Cloud excitedly. "He’s come back."

"Cloud, keep your voice down," Aeris hissed.

"No need," said Cloud. He stood up, brushed the last few stems off his pants, and phased through the door Shera had locked.

Reeve was not there waiting for him on the other side. A handcuffed Barret and Yuffie were, however (the latter already absent-mindedly trying to pick her cuffs). A pair of WRO volunteers nervously trained their rifles on him.

Cloud slammed them against the wall without raising a hand, darting over to the gun one of them had dropped. He snatched it up and in one smooth motion trained it on the man’s head, using his foot to steady it in anticipation of the kick, and fired two shots. The gun clicked uselessly twice.

"What the…?"

He didn’t have time to wonder about it for much longer as a taser dart jabbed into his skin and he began to convulse in agony. He panted breathlessly after it stopped, watching more people with guns file into the room.

"Priority target one is neutralised," said the man with the gun to the man with the nice voice whose neck he should’ve snapped when he’d had the chance, as a collar was clipped back onto his neck. He felt fingers on his arm, apparently unsure of how to cuff him without another arm to cuff it to, before they just pressed the taser against his jaw as a warning.

"Excellent. We can set up here once we’ve done a full sweep. Have them bring the equipment in."

Equipment. They were doing the coma thing now. He began to climb to his feet and was immediately tased again for his trouble.

Where was Reeve? His friend Reeve. He should be here, he was supposed to be here. Reeve wouldn’t let them do this to him.

The nice voice man knelt next to him, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Cloud squeezed his eyes shut in disgust.

"I know it might not seem like it right now," he said gently, "but this really is for your own good."

"So’s this."

The nice voice man fell to the ground twitching beside him and did not get up again. Standing over him, Reeve handed his own taser back to one of the WRO men and pulled up his own radio.

"This is Acting Director Tuesti. We’re done here," he said. "Keep bringing that equipment, by the way."

"Tuesti, what the hell -- ?!" Began one of the men, before the others trained their guns on him and the other two men sporting extremely confused expressions.

"Go find Miss Lockhart," he ordered another woman with a gun. "Hopefully she’s still alive, after Director Shaw here ordered everyone to open fire on civilians and torpedoed his own career. It’s a good thing we have all these eyewitnesses to corroborate." He stared pointedly at the three volunteers who apparently were not in on whatever was happening. One of them swallowed.

As another man began to cuff the incoherent former director, Reeve knelt next to Cloud as well, this time offering a hand.

"...You know, privately, I didn’t dare hope you were still alive," he said. "But I should’ve known. You always were stubborn."

"You always were slimy," he rasped in reply with a small smile, allowing Reeve to haul him to his feet and escort him over to the nearest chair. His friend Reeve, whom he trusted.

More people from the WRO kept showing up. His family was uncuffed. The collar was removed from his neck without ceremony. The adrenaline shakes had set in again in the aftermath of what had happened. Cloud took a moment to collect himself, the shock of everything from the last few days apparently still with him, only this time none of his family sat down next to him to rub his back and talk him through it.

No one dared move at all. Nobody had anything to say.

Like they were surprised, or something.

"I told you," said Cloud smugly, rolling his eyes. "I told you guys."

Chapter 62: No One in This Story Hydrates Enough for the Amount of Crying That Gets Done

Notes:

Hi! I really hate this one and I feel like it was a lot of the holdup! However, it is DONE and frankly I haven't known what the fuck I've been doing since day one so...

Some trivia: This chapter is, chronologically, the very last thing written for TNI (most of the big important stuff, which is pretty much everything beyond this point, was prepped a long long long long time ago in advance). As such there's probably a bunch of typos in this one that I won't catch until two weeks later.

Thank you to the beta team for beta-ing this entire last leg of the story basically all at once.

"I told you all, there was no way," said Cloud, for perhaps the millionth time, sitting on the ceiling to keep out of the way of technicians hauling in expensive-looking equipment into the room. "How come none of you figured it out? It should've been obvious."

"But -- you sold us out!" stammered Yuffie.

"And how did you think I was going to get ahold of two hundred gallons of a controlled substance formerly used in weapons development that isn't even being manufactured anymore without any substantial political leverage?" said Reeve. "Barret, I expected -- and I don't blame. But the rest of you?"

"I told them," said Cloud again, shaking his head in disappointment. Jessie made a 'gag me' motion behind him. He ignored her. "I tried to explain everything to 'em, but they just weren't listening."

"So what about these guys?" asked Cid. "They still gonna shoot us?"

One of them shrugged. "Not too fond of the new guy," he said. "I signed up to shoot leftover monsters and hand out water bottles, not be a goddamn cop."

"Turns out there were a lot of folks that weren't too happy with the new direction the WRO was taking," said another. "And after they re-hired Reeve, it was pretty easy to see he was up to something, but we sure as hell weren't gonna stop him, so..."

"It's commonly known as staging a coup," said Reeve dryly. "If you'll recall, I'm fairly good at those."

"I told them," said Cloud. "I told them that was exactly what you were doing."

Reeve nodded curtly. "Well, that's why you were the leader, wasn't it?"

Cloud went silent as the heat began to rise to his face. He managed a brief nod and fought down a small smile.

"I did try to let you know," said Reeve, turning to Yuffie. "With the drinks. I thought it was fairly obvious. You made too much of a fuss before I could finish."

Cloud gestured emphatically at Reeve in agreement, staring expectantly at Yuffie.

"How the fuck was anyone supposed to -- actually, no. I’m not dignifying that with a response," said Yuffie flatly.

Barret was still glaring daggers at Reeve. He frowned and turned to address him.

"You know, if you had a better idea of how to get this much mako on such short notice, I'd --"

"You validated his stupid-ass worldview," grumbled Barret, jerking a thumb towards Cloud. "You have no idea how much damage that's gonna do. Can't go around trusting people like that. Ain't never worked out for him before."

Reeve merely frowned and stepped out of the way to allow a massive glass tank to be hauled in through the door on a dolly.

Cloud stared at the tank and the pale green liquid swirling around inside it. He could almost feel the burn on his own skin. A small squad of nurses were called in to handle the mako as well. The room felt cold. Reeve was talking to them. Something about Director Shaw being removed from the project, due to mishandling. The lights flickered. The base of the tank had a small tap, which they were using. Rationing out smaller amounts of it, for intravenous administration. Packets. Disinfectant wipes. Gauze. White walls.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Cloud flinched and turned around to see a nurse looking at him expectantly.

"...What?" he snapped. The nurse shrank back.

"You... you need the shot too, right?"

"Wrong. Go poke holes in someone else before I give you some new ones."

"He's not terribly fond of needles," said Reeve quickly, as the nurse bristled in indignation. "I'll have a word in private."

Cloud was a lot less willing to trust some random technicians with Tifa than he was Reeve while he was led off around another impossible angle, but at least Barret knew to shoot them if they tried anything funny.

"Look," said Reeve, "I only secured this much mako under the agreement that it be used to 'neutralise' both Tifa and you."

"How is that supposed to work?"

"Simple. I worked with Shinra for years. Soldier was exceptionally good at following orders, and it was because of their easy access to mako treatments, specifically calibrated to offset the -- gene therapy."

"But... I have mako. Sephiroth, too. Who's gonna buy that?"

"You were a failed experiment -- no offense -- that wasn't even supposed to need to think for itself; Sephiroth was a prototype that was exposed in utero; Zack is, I would say, a somewhat unique case even under the current circumstances; and Tifa was infected years after the fact the old fashioned way. None of you had balanced mako levels." Reeve sighed. "Look, it's one shot, you're used to it by now, and everyone will be supervising. There's... actually more I need to ask of you, though, and you'll like that even less."

Cloud tensed. "If it's bone marrow again --"

"No, nothing like that. Cloud... we don't know how to treat her." Reeve placed a hand on Cloud's shoulder. "You do."

"...What... what do you mean?"

"We know it's not as simple as a full body soak," said Reeve, "just like we know what happens if you inject mako into the wrong area. You have more experience with this than anyone else. We'll need you to instruct the nurses."

Cloud swallowed, his mouth suddenly quite dry, and couldn't shake the sensation of a tube being lodged down his throat.

"I-I-I -- I don't -- this isn't -- I don't even -- th-the things they did, those aren't -- that might not be the right way to -- to do it --"

"Cloud... even if you did it entirely correctly she might not survive the treatments anyway. The effects of mako --"

"She will," said Cloud firmly. "She will. If anyone could, it's her."

He strode back over to the nurse without sparing Reeve a second glance. "Get Zack," he added, without turning around.

He remembered several injection sites being used, all in horrifying detail. His first instinct was to use the ones that hurt the least, but -- but maybe the lack of pain meant the mako wasn't getting into him properly. None of them exactly felt good.

"It shouldn't be in a vein," he told the nurse immediately. "They did veins at first, but -- it needed to absorb slower. Otherwise it'll cause problems." Cloud wasn't sure who they'd dragged in for his heart transplant, and he never wanted to know. He doubted they could get a volunteer for Tifa that quickly.

"...The back," he said with much more certainty than he felt. "Those were the ones they stuck with for mako, eventually. And -- and only a little bit deep." He hoped that meant more to the nurse than it ever had to him.

He and the nurse stood there for a moment, sizing one another up. Zack watched from the sidelines, clearly also not eager to be the first one in the pool, and the nurse wasn't about to make any suggestions to someone that could quite literally tear his head off. At least he recognised that, Cloud noted with grim satisfaction.

He remembered all too well the way it would feel like ice going in, gradually burning worse and worse as it absorbed into his tissues until his entire body felt like it was on fire. In a way, he hated the slower, safer mako injections more than the fast ones, where he'd be in agony immediately --

Tifa would have to get several of these, in different places, and then she’d have to baste in the stuff. Cloud would be the one telling them where to jab her. If Tifa could be brave, then -- what did one little stick matter?

A lot. It mattered a lot.

He took a deep, shuddering breath, and pulled off his shirt before turning his back to the nurse. "Just get it over with," he croaked.

The nurse didn't move and instead just stood there for what Cloud knew was entirely too long. He didn't feel clammy, gloved fingers on his skin right away, and he could feel the nurse's gaze raking over his bare back and the marks decorating every inch of it. Judging him, dissecting him with his eyes, the way Cloud would skin a rabbit and slide his knife around the choicest cuts of meat --

"I'm going to clean the area with a wipe first," the nurse said suddenly enough to cause Cloud to flinch again. "It's going to feel a little cold."

His voice didn't sound right. That wasn't how nurses ought to sound. Sure enough, he felt fingers prodding his back for a good spot, before wiping the area down.

"Try to take deep breaths," said the nurse. "You're doing fantastic."

He didn't understand what was going on. His breathing got even more erratic.

"It's going to feel cold going in," said the nurse. "And then you'll be pretty sore for a while."

"I know," said Cloud, his voice now a barely audible rasp. His family thought he was brave. He was brave.

"Your earrings are pretty cool," said the nurse. "Where'd you get them?"

"...They were a birthday present."

"Tifa's idea," said Barret. "I commissioned 'em from one of Cid's friends."

"When's your birthday?"

"I don't know," said Cloud. "The -- the summer, I think."

There was a pause.

In through the nose. Out through the mouth. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.

He didn't feel the prick, but he felt the cold. And then the burn.

"Well, happy birthday," said the nurse eventually. "Just in case."

He was quietly sniffling by the time they set him up with a blanket and had him remain on his stomach. He did his best to stifle it to keep Zack from freaking out during his turn. The pain honestly wasn't too bad, even though the nerves were overwhelming.

Zack was better at the idle chatter part of this, apparently, but unlike Cloud was a lot more vocal about the pain he was in. Maybe he was just used to it by now.

Maybe it was also the medication he was on, for the pain. He'd never had anything like that before for the procedures, and it had been the last thing he'd expected the nurse to hand him. His nose had been running as badly as his eyes at that point.

The nurse was asking him if he wanted an ice pack. He managed to croak out an affirmative, still completely lost in terms of how the procedure was meant to go.

"How long does this last for?" managed Zack through gritted teeth.

"Depending on your sensitivity, anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days. Until then, try not to lift anything too heavy." The snap of a cold pack activating rustled somewhere behind him. "Cloud, I’m going to put this on your back. Tell me if you want it moved."

Cloud made a hoarse noise somewhere in the back of his throat.

"Heavy by whose standards?" asked Zack.

"No idea," said the nurse. "We’ve only got partial documentation, and every scientist that worked on Soldiers or the Jenova Project is in hiding or dead. Ice pack?"

"God, please."

"I killed them," said Cloud.

The nurse paused in uncertainty.

"Three doctors," said Cloud. "And four guards. I killed them. I found more. I could have killed more, but I stopped. I didn’t do the others. One of the guards said -- he said, ‘I have a family.’ And at first, that made me want to kill him even more. More than anything they ever did to me, even. And -- and I didn’t, even after everything they…" He tried his best to catch a glimpse of the nurse’s face out of the corner of his eye without moving his head. "I could kill you, too, you know."

"Cloud, for fuck’s sake --" began Barret, his voice hoarse.

"...I know," said the nurse.

"Why --" his throat still wouldn’t unlock enough for him to speak, "why --"

"Reeve said you’d be more afraid of us than we were of you," he replied shortly. "The world isn’t Shinra."

Cloud still could not speak around the knot in his throat. Speaking was bad. He didn’t want to be bad. (You don’t have to be good, he told himself anyway, not that it helped.)

He’d left Barret to supervise after that. Cloud, still not permitted to roll over onto his back, stared at his reflection in a window that otherwise looked out into a flat grey void.

The reflection stared back at him, which was quite an accomplishment considering it had sunken pits full of static instead of eyes.

"Now what will you do?" asked the reflection. Its voice was clearly audible despite its mouth hanging open unmoving, static filling it up and leaking from it down its chin. Nobody else reacted to its presence.

"I don’t know," replied Cloud. "I thought -- Tifa will still need my body, so maybe that."

"But then what?"

"...I wanted to go to the beach," said Cloud. "We stole those papers from President Shinra’s desk. Land deeds. There was one for Costa del Sol. Maybe Reeve could help us finish forging the transfer."

"You’d burn," said the reflection. "Cid tans. Yuffie tans. You and Aeris burn."

Yes, he remembered. She had to be brought inside, to learn about whale fall.

"...How do you know that?"

He didn’t receive an answer. He watched from the surface of the glass as the real Cloud was finally permitted to roll over. Cloud sat down in the corner of a window and watched as Zack winced repeatedly throughout the entire process.

The burning found him here, even in the glass. He reached back to scratch and felt something scurry along under his skin in a little lump. He recoiled in horror.

There were more of them, burrowing their way through him. He gagged, falling onto his hands and knees, and vomited. A handful of them spilled out onto the floor, sharp and black, and skittered away, and he realised he was stuffed full of them. Just a walking colony of the things as they whispered away under his skin, inside his skull, crawling around the inside of his eyes, leaking out his tear ducts and where his arm used to be. He kneaded at them frantically, trying to soothe away the sensation, and when he opened them again, he was sitting up on the table, calmly reciting numbers to a rather unsettled-looking nurse, every window in the building shattered.

Zack nudged him impatiently. Cloud handed the lukewarm ice pack back without another word.

No cure. Of course there was no cure. Of course She was still a part of him, of course his existence was still bound to Hers, of course the body he had right now was just another idea that had leaked through into this world -- but he had hoped. He had still hoped anyway.

He caught another glimpse of himself in the shards of the window on the floor. He had eyes this time -- a rich green, the pupils round. He looked away.

Cloud?

Tifa was talking to him. Or something like him, anyway.

You don’t need to ask, said Cloud.

I want to anyway.

Nevertheless, he suddenly felt a lot calmer, and even sitting here brought on a sense of euphoria, like it was what he was meant to be doing, until he stood suddenly, which was what he was meant to be doing, too. He needed to talk to Barret, to see if they could arrange something for Cloud so he’d have somewhere to go once he died.

Instead he looked up to see Reeve, a large tank full of mako, and, more importantly, Tifa’s body being wheeled out between the two. His eyes widened.

"...You actually did it," he said.

"Excellent timing," replied Reeve. "Come give us a hand, you’re a bit heavy."

"Get it?" said Yuffie. "A hand."

"That wasn’t my intention," said Reeve quickly. "Tifa, please."

Cloud sighed and pulled his shirt back on. Perhaps if there was time, he’d convince one of the volunteers to help change his bandages before they left.

He couldn’t help but stare at his (Tifa’s?) (his?) body as it floated there in the tank. They’d at least let her keep her underclothes on, but that undershirt was probably ruined. The only thing on her stomach was the same long crescent scar that had been there for years, lancing all the way up to her jaw, but he knew what was underneath it now. Would she have to have new shirts tailored?

Only two technicians actually stayed behind to keep an eye on Tifa, and the highly controlled substance inside of the tube she was floating in. Whether they simply vanished into more pockets of nothing or actually made it home to their families, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.

From what they told him over the next few days, Reeve had cut it about as close as he possibly could have, something that he could have guessed himself from how much pain she was in. Another day or two, and she wouldn’t have made it. She still might not. He had moved into Cloud’s body more or less entirely by now while her own soaked in a chemical cocktail that could very well kill her as quickly as the mako would. He’d gotten used to looking into the mirror and seeing amber instead of blue, and --

-- very occasionally would stop and wonder when the last time he’d had a thought of his own was --

before going about his business as usual, feeling calm and floaty, which didn’t at all match the way he had been speaking and moving and acting, which he saw no need to question. Arrangements to leave, spotting for Aeris, trying to get Cloud’s legal status worked out with Reeve when the both of them were cut off and the entire city was in chaos. He spent the entire thing in a haze, not doing or thinking anything in particular as he was compelled to do and say things and respond to the name "Tifa".

 

---

 

And then there was nothing else to do.

Tifa contemplated returning to her own body, but -- that was in a tank, probably in a great deal of pain. And Cloud had said she could use his, hadn’t he?

He -- he had. Until further notice, it was hers. That was what Cloud had decided.

Being alone with her thoughts for the first time in a while finally gave her room to process that. How it was Cloud’s body, sure, but he’d given it to her. So… she could do whatever she wanted with it.

She… wasn’t actually sure what to do with it. All those times she’d spent worrying about stepping on his own will, jumping out at her at what had seemed like every five minutes, and now she’d been handed a free pass to do whatever, and she was drawing a blank.

Well, aside from the big obvious one they’d both been avoiding, but she’d prefer to do that outside of this body, thank-you-very-much.

Maybe she should try dog food, and finally settle once and for all if it tasted better with someone else’s mouth, or if he was just an idiot. Yuffie probably would’ve had a thousand ideas by now, but she didn’t need to possess Cloud to convince him to enable her anyway. They hardly needed a repeat of the chicken incident.

Perhaps she could just talk to someone. That was what people usually did, when they weren’t all about to die. Probably.

She sighed. She used to be good at this sort of thing, once upon a time.

"Not used to the meat suit, I guess?" asked Yuffie, looking up from the Black Materia.

"No. Think you could put that away?"

"What am I gonna do, try to use it? You know I can’t."

"It’s the principle of the thing," said Tifa. She frowned. "I should be getting used to it, shouldn’t I? If I have to use it permanently."

"Don’t say morbid shit like that," said Yuffie with a scowl.

"You knew it was a possibility."

"Ugh, you’re such a sadsack." Yuffie glanced at Aeris. "Was she this awful the entire trip?"

Aeris did not open her eyes. Zack prodded her.

"What?"

"You’re being asked stupid questions," said Zack, jerking a thumb back towards Yuffie.

"It’s not a stupid question. I’m asking you if Tifa was any fun when you were with her."

"Oh. Oh! Er -- I couldn’t say," she said. She closed her eyes again without further comment.

"Can’t have been worse than Cloud was," said Zack, grimacing.

"Could too. No offense, Teef, but between you and Cloud, Cloud is the fun one."

"No he isn’t!" objected Tifa. "...Is he?"

"He’s definitely not," said Zack. "Besides, that would’ve been me anyway."

Aeris cracked open an eye. "I don’t know if I’d call you trying to get me to participate in a discussion starting with whether or not I’d ‘stick it in an alien’ fun."

"You don’t get to complain about that now," said Zack. "Look at them. I’ve been completely vindicated in retrospect."

"Gee, thanks," said Yuffie flatly.

"Just saying, biology-wise you guys are nothing to write home about. You’re humans and you have cats and rats and dogs."

"And chocobos," added Aeris in protest. "We don’t have those on Earth."

"Yeah, but I’m not gonna stick it in a chocobo. They don’t even talk."

"Eugh. You wanna be a chaser for things that aren’t human, ask Nanaki if he’s interested."

"Yuffie," warned Tifa.

"Oh, like you’re one to talk," she replied. "Just gonna bone down on a medical mystery, huh?"

"There is a difference," Tifa said through gritted teeth, "there is a difference and you know it."

"Although, if you wanna get technical, we have this entire community of people that really wanna fuck dragons --"

"Yuffie."

"No, we have those on Earth, too," said Aeris, without missing a beat. "I sat next to a man in my English lit class that had a very risque pin on his bag."

"But -- I thought you said they weren’t real," said Tifa, frowning. "They’re not real, but… you invented them? For this?"

"Not for that, but --"

"‘Tis the nature of man," said Zack.

"But… why don’t you just do that with animals you have?"

"We do," said Aeris.

"Tifa? Sweetheart?" said Yuffie. "Moogles aren’t real."

"So?"

"Do you remember that kiosk at the back of the Gold Saucer? The one selling unlicensed merch?"

"Oh…"

"Oh yeah, been meaning to ask," said Zack, "do you eat those? Chocobos, I mean. I haven’t seen one, but they sound pretty tasty."

"Zack!" shouted Aeris, scandalised.

"No, they’re not food animals," said Tifa. "Well -- I’m sure some weirdo out there is selling chocobo meat for two thousand gil a pound, but no."

"Yeah, but think of all the meat!"

"Behemoths probably have meat on them, too, but nobody eats those," said Yuffie. "Just because it’s big doesn’t mean it’s food."

"Sure," said Zack, "but they’re birds."

"They’re smart birds," said Tifa, "and they need a lot of space to run. It’s less of a waste to just train them to pull things and take their eggs."

"Oh -- I didn’t even think about that," asked Aeris. "What are chocobo eggs like?"

"Uh… big," said Yuffie.

"Much richer," said Tifa. "If you like the taste of eggs, they’re better than chicken or goose, but I don’t cook with them often."

"Yeah, but they look weird," said Yuffie.

"No they don’t, they look like regular eggs."

"They’re all orange."

"That means they’re fresh! Not easy to use that much egg on short notice once you crack it open. Plus, they’re not chocobo-meat-rich-weirdo-expensive, but still expensive. At least a nice rump roast you can divvy up into other dishes. You can’t sit down a bunch of chocobos in a coop like you can with chickens or geese."

"Why’s that?" asked Aeris. "They seem docile enough."

"What about chocobos ‘seem docile’ to you?" asked Yuffie. "You looking to get kicked in the head?"

"They’re not afraid of people and they spook easy," said Tifa. "That’s three hundred pounds of bird."

"Wait -- you met one?" asked Zack.

"Yeah, in stage one. Cloud walked right up to one with some greens," said Aeris. "It let us ride it."

"Doesn’t count," said Tifa immediately. "That’s Cloud. We dunno how he does that."

It’s the hair, stage-mouthed Yuffie.

"It is not the hair," began Tifa with a sigh.

"I knew it!" shouted Aeris, grinning in triumph. "Actually, then, I’m with Yuffie. Cloud is the fun one."

"I can be fun!" pouted Tifa.

"Yeah, well, we’ll see how you feel next catapult session," said Yuffie.

"Next what?"

"I want in on whatever you’re planning that involves catapults," said Aeris quickly. Then she stiffened upon realising Zack was staring at her. "...What?"

"...You smiled."

She stopped smiling. "What about it?"

"No, it’s good! Just… it’s been a long time. Feels like it, anyway. I feel like you used to do that a lot more."

"I should -- I should get back to work." She closed her eyes again.

"That’s not what I meant," sighed Zack, exasperated.

"You spooked her," complained Yuffie. "I almost had another catapult bud and you blew it."

"I haven’t spooked," said Aeris. "I just --"

"If you’re going to be boring and stuffy, you can stay at home with Tifa."

Tifa crossed her arms. "I’m not boring."

"Nor am I," added Aeris.

"Name one cool thing you’ve done."

Several moments passed. Aeris said nothing.

"You brought gummy bears to work," said Zack.

"Yes. That, exactly. Thank you. I bring candy to work."

"She helped me steal wallets," added Tifa.

"Big deal, I do that all the time. When this is all over, you’re coming out with me and you’re breaking some windows."

Aeris’s eyes grew very wide. She gave a short, enthusiastic nod.

Tifa exchanged a look with Zack.

"Aeris," Tifa said, "you know you don’t have to do this."

"Yes, I do," she said. "And I will."

She closed her eyes again and went back to meditating, even as Yuffie continued on another tangent about adamantoise sashimi being a delicacy in Wutai. Tifa watched as Zack stared at her for a moment, the expression on his face inscrutable, and then got up and left without another word.

Chapter 63: PSYCHIC DOUBLE REACHAROUND

Notes:

SORRY NOT SORRY

Advance prep hellchapter that caused massive hiatus: 3/4. No prizes for guessing what the last one will be...

Thank you Datflowerboi115 for this high quality meme.

Thank you to Belderiver, DarthTofu, and la_regina_scrive for making this disaster possible.

Body horror. You know the drill.

Tifa didn't react as the mako in the tank occasionally bumped her against the sides of the glass. Aeris hoped that meant that it just wasn't that bad thanks to the pain medications, and not that she was too out of it to feel it corroding her organs, the way it had burned in the flashes of memory she'd gotten from Cloud.

He'd taken to sleeping against the side of her tank. It didn't look remotely comfortable, especially with an arm missing, but with the way he was pressed up against it most of the time, Aeris was pretty sure he'd climb in there with her if he thought he would fit. A few times Tifa had used his body to walk around and chat, but she didn't seem to be fully coherent for most of it. Mostly, she just slept.

She really only got an hour or two with Cloud as Cloud every day for practising purposes, and they didn’t wind up doing much talking when she was trying to figure out how to take control of his body without it imploding into feathers, or reverting to the malnourished child she had seen in the labs, her own ideas and presence inevitably shaping his own. And in the end, there was never any progress on what she was actually supposed to be doing.

It had been so long, but she was reminded all too forcefully just how delicate Cloud was when it came to these matters -- the ink in water she’d very nearly washed away all those months ago, and had barely managed to piece back together. One wrong move, and there might be nothing left of him. She could tell he knew it, too, the anxiety painted clearly on his face, and yet…

She just needed to try harder. She wasn’t trying hard enough. That was the problem. She was supposed to be fixing this.

She approached him at the tank, where she knew he’d be. Where else would he even have gone, when there might not have been places in existence besides this one anymore?

"Just me this time," offered Cloud apologetically, as Aeris sat down next to him. "I can tell her you dropped by when she wakes up, though."

"That's fine," said Aeris. "I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh." His lips quirked into a half-smile.

"You up for it?"

"I guess I could clear my schedule," he said. "But I still charge by the hour."

"You'll have to put it on my tab," said Aeris. She forced a smile of her own. "How's the arm?"

"It'll grow back."

"Not what I asked."

Cloud rubbed his neck with his remaining hand. "...Hurts like hell. Barret said --" there was another brief pause as he zoned out, presumably conferring with Zack again for a specific English word, "-- opiums would help, but Reeve's got his hands full right now. Just gotta tough it out for a bit." He shrugged. "That's the price you pay for having a body, though... wish I could've asked Sephiroth for pointers or something. Not that he'd have given me any. Smug prick...."

"I'm sorry."

Cloud let out a soft huff of laughter. "Wrong arm."

"Yes, but I’ve still --"

"Aeris, it’s just a truck."

"Well yes, but --"

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

Aeris sighed. "I thought you might be able to help with -- with using Jenova for -- for things. I thought perhaps you’d have some pointers of your own."

Cloud looked away. "That’s more of your thing. Or Tifa’s I guess. I’ve never taken over anything before, remember?"

"...I suppose so."

"Sorry I’m not more help," said Cloud. "Are you sure you don’t want to get some sleep? I’ll have Tifa come find you later."

"No. Is it okay if we just… talk for a bit?" She shouldn’t be taking a break in times like this. There was no telling how much time she had left, if she didn’t fix things soon.

All the more reason, said a selfish part of her anyway, and Aeris found herself far too exhausted to ignore it.

If Cloud himself was thinking that as well, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he opened up his mouth and said something far more unexpected.

"So. Er."

Aeris looked up at Cloud, who was now clenching and unclenching his hand nervously. Hooked his fingers into the fabric of his shirt and continued.

"...I think I talked to your mother, once."

"...You what?"

"It was a long time ago," said Cloud. "It's not something I usually like to think about, but... you remember Director Crescent, right?"

Aeris grimaced. "Vaguely."

"She tried to blow up Midgar. Whether it was because she was infected and Jenova told her to, or because she really was willing to see everyone die just for Sephiroth's sake..." he sighed. "Either way, she put up a fight when we went to go stop her. I kept trying to reason with her, but by then she didn't even look human. But...

"She spoke to me. Jenova -- um, Ifalna did, I mean. Through her." Aeris watched as Cloud poked his fingers through the holes in the knit, staring vacantly down at his lap. "She -- held me sort of, and..."

He actually did laugh then, an angry, resentful noise that had him slouching heavily against Tifa's tank.

"But -- she was asking for you. I know she was. I guess she sensed I was infected or something, since we share genes now and all... all this time, I thought it was the Director, but... I guess she must've died halfway into that fight, the minute she started growing knives out of her face. It was always Ifalna, and I guess she wanted to see you one last time."

"How do you know it was her?" asked Aeris, all of the moisture in her mouth having long since disappeared.

Cloud hesitated before answering. "...Lucrecia doesn't even have a daughter. Should've known it was never me," he muttered eventually. "Even now, knowing that, I still keep thinking... y'know, what if it were her, on that maintenance tower? Would she have recognised me then?

"Maybe. I don't think she'd have cared if she did. Hojo was... he never bothered to hide how angry he was, but sometimes I really did think... I dunno. I could've been imagining it. But to Lucrecia, well..."

Cloud's hand untangled itself from his shirt and reached vaguely towards the place his other arm used to be. "...It was pretty clear what I was to her. Plus I pushed her real son into a reactor core, so that probably didn't help." He groaned. "Gods, I was so stupid. I'm still stupid, I'm still asking if maybe, she'd have recognised me, and... I don't know, maybe she'd have stabbed me anyway. The last thing she ever really did was try to help Sephiroth by blowing another hole in the planet --"

"Then stop asking," said Aeris. "Who cares if she'd have recognised you? If you know she wouldn't care anyway, does it matter that much if she was already dead?"

Behind her, she heard Tifa shift against the mako tank wall. The ribbon, and her hair, were both splayed all over the glass by static. She pulled the ribbon from her hair and began combing it out with her fingers.

"It's not -- it isn't that simple," said Cloud. "I -- they were all I had. I just... it shouldn't have been all for nothing, what they did to me. But it was, and it's -- it's hard. And it's hard to know everything I ever did for them was for nothing, too. They loved Sephiroth and I wasn't Sephiroth and even if Hojo did care about me... but -- I mean, I killed him. Four times now, even, and I was everything to them he never wanted to be, wasn't I?"

"She declared you her legal property," said Aeris flatly. "She quite literally had you thrown in the trash."

"I know that!" Cloud snapped. "...I do, I swear. It's just... it's hard. It was all I had. I -- what if it were your mother you got to see one last time. Even knowing what she did, you would still --"

"My mother never laid a finger on me!" said Aeris in disbelief. "It's completely different. She wasn't even your real mother!"

"She wasn't," he agreed. "Neither was Jenova. Neither's that project of yours."

Aeris frowned. She still had not tied her ribbon back into her hair yet, and had instead wound it about her fingers, cutting off the circulation in her fingertips.

"I mean…" Cloud began slowly, "I know how it feels, kind of."

"How what feels?" said Aeris without looking up.

Next to her, she heard Cloud shift nervously again. "...I mean, maybe not exactly the same as you. But--"

He stopped abruptly, and did not resume right away. Aeris looked up at him then, and saw his face scrunched into a contemplative frown.

"...Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think I ever really got a chance to think about Ma when she died," said Cloud. "It just… it happened so fast. And I didn’t really have anyone else back then. I kept thinking, maybe she’d come back somehow and save me, and when she didn’t… I didn’t know what else to do, I guess. And then Jenova started to… I mean, I had the Dire -- I had Lucrecia, and..."

He didn’t continue right away.

"And what?"

"Nothing bad. I just -- I remembered my mother. I remembered what she looks like." Another pause. "...She looks a lot like me."

"I’m -- I’m happy for you."

"...So does yours."

"I -- yes. Thank you."

"So -- I mean… I guess I don’t know." He shrugged. "Now they’re all gone too. Except Jenova, anyway."

"Except Jenova," agreed Aeris.

She unwound the ribbon again and began threading the soft fabric through her hands. One end of it was slightly faded from where she’d taken to sucking on it in her childhood.

"...What was she like?"

"Hm?"

"Your mother," said Cloud. "What was she like?"

"She was..." Aeris sighed. "She was busy. Not always with work. Sometimes she was busy with me, too. Always wanted to be doing something. We went to the zoo a lot, I remember." She smiled. "Perhaps if I'd not gotten into physics, I'd be a marine biologist. I must have read that plaque about whalefall a hundred times...."

She unwound the ribbon. Rewound it again. "...Not a lot of sitting like this, though. I wish I had gotten to do that a bit more. But you know, things were supposed to quiet down a lot, once other people could start working on the project…."

Aeris went quiet.

Behind them, Tifa shifted in the tank again. Marlene chattered away quietly to Barret about a "Princess Rosa". Spacetime shifted and buckled around them, giving her headaches if she tried to look at anything and expect a corner to stay a corner for too long. At one point Zack popped by and asked if she needed a pillow for her back or something, before disappearing to continue his work again. Aeris stared at the ribbon in her hands.

"Can you braid hair?" she asked suddenly.

"...If it's someone else's head, yeah," said Cloud. "When I had long hair I just pulled it back."

"You had long hair?" she asked, incredulous. She tried her best to picture it, but the best her brain could conjure up was his current hair with long hair sloppily taped underneath. "How long?"

"Too long," said Cloud. "That was the fad, what with Sephiroth and all..." He grimaced. "They cut it all off when I joined the military, and I don't really have a reason to grow it out now that I've left. But, I've braided hair plenty of times." He began to reach for the ribbon, then stopped. "...Don’t think I know how to do it with one hand, though. It won't look very good."

"Oh?"

"You could ask Tifa when she wakes up," said Cloud. "With her own body, I mean. Or Barret, when he’s less busy." He rubbed his neck again. "I guess I’ll probably need a lot of advice from Barret in general, huh?"

"Well, no time like the present to start practising," said Aeris, turning around.

"You're not serious?" said Cloud. Aeris nodded. "It's gonna look awful."

"I'm sure it'll look fine. I'll help."

"...If you say so."

It took a few false starts to get a system worked out, where Cloud would periodically hand her a strand of her own hair to hold. The silence returned for another few moments.

"Where did you learn to braid hair, if you didn't bother with your own?"

"Nanaki let me help with his mane a few times," said Cloud. "I don't really know how he was doing it before that. I guess his grandpa would've..."

"His grandpa?"

"Bugenhagen. Human guy, with hands." He handed her another swath of her hair. "After he passed... I guess it's one of those things you don't really think about right away."

"Mum always did mine," said Aeris. "And it's not."

"I'm sorry."

Aeris waved her hand dismissively. "It's not important. There are a lot of silly things you don't think of right away, when you lose someone."

"It's not silly," said Cloud firmly.

Aeris gave a dry laugh. "You don't have to humour me."

"I'm not," said Cloud. "It's -- those are the kinds of things you decide to -- that's why you get back up. To teach people to braid hair, and fix their roofs, and...." He sighed. "I'm not explaining it right."

"That's alright," said Aeris. "Really."

"No, it's..."

He did not continue, and instead went back to braiding her hair in silence. He spoke up eventually for her help in tying the ribbon.

"It's not in there very well," said Cloud. "You might want to redo it yourself later."

"It's fine," said Aeris, scooting back around to sit next to him again. The way the weight of her hair settled told her it was tied a bit lopsided. "You did fine."

Cloud was still frowning at her. Suddenly, something seemed to occur to him.

"So, when you get your garden all set up," said Cloud, "do you think you could grow food in it, too? I don’t really know how it all works."

Aeris blinked. "What garden?"

Cloud cocked his head to the side. "The one you’re setting up. I saw the flower stuff on the table."

"Oh. That was -- well -- I thought you might have wanted flowers, if we were going to perform a… service for you. I needed to show Barret which ones."

"...Huh. Well, I guess you can just use ‘em for the garden now."

"Again, with the garden. Who said I was making a garden?"

"Well, I figured you’d want to, right?" said Cloud. "After we got your room all put together anyway. You could share with me, or Tifa, but there’s a couch downstairs too if you don’t mind that. Although…" Cloud shifted self-consciously. "I guess the place sort of got wrecked, after the crash and everything. So we might have to find somewhere else, and we can work out which room is gonna be yours then."

"Mine?"

"...Well, if you weren’t sharing with anyone, yeah --"

"My room. With -- with you."

Aeris stared at Cloud in disbelief.

"It doesn’t have to be with me," said Cloud, now looking thoroughly uncomfortable. "I just thought, since you know me n’ Tifa the best, and you’re -- you’re a little stuck here, that you could…"

"You want me to live with you."

Cloud nodded earnestly.

"After I got you run over."

Cloud rolled his eyes. "I’ve had worse --"

"And after all that time you spent afraid of your own shadow because of me. After you got locked up, and melted, and blown up, and -- and after everything in my life led to you -- what they did to you in Nibelheim, what I did to your universe, after everything that’s happened to this planet because of me, and now you’re asking me --"

Cloud scooched a bit closer to her until he was leaning up against her with his good shoulder, cutting off her train of thought.

"Wanted to do this for a while," he muttered, closing his eyes.

Aeris remained utterly silent as Cloud leaned against her, though he could probably feel the way her breath juddered through her chest as tears ran slowly down her face. He did not pull away as she slid her fingers through his, either.

Cloud gave her hand a small squeeze, and Aeris sniffed a bit more loudly than she meant to.

His grip made her hand tingle, and for a moment she was faintly sure she wasn't holding anything at all.

"I'm sorry," she heard him say from nowhere in particular, "I'm sorry, it's -- it's hard to press in this far."

Aeris tightened her grip on his hand, which she was definitely holding, and let herself relax into the place it was, the world already spread so thinly.

The walls around them dissolved into the cold, silvery ripple of moving water, caressing indifferently past their skin and through their hair. Her lips parted in surprise, and a stream of bubbles rushed past them and floated away to the surface.

"Where...?"

"Further away," said Cloud. Aeris herself remained solid, but Cloud's edges were gently feathered and pulled this way and that by the current. This time, however, he seemed to stay in one place. "...You don't recognise it? We met here. Properly, I mean."

Aeris shook her head. The light flickered out, leaving them in complete darkness, the relentless whisper of waves giving way to harsh static. Hands brushed past their skin, scrabbling and clawing with millions of fingers.

"This is where we met," she said quietly.

Cloud shook his head.

The light returned, but the emptiness didn't. The space around them was teeming with life, creatures she had no name for casting rippling shadows over them as they swam far overhead. Darting around them were several she recognised: Aurelia aurita; Engraulis mordax; Squatina californica; she barely remembered the actual names, she'd read all the little plaques at the aquarium so often. They all darted around the two of them and the tank, once again indifferent to their presence.

"I don't think it was quite like this, either," said Cloud. "I don't know where we are anymore."

"Further away, I suppose," returned Aeris, as she watched a ray circle behind Tifa's tank and fail to emerge from the other side.

"...Do you think, if --" began Aeris. Cloud shot her a look. "Last one, I promise," she insisted. "Do you think... if none of this had happened this way, and... and we really did find some sort of animal to scout this place out, and I came over here normally, and we just... met, the way people do... what do you think it would have been like?"

"No way to know that one, either," said Cloud.

"Do you think we'd be friends?"

"No idea," said Cloud. "You're a doctor, for starters. That wouldn't help. And you're kinda rude."

"This coming from you."

"That wouldn't help either," agreed Cloud. "So... I guess, no. We'd never have been friends."

"That's a shame," said Aeris. Cloud nodded.

The light reddened and warmed, and Aeris realised it was reflecting off pillars of sandstone jutting from the ocean. A great bonfire sat before them, casting harsh shadows against their surroundings.

"The Candle," said Cloud quietly. He didn't elaborate. "If we make it out of here, I'll have to show you the real thing."

"Why here?" asked Aeris.

"...I don't know," said Cloud. "Were the fish yours?"

Aeris nodded. “It’s amazing, the places you’ve gotten to visit. Maybe we can see the real thing soon.” The light from the fire glinted sharply off the worn pavement.

"I -- I should get back to work," she said eventually, when she finished wiping her eyes for the tenth time.

“Try it for real again,” said Cloud. When Aeris opened her mouth to object, he pressed on. “I’m not Sephiroth. You already know how to do this, anyway. Should be easy.”

"Should be," said Aeris, getting to her feet. She raised an eyebrow as she saw Cloud do the same.

"Zack said you had a spotter," said Cloud. "But he’s busy, and Tifa’s out cold, so I’m gonna do it."

"I don’t think that’s quite…" began Aeris, but Cloud had already departed for the couch again.

"It should be really easy," said Cloud. "You’ve done this loads of times already, right?"

"Yes, but with the proper equipment, I shouldn’t --"

"But it doesn’t matter," said Cloud. "You’re not even real here, and you know how to use the pattern."

"Do you think…?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think she set it up that way on purpose?" asked Aeris, unable to help herself.

Cloud looked back at her before switching off the lights once more.

"I think even if she did, it doesn’t matter now," he said firmly.

Aeris closed her eyes, and the two pinpricks of blue light vanished into darkness again as a hand slid through hers once more, the end of her ribbon still tangled into her other hand.

"None of it's real," said Cloud from somewhere above her. "Not for you, remember?"

And he was right, she realised. The space she was in wasn't anywhere in her universe. The void was closer than ever, ideas blending into one another as readily as spilled paint, none of it any more concrete than just a set of imaginary numbers. Just like the ones she was pursuing.

They -- or perhaps the idea they represented, which really was the same thing -- seemed to grow clearer in her head. The world fell away, the twisting labyrinth of nothing-at-all that she was falling through unbending and righting itself, her feet landing on something solid in the darkness.

She had about a split second to process that Cloud was staring up at her, his gaze hardened with resolve, before she noticed the blade buried in her gut.

He wrenched the blade free as she staggered backwards, the ground beneath her feet no longer there, drifting back into the in-between spaces, her body (if, indeed, she'd ever had one in a place like this) dissolving back into nothing.

Who...?

Aeris realised with a jolt that it wasn't even her moving, fighting against the current towards Cloud through the sea of voices.

Mother?

She could feel her -- their presence winding its way towards the splinter in the dark that was Cloud, latching onto it like a fungus. He appeared not to notice.

Mother... I failed. The warmth in her voice from Sephiroth of all people was deeply unnerving. The vessel... his flesh is still part of you, Mother. We'll live on through him.

...Sorry about this, she said, but I promise you'll thank me for this in a few years' time.

She could feel Sephiroth reeling in shock from the fact that "Mother" had actually responded, and used that moment to forcibly thread her way into him. For an instant, she could see him in front of her, only she was staring down at him with a million eyes, pulling him into oblivion with a million hands that he roiled against, before they were both pulled away in a wash of green.

And the voices: actual voices, laughing and screaming and talking and telling stories, the clatter of train tracks, the sound of the first birds breaking the early morning silence, the ringing of a phone no one wanted to answer, the roar of water pouring over a cliff; the overwhelming cacophony of life and death and the river flowing in between; an ocean of memories promising peace to one, threatening to drown them both.

They strained against it, Sephiroth reaching through it towards Jenova -- towards Cloud, the only living source of it left -- and Aeris reaching deeper into Sephiroth, trying to shut out the noise, to silence him too, to let him reach further, to become him --

You're not Mother, said Sephiroth, struggling harder, as they dove together through memory, through the vast nervous system they were just pieces of. Who are you? What are you?

Hate to be a bother, she said, but I need to borrow you for a bit.

What?!

We'll meet again one day, I'm sure, she continued, willing herself to ignore the feeling of ocean spray against her cheeks, and the rumble of an engine overhead, and the burn in her muscles as she ran through the undergrowth, chasing prey. And by the way, she's not your mother, she's mine.

And though she could feel him struggling against her and her vision went in and out of focus, it felt as natural as anything to sculpt the mind now sinking its tendrils into Cloud, trying to take control. After all, if she couldn't access him directly, she could certainly access someone who could.

She uneasily slid into the body she was controlling thirdhand. It felt wrong, like her own skin didn't fit. She opened her eyes -- Cloud's eyes -- and looked out at the world.

The sky was burning, the ugly red colour of an open wound.

Aeris, through Ifalna, through Sephiroth, through Cloud, watched the end of the world from the deck of the Highwind.

She barely felt in control as it was, foreign thoughts roiling around her: the call to Reunion, now only a dull murmur; Sephiroth's disbelief and fury; Cloud's quiet, melancholy contentment as Meteor lowered itself into the atmosphere.

The surface of it rippled with magic, red and blue light spiderwebbing out through the cracks, seeming to gouge the air as it tore up the city beneath it.

It whispered to her.

It was so quiet at first she didn't quite notice it, but Meteor -- the pull of Reunion drawing it near at long last, drifting through the dark space between galaxies for billions of years to complete the final stage of Jenova's life cycle as it had countless times before -- wove its way into the pattern it was always a part of, and it spoke.

Aeris.

She knew that voice -- hadn't heard it for years until recently, until it had woven itself into the edge of her dreams and she'd been certain she was imagining it.

...Hi, Mum.

Aeris Aeris Aeris Aeris Aeris

There wasn't really anything left for her to talk with at this point, she knew. The only part of her that had been preserved was the drive to create a waypoint -- to spread the pattern, to weave it into every living thing it touched.

My child....

Is this what you wanted? she asked. No -- of course it was. This is what it was all for.

Aeris....

It was for me.

She stared out through Cloud's eyes at the imminent ruin before them. Barret's arm was settled around their shoulder, tears silently streaking down his face. Leaning against their other side was Tifa, fingers threaded through their own.

Every face around her was wet. Yuffie was sitting some distance away, winding bits of Nanaki's fur around her fingers. Reeve stood off to the side next to what looked like a life-sized stuffed bear with an equally stuffed cat perched atop. Cid leaned against a console and chewed on an unlit cigarette, eyes glazed over. Behind it crouched Jessie, hugging her knees and staring out across the city.

Cloud had not walked out to the railing. Right. That was her job.

Making Cloud take the first step was like trying to force her hand against some immense phantom wind -- like reaching for Tifa's hand when they had been in freefall, and it was all she could do to keep pushing. Cloud obeyed without question.

Even Tifa explaining how it worked didn't necessarily make her feel better about it. Sorry, she told him, even if he wouldn't even be aware of it.

He was calm anyway, it seemed. The contented stillness inside him wasn't even coming from her or Sephiroth trying to pacify him, as he stared out across his imminent death.

And as per usual when she was being Cloud, it felt incredible. The sense of purpose, of closure -- of having done everything he had ever wanted to do with her -- his life, the lingering warmth of Barret's hand on his shoulder concrete proof of it. She'd vaguely imagined something like this for herself: she would finish the project, redeeming her parents in the eyes of the scientific community, proving she had been right; she would know that they hadn't died for nothing; she would be everything they'd ever hoped she would be and more, even if they couldn't ever see it. It would feel like this, she imagined.

Like waiting to die.

Is this what you wanted, Mum? she asked. For me? For this planet?

Ifalna did not reply.

It can't have been. It wasn't just for -- you loved me too, didn't you? I know you did. You and Dad.

Meteor hung over the city, making that awful noise in the back of her skull, Ifalna -- the pattern -- spreading itself -- spreading herself -- repeating and repeating the way it was meant to. What was left of her physical body was this twisted mass, called here by Reunion and the Black Materia, a memory of what the pattern was meant to do. This thing that had once been her mother had been drifting through the darkness of space, consuming planet after planet, for billions of years, a physical link to the world beyond it.

But then, if that were the case...

She raised a hand. It was funny, how small it looked next to the callused fingers. Relative. Arbitrary. This place wasn't even "real", if she thought about it

Aeris Aeris Aeris Aeris Aeris

And she did think about it. She pushed in deeper to the music as the world around her began to look strange and flat and grey. She closed her eyes, listening to the pattern that was her mother, that came from her and from Aeris, that leaked into this world through the next. Zack had said it was a horrible noise, Cloud and Tifa had described it as music.

To Aeris it simply made sense.

She followed it back.

This must have been what you wanted too, isn't it? she thought.

The world thinned more. Blood ran down from Cloud's nose into their mouth in a sticky copper line.

For the parts of myself that you gave to me...

"Thank you" was what she wanted to say, but the words wouldn't come.

...maybe you couldn't help but give it. Same as you are now, I suppose. And I couldn't help it either.

But... I'm going now. And I won't be coming back.

She stared out through Cloud's eyes, fingers curling into a fist. The sky was boiling now, a thousand hands pushing through the fabric of the world, clearer to her than the city burning beneath her now.

Goodbye, Mum. I love you.

Meteor was unmade in a deafening blast as the world rushed to fill the space it had made, the shockwave sending bits of the city and the Highwind both hurtling. All of it felt far away now, though, and she distantly heard Cloud cry out as she followed the remains of Ifalna's body into the void to the source.

She reached into the pattern -- into what was left of Ifalna Gainsborough -- and ended it.

The hands filling her field of vision twisted and writhed as the space closed in around her until they no longer resembled hands at all. She was falling now, faster and faster, and the jagged shapes pursued her, snatching at her skin, screaming in her ears. Faintly, she could hear voices, see her own unresponsive body being shaken frantically by Barret. Behind him, Zack was lying on the floor staring off into space as well. Cloud was nowhere to be seen.

"She won't wake up."

"Well, keep fuckin’ trying then!"

She tried to reach out to them, to tell them she was fine, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was static. The pattern was gone, and the noise was nothing but noise now, the absence of everything pulling itself back together. It was beyond words like "old", and deeper than Ifalna had ever been.

Static continued to leak through her mouth, and as she thrashed against the jagged tendrils piercing her body, she screamed.

 

---

 

Cissnei huddled in the doorway of a burnt out house in Cannes with other survivors, and watched as the red sky went dark -- and then went out.

Hands descended from the nothingness looming above them, amputating wide swaths of the world as they passed. Everything left warped and curled in towards them, streets twisting into infinity, silhouettes composed of static frozen mid-stride trying to flee singularities.

She clutched Shithead to her chest, and she waited.

 

---

 

The music stopped.

It was enough of a shock that it took the wind out of Cloud physically, and it was all he could do to stand there, doubled over, trying to catch his breath. She was quiet. The pattern that had seared away at his consciousness for so long, replacing it with more of itself, that he could hear a thousand million voices drowning in, had just stopped the way one might simply turn off a light on their way out of the room.

He’d been so wrapped up in what it felt like to suddenly not hear a pattern that was woven into everything he was -- grieving, celebrating, he couldn’t even tell anymore -- that he didn’t notice the screaming coming from beside him.

Aeris was still lying next to him beside him, but she wasn’t waking up. Collapsed beside her was Zack, occasionally convulsing as feathered limbs burst from his back and began anchoring themselves into the walls like spiderwebbing, until there was nothing left of the body they were tearing their way out of.

He looked back down in time to see Aeris sink through the floor into a pool of static.

"No!" He dove for her, remembering too late that he no longer had a left arm to grab her with, and watched her tumble into oblivion, leaving him alone in the room.

He scrambled backwards, trying to get to his feet. The world began to curl in around the edges, the colour leaching out of his vision. Zack’s tendrils began sprouting leaves, which in turn sprouted eyes, which were growing all over the walls into one feathered mass, until the entire structure was covered in an infinite feathered manifold.

Jenova wasn’t spreading Her music -- the pattern anymore, he realised. Her rot spreading through the world was the scaffolding keeping the entire thing afloat, and in its absence was just more of the space between. There was nothing stopping it from trying to put itself back together anymore.

He turned to run.

He didn’t get far. He began to stumble, no longer sure where he was in relation to anything else; his own legs might have been right beside him, or a million miles away. His foot caught something soft, and he fell over it.

Cloud stared, transfixed in horror, at what used to be Yuffie’s face, which began to sag and droop with the rest of her as the static claimed it and it lost more and more of its shape.

Jessie was sobbing in the corner. Cloud ran to her and grabbed at her hand to pull her to safety, and he passed through her, no more substantial than air. She gave no indication she noticed, especially when the noise of her crying got louder and louder and louder. Her eyes were noise. Her hands were noise. Her body was noise. The noise was static. The noise was no noise at all.

Suspended next to her was a twitching nervous system, the little branches crackling with electricity, until they began crackling with more static, and then stopped crackling altogether. He didn’t know which loved one he was watching flatten onto a wall before peeling off into nothing.

The feathers parted way into forever, a horrible light filling the sky as it drew nearer and nearer, and he screamed and fell to his knees as the sheer vastness of everything that Wasn’t popped his eyes like a pair of grapes.

He fumbled around in the dark, sounds bouncing off his skin. He crawled across the surface of the paper he was drawn on, watching Kalm being newly built through the blood seeping from his eyes, then watching it unravel, brick by brick, into the sky. He choked as the air around him condensed into something else that was decidedly not oxygen anymore, and it was all he could do to remember that he didn’t need air, that he didn’t have a body, that he was just another idea in this ocean of them, all collapsing into one another before winking out of existence.

And then he remembered -- saw, from the corner of his eye --

Tifa walked downstairs amidst all the laughter and conversation, something clutched tightly in her fist.

Cloud turned on his heel and ran back downstairs. "Tifa!"

He pounded his fist on her tank. She did not move.

"Tifa!"

Please wake up, please, please, please -- if I ever needed you, it's now --

...Cloud?

She did not open her eyes or move, but her presence cautiously probed its way into his thoughts. He sank to his knees in relief.

Aeris won't wake up, she --

...The -- the music has stopped, I can't hear it --

I know. I know, she must have made contact with Jenova, but -- listen, there's no time to explain, and I don't even know -- I need the White Materia. You had it last --

Why do you need that?

To use it. Look --

To what?!

I'll explain later -- look, I've gotta do it. I came back last time, right?

Cloud, I-I don't --

She needs my help -- our help. I'm not leaving her there. You were the one who had it last, you need to get me to it.

But...

Please, just trust me.

...Okay, she relented. Alright. She was growing closer now, overwhelming his thoughts as she slid under his skin and into his being, lending him strength he no longer had.

Do you know what you're doing?

Sorta, said Cloud, a bit surprised he could still think. No more than usual.

Well, she said after a moment, I guess we're in good hands, then.

They moved together, pushing open the door to Tifa's room. Outside was a roaring maelstrom, stormclouds blotting out the sky with the Planet's fury.

Tifa cautiously walked them out into the rain, where it trickled harmlessly down their skin. Cloud couldn't resist closing his eyes, relishing in the sensation. He let out his breath in a rush.

Let's go.

The bodies lining the streets began to rear up, clawing at their legs. They put on another burst of speed, and it was Tifa that knew to leap and snag the bottom of a fire escape, launching them onto a roof. The sky was filled with bursts of red and gold as they leapt from roof to roof. They tore past another Cloud, staring up at the stars, eyes filled with wonder, and leapt off, into snow and ice and an empty tent on the side of the mountains, twisting around them this way and that in impossible ways, a voice pleading, "Please come home," echoing throughout them.

They kept falling, and it was Cloud that reached out and caught the hand that was offered to them, pulling them up into Ms. Suk's living room, which had no walls, only open spaces into fields of carnations they tore through, around the corner of a chip shop in Soho, the air smelling like flowers, like the ocean surrounding Wutai, even as the ground grew slick with blood and bullets streaked past them. They leapt off a cliff, crashing into the warm waters of Costa del Sol, Jessie cackling maniacally above them, Barret sighing in disappointment as they splashed him, falling faster and faster through the water and landing in a pile of rubble in Midgar. The city was still burning, crumbling around them, and they effortlessly ducked and weaved through the rubble without once slowing down, drawing the Fusion Swords, cutting their way through chunk after chunk of city. Sephiroth raised a hand and the foothold he was on shattered, until Tifa caught the ledge of the building, swinging them inside through the glass of the Shinra Tower.

They raced upstairs, alarms blaring, heart pounding, what must have been half the specimens in the tower's lab chasing after them, teeth and claws bursting out of them in turn from outside the world --

Gunfire ricocheted through the room, and it was empty, save for the pale man now standing before them, slowly lowering his gun, staring at Cloud, his expression as inscrutable as ever.

He held Vincent's gaze for perhaps a moment too long. When he blinked again, he had vanished.

...Cloud? Who was that?

That's... hard to answer. He was kind of a prick, to be honest.

Oh.

…He meant a lot to me, though.

Tifa nodded.

They turned and began climbing the stairs that led to the top floor of the Shinra Tower. It was Cloud that made them keep putting one foot after the other. It was Tifa that leaned them out over the edge, the last link to their destination.

It was the two of them that leapt from the roof, plummeting hundreds of feet into the pool in the old abandoned church.

It was much deeper than it should have been. The White Materia still shone at the bottom. The world was still, sounds muted as the water tugged gently at his hair. He took a breath to calm himself. It was almost peaceful here.

She'd kill you if she knew you were doing this, said Tifa idly.

Yeah, probably.

Whore.

Old habits die hard. He gingerly picked up the White Materia. Was it his imagination, or was it already burning his hand? ...You should probably go, he said. This next part's gonna hurt.

...I'll bring you pants this time, she said, for when you come back. Their lips tugged into a sad smile.

I love you, he wanted to say, but it was never enough, and instead his chest swelled as he closed his eyes and reached for audience with the Planet one last time.

He was illuminated from within, his flesh growing grey, then white, the dust and light he was crumbling into billowing out around him in the water in symmetrical clouds, forming intricate patterns as his waveform branched out and then collapsed into nothing.

His heart was full of blankets in the sun, and flower gardens filled with pigeons, and Marlene riding on Barret's shoulders, and Zack's blood filling his mouth, and the salt of his tears mixing with honeyed bread, and Nanaki's head on his lap, and the agonising burn of the Planet's answer to his plea for tomorrow in the face of his screams, in the face of I am I am I am I am I am

I am

I am

I am

I

The white materia dropped back to the bottom of the pond in the abandoned church. The wind rustled over the dying weeds that had been able to push themselves out through the cracks in the floorboards; the only colour in the place. Everything was quiet once more.

Notes:

Thank you very much to Belderiver, DarthTofu, and la_regina_scrive for betaing the following chapter as well.

Chapter 64: The Number I

Cloud sank.

For a moment, he could imagine he was sitting at home on Tifa's bed, immersing himself in Mother to quiet the voices. The water teased at his hair, pulled at his skin, threaded through his bones. The whispering was a roar now, howling around him, threatening to overwhelm him entirely.

He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, and let it.

It did not hurt, at least, as he watched his being unwind into fractals. He could look outward and see himself kneeling in the church; working on his bike; cutting his way through MPs; stumbling through the flames as his house burned; Ma washing his hair as he sat in the tub; his entire life unfolding into threads of stained glass.

Once or twice, he saw images of himself refract and drift away into the abyss with him, until something vast and unseen plucked them from nonbeing and they winked back into existence elsewhere. Aeris, he realised. Only she wasn't here anymore. It was only him, sinking further and further into nowhere.

And then he was nowhere. Intertwined with it so deep he could no longer separate himself out, twisted together in a single repeating pattern, stretched out into infinity.

The place between worlds was old, and deep, and hungry. And Cloud Saw.

He was scattered to pieces, torn apart across the infinite space of the pattern, ash on wind. He knew he'd never put himself back together again. He was a mere passenger in this entity he could neither understand nor control. He looked into forever, looked into nothing at all, into the end of the universe, the beginning of the next, and tears poured from his eyes. He was pulled from time -- time was pulled from him -- he was pulled from himself, hollowed out and filled with more nothing, and he was cut from the fabric he was sewn into, unable to move.

He looked away, and it Was Not.

There was no time here. Every second contained an eternity, every eternity another cycle.

He saw infinite worlds -- infinite suns burn out and die, infinite holes in space fold into themselves, creatures made of light, of numbers, of patterns, dip and weave in directions he couldn't comprehend, spiralling out from a single point, in from infinity. Things in colours he had no name for, that clawed at his senses, things that the place between worlds distorted and consumed.

He looked away, and it Was Not.

He felt himself warped, curled around every universe, pushing in and in and in. He blinked and towered over himself in the Northern Crater --

he blinked and waited in the rock and the ice until

the tapping of hot scurrying things disturbed him --

he blinked and lived again in a thousand bodies,

whispering to the first in an age --

he blinked and hurtled through an alien atmosphere

of poison gas and liquid air, ready to spread the pattern --

he blinked and held Aeris's hand at the checkout as

she bought her a bright pink flamingo with a ribbon around its neck --

he blinked and

saw stars

leaking from stars

swallowed into him and snuffed out one by one

and he was

small

and

a

point

on

a line

fracturing and splintering and weaving itself once more into a terrible, beautiful whole

and he was meant to become all of it.

This is me, he told himself, forcing himself to know. This is me, and I'm myself, and I'm real, and a person, and --

The kaleidoscope was dissolving from the inside out, eating away in shapes that stretched into forever, infinitely small and infinitely large. He steeled himself and tried again to reach for the kind of resolve he'd felt four years ago, and then two: the knowledge that his family was counting on him, that nothing in this world or any other would keep him from getting back up as many times as it took. It was burning in him as white-hot as it ever had, and he forced that into the knowledge that he was here, that he was here, that he was.

He continued to sink, his surroundings utterly indifferent to his presence. He looked away.

I'm here, he told himself. He knew, didn't he, he knew he was a person because -- because he was one, his family had said so, and they knew who he was. And so did he, and he was Cloud. He was Cloud, and he was real, and he was this void -- this void that was ripping him apart, that he was sinking deeper and deeper into, where there was no time, where there was no him.

I'm real, I'm a person, I'm Cloud, I'm -- I --

It was all he could do to cling to himself as the nothing ate into him, where nobody was left to --

I am I am I am I am I am --

Not his voice. Aeris. She was here. With him.

He saw her hand inside shapes inside spaces inside numbers, and he grabbed and pulled, his fingers fitting neatly into hers, and she tumbled into (non?)being next to him.

Then he realised, as he reached out to try and hug her, that she wasn’t right next to him at all. She was far away, and unfathomably large, utterly not of this place, extant in a way the rest of it simply wasn’t – pressed into this place she shouldn’t really be, the way he pressed himself through into the real world purely from the idea of himself.

She stared out – down – at him. "...Cloud?"

"You didn't come back," he said. "You didn't -- I had to come back for you."

"You can’t be here," she said. She drew closer to him in fascination before cautiously reaching out a hand to touch him, and this time he did not scatter like ink in water as he sat in her palm. "You aren’t real."

"...Not anymore, no," he said. "I had to get in somehow."

"But – how –"

"...The Planet's not fond of people like me at the best of times," said Cloud. "I…"

Her eyes widened in comprehension. "Oh Cloud, you didn't --"

"I had to," said Cloud. "I wouldn’t leave you here."

"You should have," said Aeris, "if it meant both of us…"

"That’s not your decision to make," said Cloud. "It’s mine."

Aeris smiled, tears forming in her eyes. She carefully set him down. "...You’ve been hanging around Tifa too much," she said.

"So have you," he replied.

"But – but you’ve died. If you’re here, and you used the White Materia, then you’ve died."

"No," he said. "I don't exist."

"That's worse."

"It's fine," said Cloud. "All I have to do is just -- convince myself I do. I've done it before. The first time I used the White Materia --"

He frowned.

"The first time..."

Help me.

His voice, fanning out from another instant in time. He could barely see them anymore, as they sank further and further down into nothing.

It hurts. Help me.

Nothing, not the kaleidoscope of the entity he was scattered across, nor the faint glimmer of another reality, remained. But the voice grew clearer.

I want to be good. Please let me be good. It hurts.

He was standing in the dark. There was nothing else here but Jenova. He felt Her -- it -- pass through his body as though he were no more substantial than smoke and he took a moment to remember I am, I am, I am

I'm alone. Help me.

There was someone else here with him, he realised. Which didn't make sense. Nothing existed here.

"Hello?" Cloud’s heart was hammering in his chest wasn’t beating at all because this wasn’t real and he’d died a long time ago was calm and steady as he remembered and forgot and remembered and forgot the fact that he was here in this place where nothing was --

"Please," said Cloud a bit louder, cautiously approaching the figure, "I need help."

He was curled up on his side some distance away in the darkness. Cloud could count every single vertebra along his spine, and there was a wet hole in the back of his neck where the cables were missing. His back was littered with fresh scars and welts. As Cloud drew close, he could see a single, gaping wound cut into his chest, where the White Materia had been implanted.

What did I do wrong?

His hair had grown out from the last time they'd shaved it. A little while after they'd resorted to brain surgery, then. He hadn't seemed to notice Cloud yet, his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"Is that...?" asked Aeris.

Cloud nodded.

He knelt next to the figure and slowly, carefully, placed a hand on his shoulder.

The other Cloud -- only a bit younger than he was, maybe twenty years old, the same crooked nose, the same slight features, the same voice cracked from disuse -- went very still, then slowly turned his head to look up at him.

He quickly sat up and twisted around to look, trembling with the effort. Cloud sat down next to him.

He gawked at Cloud, looking at his face, his lips silently forming the question.

"Who do you think?" Cloud replied.

The other Cloud quickly shut his mouth and stared at him hopefully, as though Cloud would be able to explain what was going on, or perhaps give him orders. Cloud did neither.

The silence stretched on. The other Cloud continued to stare.

He did have several questions, Cloud realised. By the time they'd implanted the White Materia, though, the conditioning was just too strong to actually get him to speak unprompted.

He would have liked to hate the Cloud -- 67-2, Series 3 -- in front of him: frail, fearful, and desperate to please. Not even a child anymore -- it was him, as an adult, aching to be given one more chance to bleed himself dry for Hojo. You're the reason everything went as wrong as it did, he thought. You did this to us.

"He can't hear us here," Cloud said instead. "It's not real."

67-2 swallowed, his eyes flitting up and down Cloud's body. He reached for the hem of Cloud's shirt, before remembering himself and shrinking away again.

Cloud offered him the hem and shifted to allow him to approach. "It’s soft," he said.

67-2 buried his face in Cloud’s shirt without another word, shuddering faintly. He did not move away even as his grip slackened on the fabric, and he knelt there with his face in Cloud’s lap, desperately pressing himself against a living human being that he was permitted to touch and willing to touch him.

And then against nothing at all, because they weren’t there.

Don’t leave me.

"...I’ll have to," said Cloud. "I have people I was supposed to be saving. I can’t stay here."

67-2 obediently let go and moved away, face made carefully blank once more.

"You know you could leave," said Cloud, "if you wanted to."

The other Cloud stared at him.

"You could go through the walls. Fly away before they had a chance to even notice you were gone. Or blow apart the whole mountain. You could, if you wanted to."

"...I don't want to."

"Why not?"

"...Where would I go?"

"Anywhere," said Aeris. "Anywhere would be better."

"It would be the same," said the other Cloud. "Most places -- are the same."

"Why?"

"They --"

He went quiet for a moment, struggling against his own failing grey matter and his continually shrinking supply of words.

"...You take yourself with you," he said after a moment.

"You're not wrong," said Cloud. "So then, what's stopping you from leaving?"

"I -- I can't," said the other Cloud. "I can't go. There's nowhere to go. The Professor is -- he's good to me. He says I can be good. I can't go."

"Why do you want to be good?"

The other Cloud's face crumpled into anguish. "I have to," he croaked out. It seemed all he was able to manage, the idea too big for the few words he had left. "He's -- he's good to me. He gave me everything."

"He took everything," said Cloud sharply.

"He gave me power."

Cloud said nothing, his own words dying on his tongue.

"You know what it's like," said 67-2. "To go your entire life without, watching everyone else have it, using it against you, wishing every night you had just a little. That you had control over anything happening to you. That you could do something -- anything to the world around you."

"...It isn't real," said Cloud after a moment. "You know that."

"It is," said 67-2. "Waking up and knowing what you’re meant to be doing is real." He swallowed. "That’s why he can take it away. He's gonna throw me away. None of it will mean anything anymore if he does."

"What if someone better found you?" asked Aeris.

"That’s… it’s not right," said 67-2.

"Why not?"

"I didn’t… I need to be good here."

"Well, you can’t," said Cloud flatly.

"No. No, I will. I’ll be good, I will -–"

"Cloud," warned Aeris. Cloud ignored her. 67-2 clamped his hands over his ears.

"That’s not my name. That’s bad. He’s bad. It isn’t bad like Cloud is, it doesn’t have a name -–"

"You do, and it’s Cloud Strife," said Cloud more firmly. "Ma gave it to you, and she’s dead now, and all you have left in the world is the Science Department, and you’ll never, ever learn to be good for them. Ever."

"No!"

"Cloud, stop it!"

"And you’ll take that with you, too. You know you will."

"No!"

"And if they won’t use your number, what’s the point of even having one? You’ll have nothing."

"Shut up!"

"Because you were right. Because you will take it all with you, you won’t have a choice not to –"

The other Cloud was gaunt and emaciated, but he was still a grown man with every enhancement magic and science could offer, and in a place like this his ill health meant even less. He lunged for Cloud, knocking him onto his back and wrapping his fingers around his throat, and they tumbled away into darkness. Aeris loomed above them, too large for her to notice them, frantically calling out for him. Cloud could not draw breath to answer.

Cloud clawed at the bony fingers that, in this nowhere space, were every bit as strong as his own. His vision began to swim.

"I am sick of pretending," spat the other Cloud. "Pretending never made anything better. Pretending ruined everything."

"Y-you aren't--" he gagged, "you – it isn’t pretending… you have t-to -- decide…"

"You can't just decide!" he screamed. "You can't just decide you didn't ruin everything for yourself! You can't just decide you have feelings when you've never even cared about anyone right in your life!" He squeezed harder. The face above him, twisted up with rage and grief, began to go dark.

"Who are you? Who the hell are you, that gets to decide?! You're not even a real person!" he screamed. "You never were!"

"Yes --" he choked out, "I --"

But there was no more air left in his lungs, and no more words left for him to muster, and only one thought left to him at the end.

I am...

 

And the body beneath him stops struggling, its eyes empty empty empty, and the world splinters and breaks.

He wakes up in the tank. It's hard to think, as it usually is.

He had pleaded for help, he remembers; had begged to anything that would listen to make him good enough; and then the light in his chest had burned him, and now he is here. His chest is still sore.

There are people outside the tank that have started to drain it, removing the tubes from his throat and the back of his neck, which means it's been a while... maybe.

He tries to tell them his legs aren't listening to him today, but his tongue isn't either, and all he manages is a garbled moan. Then he notices they're shaving patches on his head again, and realises it won't matter.

That was okay, he muses distantly, hands all over him, little foil circles reapplied, more tubes put back in. Long hair is for children. He's a grown-up now.

He is thrown away, eventually.

He is lying in the mud, refuse piled up around him, rain battering his face, growing further and further away from him. He can hear the faint rustling of rats searching through the garbage. Someone looms over him. Flames flicker behind her.

"Cloud?" she says, her voice barely above a whisper. Something old and deep in him reaches out from him, sweeps through her. He becomes.

They fight. They lose Biggs, Wedge. Everyone in Sector 7. Very nearly Jessie, who instead trades herself to Shinra for interrogation to save Barret's daughter. They try to assassinate the president, and find a dead man has beaten them to it. They flee the city, the Turks at their heels.

He fumbles with the zipper of the uniform he's stolen, wondering to himself when it was he couldn't stand wearing it anymore -- remembering how proud he was when he was promoted to First Class, given the uniform now packed away in his rucksack to avoid drawing attention.

Behind him, his "commanding officer" barks orders at him, and Cloud resists the urge to roll his eyes. He'd outrank this idiot ten times over if he were still with Shinra.

Jessie thinks he looks cute in it, and he offers her a lopsided half-smile in return.

The sun on the beach turns his skin pink and peeling, and he learns he has acquired freckles. It's strange, he notes to himself briefly, that he's never noticed them before, then realises he can't remember the last time he's seen himself in a mirror, and for one wild moment wonders if he even has a face. The skin he keeps covered beneath a bandage to hide his number sweats terribly, and it doesn't burn or tan or freckle at all.

They learn about the Planet. He hears it scream in his ears, and he swears he's heard that sound before. His chest aches. His fingers twitch. Nanaki, son of Seto, howls at the sky, and the ache grows beyond physical pain.

They travel. He sees creatures with silvery scales dip and weave through the surface of the waves; he learns he’s into women as well, and kisses someone for the first time in his life; he looks out across a vast desert at night as his breath turns to steam; he learns what it is like to get dumped, and decides he doesn't care for it, mentally retracing his steps trying to figure out what went wrong; he spends his free time sewing up holes in everyone's clothes --

-- until one day he remembers he can't anymore. They don't force him to, either.

He is staring at his own face in a bathroom mirror in shock, realising he is an adult, a man now, and dully notes that the freckles are still there as well. He expects not to recognise himself, but it is exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure that he does.

He decides to live. He breaks the sky open. He remembers none of it.

The world ends. The Highwind's pilot is killed in the crash, and there is insultingly little time to mourn him. Somehow, he doesn't die. He worms himself into piles of rubble in the burning wreckage of Midgar, lifting I-beams off civilians, small enough to reach those trapped inside, unnaturally strong enough to actually do something about it, offering inelegant, brute force healings with the immense wellspring of magic he possesses. He runs himself ragged after a mere twenty-four hours, and doesn't stop until he passes out himself in the middle of an operation and has to be rescued as well.

He sits under the eaves of newly-erected flats he cannot afford and doesn't have the paperwork to acquire; he is a non-person. He's been sitting here long enough that pigeons have gathered around him, accustomed to his presence. He feels faintly guilty he has nothing to offer them, but with the world recovering as it is, things like seeds will not be wasted on "trash birds" for some time. He'll sleep on the streets tonight as he does every night, until he figures out where to go, but he doesn't mind it terribly -- until the rest of his family finds out, and Tifa offers him a room above her bar. He has nothing to give her, either. He has nothing to give anyone.

Things slip inside his skin, and he is unable to feel the exuberance of some entity running and jumping across the rooftops of an alien city, under a star-filled sky, feeling close enough to touch them. In a way, she has.

Her name is Aeris Gainsborough, and she studies space, perhaps. It isn't very clear. Cid seems to understand more than he does. She is fascinated by his family. She comes back to visit him often. Once or twice, Cloud wonders if perhaps she's lonely, too, or if this is just a bitter obligation she fulfills, now that he's actually capable of talking. She must have enjoyed it much more when he was just a body to be used.

He experiences Reunion, and it is agony and ecstasy greater than any human could ever comprehend, and then he is forced back into himself by a man that is everything he could never be.

And there are hands around his throat -- his own hands, his own anguished face, and Aeris, braver and realer than him, is screaming in his ears as he is strangled by Series 3.

"You're not even a real person!" he screams. "You never were!"

"Yes --" he chokes out, "I --"

And the body beneath him stops struggling, its eyes empty empty empty, and the world splinters and breaks.

He wakes up in the tank, remembering how he asked for help, and the light in his chest burned him away with the word false.

A guard puts out a cigarette on his arm and he cannot move to get away.

Someone cuts into him to rid him of his faults and he cannot speak to beg for mercy.

He dances through spellfire and bullets, easy as breathing.

He remembers knowing how to play piano, but not being able to remember learning it.

He sees Sephiroth, beyond human, wings spread, radiating light, and isn't afraid.

He weeps over a pair of earrings on his birthday.

He remembers why everyone he loves tries to abandon him.

Hands close around his neck.

And the body beneath him stops struggling, its eyes empty empty empty, and the world splinters and breaks.

He is 67-2 Series 3, and he is Cloud Strife, and he is part of Jenova, beyond even space and time, part of an idea perpetuating itself across eternity and nothing. He is no one. He is himself a thousand times.

He is learning that Aeris's world has cats, too.

And the body beneath him stops struggling, its eyes empty empty empty, and the world splinters and breaks.

He is having his throat ripped open by the knife he hides under his pillow.

And the body beneath him stops struggling, its eyes empty empty empty, and the world splinters and breaks.

"Wanting something doesn't make it true."

And the body beneath him stops struggling, its eyes empty empty empty, and the world splinters and breaks.

He is hurling the Buster Sword off a cliff, watching it clatter off the rocks, disappearing from sight.

And the body beneath him stops struggling, its eyes empty empty empty, and the world splinters and breaks.

I am.

And the body beneath him stops struggling, its eyes empty empty empty, and the world splinters and breaks

and he lets go.

 

Cloud gasped as the air rushed into his lungs. Series 3 was still hunched over him, staring at him with an inscrutable expression. He reached up to his neck and gently curled his fingers around Series 3's, who merely looked at them, and did not try to push Cloud's hand away.

They came away easily as Aeris successfully wrestled him off a moment later, now no larger than they were. He did not fight against her.

He lay there, aware of the sharp bites of pain coming from his crushed windpipe, of the way he was gasping for air as Aeris panted in exertion, when he was supposed to be saving her. Of the calm and quiet amusement the thought brought him.

A moment later, 67-2 quietly dissolved into sobs.

They sat there watching him. He made no moves to escape or resume his attack. He merely sat there, howling in abject misery.

"...He's not going to understand," said Aeris. "...I don't even think he'll remember this. Otherwise you'd have mentioned it."

"...Probably not," said Cloud, rubbing his throat gingerly.

"Well -- we can't just leave him here," said Aeris uncomfortably.

"We have to," said Cloud. "...Maybe..."

Cloud unsteadily got to his feet, ignoring Aeris's hand raised in warning. He approached the other Cloud and knelt in front of him.

"You were right, you know," he said. "About a lot of things."

67-2 heaved another sob in reply.

"It is all just pretending, at the end of the day. The good, and the bad. But it feels real, doesn't it?"

"It's..."

"...You were right that you'll always be someone that... that nobody loved, for a while. I don't want to have been that person, but it happened. I can't pretend it didn't."

"I tried, you have to believe me, I tried --"

"I believe you," said Cloud. "But... then, how can you be someone nobody loves, and learn to be good too? If you know you won't take it with you, then how do you decide? Why does that stay?"

"...They decide," said the other Cloud, quietly.

"And if they're gone?"

The other Cloud remained silent, aside from the quiet sobs periodically making his breath hitch.

"...If they gave you a number," said Cloud, "and it won't mean anything anymore after they've thrown you away, then... what does it mean, that it's still on you?"

And then the other him froze, because he'd asked a question, and Cloud knew all too well the gut-wrenching terror that came from being asked a question. Questions had answers, and the absolute worst answer one could possibly give was --

"I-I don't know," he choked out, his voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know. I don't know, I'm sorry, I don't know --"

"It means... you earned a number. Or it means you earned a number, but you blew it. I don't know. I know you still think both those things. I know I do. I don't think I could stop thinking either of them, no matter how hard I tried. It's me, even though it doesn't mean anything anymore.

"...And I'm me, too," he added. "I'm Cloud. And that's scary sometimes, being Cloud. It's a lot harder than just being another number... I still don't really know who Cloud is. I don't think he's actually anyone. I think he's just whatever comes out of whoever else they throw him in front of, and I have to keep pretending Cloud is something real that's there by itself, and not someone that has to exist so other people will decide who I am for me... and maybe they're not even real, either. Maybe we're all just fake, and it'd be easier to be real if we were all numbers. Just a whole bunch of imaginary numbers in front of each other, all not actually being anyone or existing at all if it weren't for anyone else doing the same thing." He smiled. "That's kind of dumb, isn't it?"

67-2 did not reply. He looked completely and utterly spent, and he looked up at Cloud with dull, defeated eyes.

"So then... what do I do?"

"I don't know," said Cloud. "I'm still figuring it out. But in the meantime..."

He hesitated for a moment before reaching up to his ears and unclasping one of his earrings. He offered it to the other Cloud.

"One day," said Cloud, "you still won't know the answer. But other people will. You'll have to decide if you want them to be right yourself.

"I'm Cloud. And I guess... I guess that's enough for them. So sometimes I have to remember that it's good enough for me, too."

The space-that-wasn't-a-space tugged around him. It felt different now. Or perhaps it had always been this way, and he just hadn't noticed. He was here, solid against it. It slid past him as he shaped himself from it, ready to reclaim him at any moment. It was nothing and everything. He was a part of it now.

"Don't lose that," he said sharply to the other Cloud. "It's a gift from your family. You promised you wouldn't."

"...What do I do with it?" said 67-2. "He'll take it if he sees it. The Professor. He'll take it away."

"He can't," said Cloud. "Not really."

He stared uncomprehendingly at Cloud. Then he slowly, quietly nodded.

He faded away a moment later as Aeris got to her feet as well and approached him.

"...Will he be okay?" she asked. "Stupid question, sorry --"

"It's not a stupid question," he asked. "And -- I'm sorry, too."

"For what?"

"...Because the pattern is gone," said Cloud. "Which means you can't use it to get back."

Aeris remained quiet for a moment. "So... I guess this is goodbye."

"...For now," said Cloud. "I'll come back, though. Okay? I promise."

She laughed bitterly, her eyes growing damp. "You don't have to say things like that. I'm glad I met you."

"It's the truth," said Cloud. "I'll come back, okay? Just -- wait for me. And let the others know I'm coming."

The bitter smile froze, then faded. "What -- the others? I thought --"

Cloud stared at her in disbelief. "You didn't think I was going to leave you here, did I? You did, didn't you?"

"I --"

"Look -- I need you to leave anyway, if this is going to work."

"...If what's going to work?" Aeris asked. "You're not -- you're not staying here --"

"I have to." Aeris opened her mouth to object, and he continued. "I'm still physically part of Jenova -- this place -- in a way you aren't. Which, for me... it's basically --"

"No," said Aeris, eyes widening in horrified realisation. "It's not going to work --what you're doing isn't -- that's not possible, it's more than just taking over a body, it's -- I don't even know what it is, what you'd be doing --"

"I'm going to move it all," said Cloud. "One level removed. It'll be real -- further away than it was before. End this whole thing."

"The only reason you're able to even be here is because reality has collapsed so much," said Aeris. "Once that's gone... it'll be too 'real' for you to manifest properly. You won't be able to make it back."

"...Then I don't make it back," said Cloud firmly. "But I'm doing it anyway. I think I've been like this for years anyway. So... I'm doing it. And I'll come back, like I did before."

"No, you're not! You said once this was all sorted, we'd --"

"So, like I said," he repeated, placing his hand on her shoulders. "I'm really sorry about this. I'll come back for you. I promise."

"Cloud --!"

He shoved, and she was gone. They both were.

 

---

 

Aeris screamed as she rushed upwards through dark, through the ocean, through a thousand snatching teeth and hands and distant lights, through the sound of rushing waves, and tumbled roughly into the sand.

"Aeris!" shouted someone behind her. Barret was approaching her, the remains of Midgar blinking in and out of existence behind him, Marlene clutched tightly in his arms. In front of them both embedded in the sand was a small pond surrounded by broken pews.

"H-he --" she stammered.

"Are you okay?" he shouted, running up to her and helping her to her feet.

"...He found a contact point," she said at last. "We have to stop him --"

"We have to get somewhere safe," said Barret. "Go -- move --"

"Where's -- where are the others?"

"Don't know. Move!"

The world around them seemed to be boiling, becoming less distinct, breaking apart as they plunged indiscriminately into the void. Light shifted blue and then red and then blue again, the sides of the building they'd huddled in made from their surroundings, the horizon pressed flat into a wall.

"What's going on?! I -- I thought I fixed it."

"You think I know?! Ask Cloud, he's the one that ran off --"

"Cloud -- Barret, we need to stop him."

"Stop him from what?! If he knows what he's doing I'm not about to tell him not to unfuck this mess."

"The world is collapsing into itself," said Aeris. "He's -- Jenova doesn't have anything trying to spread itself anymore. Now all this -- this thing wants is to put itself back together, and Cloud, he's -- he's gonna use the contact point to move the entire thing, he's already stuck in there with no way back --"

"What’s he using? You said they were gone. The contact points."

"They are," said Aeris. "The contact point he's using is Jenova."

 

---

 

He was curled around a million universes, reaching into them.

He was everything.

He was nothing at all.

The size of it all tore at him, and he couldn't not look; all of it was inside of him.

He took the world, and pushed.

The everything drifted further, and further, and further away.

Then he was nothing, and too small to be all of it, and he was Cloud, who wasn't anyone at all anymore. He never was.

What even was he, but a bite mark on an arm, a set of matching wolf-shaped pewter, the blade through his own chest of a man he had worshiped, grown his hair for -- cut his hair for -- surrendered his name -- had it bequeathed unto him --

-- gouged and etched indelibly into the world as it had maimed and shaped him into being.

Somewhere far away, there was music playing.

 

---

 

The sky broke open.

The world rushed to meet her, and Aeris felt herself rushing to meet it in turn. The space around her pinched itself before stretching dramatically, and she had to close her eyes as she felt herself wrenched to the side. The ruined paper the world had been made of had begun to uncrumple itself.

Aeris watched as stars wheeled around her, the world itself twisting back into place, the shadows running like diluted paint around her as they faded back into her surroundings. She looked up and saw Meteor looming in the sky, and a fleet of airships blotting out the sky like a thunderstorm, and a river of green and blue light making a noise that seemed to reverberate through her entire body, causing the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She saw a flock of birds taking off as a predator moved through the grass, and a blaze of red and gold fireworks, and once, for just an instant, a Tesco.

The sky yawned wide. She saw a blaze of pulsars and gas and cosmic debris, the distant roar of a star, the ocean pressing down above and the rush of water, a space she wasn’t sure any human should see full of impossible shapes and things moving in directions she couldn’t comprehend, and then –-

 

---

 

Aaron blinked, and found the unbearable sound of static had stopped.

He peered up from where he'd barricaded himself alone in his dorm, his roommates having gone home to their families now that UH was officially closed down in order to wait for the end of the world as the noise had gotten louder and louder, blotting out all thought, distorting the world around him.

But it had stopped now. Why was he still here?

He peered out the window. The campus he expected to see was gone. Instead was a familiar view out the window of his bedroom growing up, and he could faintly smell pupusas cooking. Behind him, someone inhaled sharply.

Aaron turned around to find Zack, battered and bruised. The obnoxious grin was gone. He didn't uncomfortably avoid meeting his gaze. He merely stood there and looked at him in shock, his breathing uneven.

Zack opened his mouth to speak, and was gone.

Aaron was frozen to the spot for a moment before fumbling with his cell phone, which again had service. He'd barely begun dialing home before it rang in his hand anyway.

"¿Lo viste?" he blurted without thinking.

"What? Aaron, is that you? Are you okay?" It was Mom, on the verge of panic.

"Yeah, I-I'm -- I'm okay. Is -- ?"

"Your father is with me, are you safe?"

"I'm safe," he replied. "I'm -- did...?"

He looked behind him again. There was no one there.

"I'll have to call you back," he said. "I need to --"

"Aaron? ¿Está todo bien?"

"...I need to... deal with some things."

"You'll call back?"

"Yeah."

His finger hovered over the button. There were things that he wanted to say, and things that he needed to.

He would call back. He’d said he would. Aaron hung up the phone.

 

---

 

The streets of Cannes were filled with the dead and dying. This was noteworthy in that prior to all this, the streets of Cannes were completely empty.

Anyone watching saw the sky warp in on itself, stars and clouds zooming overhead in sharp angles before settling, and suddenly there were people slumped against walls left and right, with varying degrees of injury.

A handful of them seemed fine; they began chattering amongst themselves in panicked English.

There was a mad rush to mobilise EMT services to accommodate the hundreds of strangers that had seemingly materialised out of thin air and had yet to bleed out. Some were civilians, some were military. There were confused tears and celebratory shouting, and somber, thousand yard stares.

One of them, lacking any ID, was brought to the emergency room with a gunshot wound in critical condition with nothing but the clothes on her back and a very fussy tortoiseshell cat.

 

---

 

The light no longer bent itself into a kaleidoscope. It folded back into itself and moved through Aeris, and it faded back into the cold, muted blue of the overcast crack of dawn.

The gentle ebb and flow of the ocean rushing in and out from the bay was the only thing that could be heard over the sound of the wind whistling over the swells of the waves.

The scratching had stopped. She was alone.

The world was real, and Cloud wasn’t in it anymore.

She began to run.

"Cloud!" screamed Aeris over the crash of the sea. Barret shouted something, stumbling over the uneven dunes after her. The wind whipped the noise back in her face and offered no reply.

She sprinted down the coastline, strained for the sound of the crunch of footsteps in sand, her own name in reply, anything.

"Cloud!"

The tide settled. Pulled back out again. Silence.

"You promised," she muttered to herself. "You promised you'd come back." She fumbled with the little red radio and switched it on. Listening for the faintest hiss of interference from something that shouldn’t be in this world. Something that wasn’t real anymore.

The bright notes of a jazz guitar trickled through the speakers, uninterrupted.

"You promised," she repeated, her fingers trembling.

The wind died down. The ocean rushed back in. The music disappeared in a rush of water, and then rolled back in once more, the notes as clear as ever.

Softly, underneath all of it, was the sound of her weeping.

Her fingers were numb from the cold, barely maintaining her grip on the plastic, and the wind stung her wet cheeks and dragged her tears sideways across her face as she sucked in another shuddering breath.

It died down. The ocean went silent. All she could hear were the radio and her own grief.

A hand gently placed itself over hers, before switching off the radio with a soft click.

She looked up to see Cloud standing in front of her, shivering slightly. He offered a small smile.

Aeris threw her arms around his neck, crying even harder as her face split into a wide grin, nearly knocking the both of them over. They stood there together, rocking slowly on the spot, and between the cold and her heart nearly pounding its way out of her chest, she couldn't stop shaking.

"You came back," she managed to get out through her tears.

"Said I would," said Cloud. "I said I would."

He squeezed her more tightly. "...It was easy to, anyway. You made sure I was real here, too."

"You always were, you know," she said, her voice shaking. "You were here already."

"I didn’t realise before," he replied. "I do now."

When they pulled apart, the ribbon in her hair came away on his shirt, pinned there by the strong breeze. They both stared at it as her hair was tossed about her head, the braid beginning to unravel.

She plucked it from his shirt and stared at it in her hand. Then she hurled it out to sea.

They stood there side by side, watching it twist and flutter in the wind, as though carried by the music that had once been playing from the little red radio. She shivered, Cloud's hand warm against her shoulders, the air bitingly cold.

She kept watching without a sound even as the others approached behind her, until at last it disappeared behind the spray of the ocean and vanished from sight.

Notes:

Thank you to belderiver, DarthTofu, and la_regina_scrive for making this chapter possible.

Chapter 65: The Real Shrapnel Was Inside Us All Along

Notes:

The next chapter is the last one (not counting the epilogue) and you have no fucking how hard I'm panicking right now.

Thank you to Belderiver, la_regina_scrive, DarthTofu, Ash, voidrotted, and Denebola_Leo for bringing me through this home stretch. Could not have done it on my own.

The sky yawned wide above Cloud, empty and indifferent to the waves churning against the rocks below it. The whispering in his head had stilled, their voices silenced. The world felt heavy against him, trying to force him back out of it, asserting his presence in it with every shifting of sand beneath his feet and every bite of cold against his skin, absolute in its presence. Aeris's hand was warm in his.

Barret was the first one to find them on the beach, blanket in hand. Cloud braced himself for the inevitable chewing-out.

"...Heard from Tifa 'bout the shit you just pulled," he said flatly. "Thought you'd be naked." He tossed the blanket towards him anyway. "You were last time."

Cloud shrugged. He wasn't really sure he wanted to think about it.

"Tifa's up?" Aeris asked.

Barret managed an exhausted smile. "Come see for yourselves."

Cloud's boots slipped on the wet grass as they trudged up the hill away from the beach. The horizon in front of them was filled with gentle hills, graduating into plains, the grass growing deeper and deeper into the Wastes with every year. The sky was above them, still a cold greyish blue with the faintest hint of pink.

They crested the hill, and in the distance he could see the lights in Edge winking back on, one by one.

He was leading them back to Edge. They were going to Edge.

We're going home, he thought automatically, before remembering the broken glass and charred wood.

Every footstep he took, he fought to maintain a foothold not just on the slick grass, but in the world, actively pushing against him. What he'd seen… what he'd been…

This place wasn't his home anymore. Not really. All he was doing now was walking back to a city. He'd never really belong there again.

The world went dark around him, and he lost all sensation.

What… Cloud?

It was Zack. Zack was here. Or rather, he was here, inside Zack. He'd slid out of the world again, and it had reminded him what he actually was now.

…I'm okay, he replied.

He was here. He was here and he was real, and if the space he used to be in didn't quite fit he would have to make it.

He caught Aeris's hand with his own. She jumped, startled, but squeezed back anyway.

That was all he had to do: focus on her hand, carving out a shape for him to be in. Even if he wasn't supposed to be here anymore.

"You alright there?" asked Barret.

"Maybe. Let's keep going."

By the time they got back, the sky was properly blue. The air even began to warm a little, though it was still bitterly cold.

"What day is it?" asked Cloud.

"...Maybe December, near as anyone can tell," said Barret. "Someone's gonna have to recalibrate a lot of big fancy instruments if we want anything more sure than that."

"Oh… we missed your birthday."

"Don't pay that no mind. Plenty more where that came from."

Cloud merely grunted. He didn't have the months he'd anticipated to make Barret's present anymore, but he'd figure something out.

Aeris's, he still had time. He wondered when Zack's was, and realised he knew, and that it was late November, and that he had missed that too.

Two short-notice presents, then. He'd be busy.

The outskirts of Edge were abuzz with activity. There were humans all around him, calling out for their loved ones, tending to the wounded. Looking for things to eat, or to wear, or places to rest.

Cloud had looked into nothing and become it; had reshaped what Is and Is Not meant against this one tiny pocket of ideas; had crawled back into the world through the numbers that everything was made of, which he had looked directly at; had caught glimpses of infinities inside infinities. He could have spent a million years trying to describe to any human, or his family, or even Aeris, what he had seen, and he would never succeed. Jenova was gone and yet he'd never felt less human in his life.

They had no idea how fragile they all were -- little specks of ideas just as easily overwritten by patterns they couldn't comprehend… and by patterns they could. Capable of blinking out of existence in an instant, persisting as whatever they'd become.

And so, he had never felt more human in his life, as well. They were just like him; he was just like them.

As it turned out, they'd parked the airship in the middle of the street right next to a closed-up duplex with a nice little balcony sporting a couple potted plants, which no longer remotely resembled an infinite fractal hospital-garden. Already he could hear shouting coming from inside about getting the mako tank out of the building and onto the roof when it wouldn't fit through the front door, and the logistical nightmare it posed.

It stopped when he walked through the door.

It started up again, calls of concern and reprimands for what he'd done, but he barely noticed as he stared up at Tifa in the tank, awake and waving excitedly at them.

Aeris grinned and ran over to her as Cloud stood there, feeling his knees go weak with relief.

"We came up here to see if we even still had an upstairs," said Jessie. "And she was already up. The guys from the WRO says she's good to come out in a bit, once they check her vitals."

Tifa knocked on the glass to get their attention, then pulled at her undershirt pointedly.

"Right -- yeah, clothes," said Jessie, and scurried off to the airship.

The door swung shut behind her. Cloud sat down on the floor where he was standing, trying to warm himself and too dizzy from everything that'd happened. When he'd fought Sephiroth two years ago he'd slept for an entire day afterwards, which didn't seem like remotely enough time to rest given how he felt right now.

"So, where'd you run off to in such a hurry without tellin' nobody?" asked Cid. "Can't complain too much since whatever it was seemed like it worked, but..."

"The abandoned church," said Cloud with a shrug.

"...For what? Ain't nothin' there but dirt an' --"

"You... you used the White Materia," said Nanaki. He opened his mouth to follow up, then closed it again, apparently beyond caring by now.

"You finally got that thing working?" asked Yuffie.

"No. It killed me again."

"When you finally do die," said Yuffie, "it's going to be because you give yourself food poisoning from eating something you found dead. And I'm going to point and laugh at your funeral."

Cloud smiled. "I missed you, too."

"Whatever. Hey, Aeris," Yuffie added in her direction. Aeris stopped on her way out the door, apparently not having expected to be addressed. "Where are you running off to? Not like you can make it back to Dirt."

"Soil," Cloud corrected out of the corner of his mouth, unsure what exactly he was meant to be translating into Standard and being certain it would sound bad even in English, anyway.

"Earth," said Zack tiredly. "You're not running out on us, are you?"

"I wanted to look around," she said. "If I'm going to be living here." She glanced at Cloud for confirmation.

"Well, you're not going to be living here," cut in Reeve, coming downstairs. "Legally speaking, you're all on thin ice. We're finishing up as quickly as we can, and then I'd recommend you all leave, as soon as humanly possible."

"But -- you're in charge of the WRO, right?" asked Aeris.

"Yes. The WRO, and not the government. I think it'd be best for everyone if I didn't run for office -- and if I stayed at my current job."

"But… you'd be really good as a governor, I think," said Cloud, as Barret snorted loudly behind him.

"Perhaps so, but we both saw what happened when an organisation like the WRO gets leaned on too heavily as an instrument of enforcement." He shrugged. "Besides, people in government tend to have background checks run on them, and staging a coup and threatening people into silence over it looks bad on a resume. Regardless, there are more important things at stake here than my career in politics."

"Oh," was all Aeris said in reply.

"If that bothers you, you should know that nearly everyone here is a convicted felon under the old regime," said Reeve flatly. "Including Marlene, for selling alcohol as a minor."

"...What?"

"I decapitated the commander-in-chief of the Shinra Military Police and Armed Forces," supplied Cloud helpfully. Head of Public Safety, he thought to himself. He'd made another joke. Ha ha.

"No no. That's. That's fine. Er." A pause. "...I broke into a secure military compound," she offered hopefully. "With a gun."

"That's a good start," said Cid with a grin. "How ‘bout you, kid?" he asked Zack.

Zack merely grimaced.

"Think I'm all crimed out for now," was all he said. "...We should be laying low for a while anyway," he added. "In case they -- you know."

Cloud nodded. Wanted murderers only couldn't go home to their families if they got caught.

"But… this is your home," said Aeris. "Where would you even go?"

"I don't mind sleeping outside again," began Cloud, before Yuffie cut him off.

"The palace has rooms in it that haven't been used in like sixty years," said Yuffie. "We'll work something out. Just get your shit out of Edge before everyone starts burning it."

"What about Aeris and Zack?"

"You have a palace?" asked Zack.

"I told you I was Lady Kisaragi."

"You also lied to me in order to pick my pockets," Zack pointed out.

"So? Anyway, it's not like, a castle; they're just regular-sized rooms, and Shinra stole most of the gold and melted it down. It'll be pretty cramped. But it's a whole complex and we've got enough space to spare, at least until we can get you set up somewhere permanent. I'll ask Dad, he owes you a bunch anyway. There's gotta be something he can swing on short notice."

Zack let out a low whistle. "Can't say I've ever lived in a palace before. I can think of worse places to spend the winter."

"You can't just -- they can't just chase you out!"

Cloud turned to look at Aeris, along with everyone else. Her hands were balled into fists, her gaze darting wildly between everyone present.

"Why should you have to move? It's not even like it's airborne!"

"Aeris… come on, you know why," said Reeve gently. "Would staying with Yuffie for a while really be that bad?"

"That's not the point! Look, they want you out, but they probably wouldn't mind if I stayed, would they?!"

"You're not infected," said Cloud.

"I am, though, technically -- oh! I forgot that deal I -- that's it!"

"...What's it?" asked Zack.

"They only want you out because you're infected. But -- but I'm human. I'm immune. They wanted to develop a cure, and -- now, maybe they could!"

"Aeris --"

"Think about what a bargaining chip that would be. The other director wasn't interested, he just wanted this whole thing resolved, but now that it is, I could --"

"Aeris, no!"

She flinched at how loudly and suddenly Zack had shouted.

"You can't do this. Is that really what you want? To spend god knows how many years in and out of a lab, still trying to ‘fix' things?"

"But…"

"You shouldn't, either," Cloud added. "Even if it worked… I'm part of Jenova, now. I have been for a long time, but at least before I had a body that belonged in this world, at least partially. This one doesn't anymore. If you cured it…"

Aeris looked from him to Zack. Zack just shook his head.

"You're welcome to help," he said. "But this isn't your problem to fix for us."

Cloud gave her hand another squeeze.

"You guys wouldn't have fit in the bar anyway," said Cloud.

"I… no. I suppose you're right. I… you're right."

"I ‘suppose'. I fucking ‘suppose'. Aeris, look at me."

She looked.

"It happened, okay? All of this happened," said Cloud firmly. "And -- and I've got bad news for you, and that this is gonna keep happening. Forget about whatever I am now -- I haven't been part of this universe properly since I was sixteen. I never will be again, and I'm always going to be fused to Zack, and that's -- yeah, it's because of the project. Okay? The project did this. Your project. The one you worked on and contributed to. I've already had to drag myself back here twice, and I'm gonna have to do that forever now, unless things get worse, or until they get better, and I don't know which is gonna happen, if either. Maybe something new will happen! Maybe I'll start growing feathers!

"I think you know that, too. Which… which is why you don't really care if I tell you I don't blame you, or I forgive you. Because it's not about that for you."

"...Right about that too," said Aeris. "I suppose."

"You suppose," he sighed. "Aeris… if you want to feel better about this, it's not going to be because things go back to normal for me, or for Tifa, or for anyone, or because I tell you what to -- to…"

He grabbed her shoulder. "Look me in the eye, right now, and tell me that you enjoy using my body and getting to do magic."

"Cloud, that's awful --" she began, looking horrified.

"Look me in the goddamn eyes and say it, Aeris."

"But --"

"You already said it once, didn't you?" said Cloud. "I want you to say it again. I want you to look at me when you say it."

"Alright! Alright, I enjoyed it!" she shouted, eyes wild. "I enjoyed it, and I enjoyed getting to do magic, and I want to keep doing it, and I'm…"

"Well, I'm never going to not be Jenova," said Cloud. "And you'll never be a part of this universe. So I guess that's a good thing, isn't it?"

He pulled her into a hug, trying to get as close to her as he could, and it didn't feel close enough. Not as close as having her inside of him, but much, much warmer. "I'm glad I met you, too," he said quietly.

She hugged back. It hurt like hell, as banged up as he was. He didn't care. Cloud realised they were being stared at, and didn't really care about that either.

Aeris did, apparently, as she suddenly let go and stepped back.

"An-anyway," she stammered. "I guess we'll… I guess we're going to Wutai. When do we pack?"

"They're emptying the tank now," said Jessie sheepishly. "As soon as Tifa's out, we can start getting out of here."

The tank gurgled occasionally as it drained, bubbles wobbling to the surface like pearly green jellyfish. Tifa gave him another reassuring look as the liquid slowly lowered enough for her toes to touch the bottom of the metal base. Cloud drummed his fingers against his chair nervously anyway, then began groping for something to fiddle with. He no longer had a left wrist to pick at. His hand instead went to his ear and began to twist the earring around in the hole.

"You okay?" asked Yuffie.

"Yeah. Medical stuff. You know how it is."

"Well, you ain't broken any glass yet," said Cid. "That wasn't an invitation to start, either. Would rather not cap this whole ordeal off with two more cases of mako poisoning."

"You could handle it, I bet," said Cloud.

"Are you nuts? God, there's a reason most people didn't make it into Soldier, you idiot," said Yuffie, rolling her eyes. "You know the normal amount of fucked up experimental surgeries people have is zero, right? Oh, that reminds me -- Cid, give him the box."

"Huh?"

"The box, old man, the one they gave us at the hospital."

"You have it," said Nanaki. "I saw you take it last week."

"Sure, but it's on the ship, and you gotta be gentle with boarding right now until I can get her patched up."

The tank was still draining by the time Cid got back. The muscles in his neck felt like they were about to snap.

"Here." A small white cardboard box was thrust into his field of vision. Cloud stared at it, not really registering what it was right away.

"...What's this for?"

"It's yours," said Yuffie. "The doctors said they removed it from your chest after the crash. Same one the White Materia was in. They said it had been in there for years."

"We were hoping you'd explain it to us, actually," added Nanaki.

Cloud shook the box experimentally. It rattled faintly. Familiarly.

He bit open the flap at the front and dumped it out into his palm. Its only contents were a single earring, shaped like a wolf's head clutching a ring in its mouth.

"Well, I guess they couldn't take it," he said under his breath.

He put it back in his other ear and secured the backing with a quiet snap, and allowed himself a small smile. He returned to watching the mako drain.

"Hey -- wait a minute…" said Yuffie, disquieted, glancing between the box and Cloud's ear, where there had been a spot ready to put it in.

"Well that didn't explain a fucking thing," blurted Cid.

"What's there to explain?" said Cloud, frowning, having gone back to drumming his fingers against the chair.

"...You're a very odd man, Cloud," said Nanaki, also giving him an unsettled look.

"I guess so."

"‘I guess so,'" mocked Yuffie. "Whatever. Whatever, man."

With a loud clunk, the drain valve on the tank slammed shut on the last of the mako. Cloud's head whipped up.

He practically fell over himself trying to beat the WRO technician to her as they helped her out of the top, and wound up practically dragging her out of the tank himself and onto his chest.

She was here. Alive and warm and breathing against him --

"Cloud… I need to go shower."

"Huh?"

"The mako. I need to shower so I can get this stuff off me. It's not safe for everyone else to be breathing the fumes."

"Right -- yeah, I'll…"

He made it about ten steps trying to help her over to the bathroom before his body remembered it was barely able to support his own weight right now, let alone someone else's. Zack had to be called in to help her over instead, leaving Barret to pick him up off the floor and set him down on the couch.

"She'll be fine," said Barret. "She's a tough girl."

"I know."

"I know you know."

"You know the treatment plan, I'm assuming?" asked the technician.

Cloud nodded, frowning. "Stay active to stimulate circulation, avoid flashing lights or patterns that repeat or reading small letters, cast for at least an hour daily, even if it's something small and repetitive --"

"No! Gods, no, she shouldn't be doing any heavy magic for at least a week, that could cause intracranial haemorrhaging."

"Oh."

And then he got to endure a twenty minute lecture about how apparently Hojo's post-mako routine was bad, and not designed with patient welfare in mind, and how mako was actually really harmful, and no amount of irritated eye-rolling and "yeah I know"-ing on his part made it go by any faster.

By the time they were done, Tifa still wasn't out of the bathroom, though they'd heard the water shut off quite a while ago.

"Think she's alright in there?" asked Aeris. "Someone should check."

"Let her shower in goddamn peace!" objected Barret, as Aeris already began to head for the door herself. Against Barret's protests, Cloud got back up and approached the door as well. He could hear her breathing, at least. Pulse slightly elevated. He wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Teef?" he said, knocking a couple times. "You alright in there?"

"Wh-what? Oh! Yes. Of course, yeah. I'm fine. Yes."

"We're coming in," announced Aeris.

He opened the door to find her standing there in a towel, thankfully uninjured. She was staring into the mirror, her jaw set. The Tifa in the mirror stared back with the same expression, the same glowing amber eyes, the same face framed by long white hair.

"Tifa?" asked Aeris. "You sure you're okay?"

She nodded firmly. "I'm alright. Really." She turned around to look at them. "Cloud, you wouldn't happen to have a knife on you?"

"...I might," said Cloud, stepping out of the bathroom. Hey, Zack, you gave Aeris our stuff, right? Where's her bag?

Uh… upstairs-ish?

He felt -- remembered -- leaving it in a corner, and felt himself in the walls, and the canvas of the bag and the memories that had crystalised in the materia before branching out of it. The bag was next to him on the floor.

He rummaged through it for a while until he found the scalpel; as well as a healing materia, old and worn but nearly completely unused.

"...I wish to find that scalpel," he muttered to himself, a small smile tugging at his lips. It wasn't what he had come here for, and he would never use either, but he pocketed it anyway.

He returned downstairs with the scalpel to find Aeris patiently working out what were now several weeks worth of knots from her hair.

"This is a waste of time!"

"No, it isn't. You're going to cut yourself if you try to do it like this --"

"Oh, Cloud. What took you so long? Perfect timing."

She snatched the scalpel from him without another word and began to hack through her own hair. The both of them stood there and watched, too stunned to stop her.

The spell broke when the blade inevitably slipped and she dropped it with a sharp hiss and began sucking on her thumb.

"If you'd just told me in the first place, I would've brought an actual sword," he said flatly. He turned and left once more as Aeris and Tifa's voices began to rise again.

"This is why I wanted to comb it first!"

"It would be easier to comb if it's shorter!"

To Cloud's utter lack of surprise, him just lopping it off with Sidewinder all at once wound up being faster and safer. When they stepped out of the bathroom again, no one knew quite what to say.

"Maybe I'll dye it later," Tifa muttered. "Just… connotations, y'know?"

"You cut your hair?!" blurted Marlene, looking scandalised.

"Cloud cuts his hair all the time," said Tifa, trying not to look too amused.

"Cloud's wasn't pretty! Yours was pretty before!"

"Marlene, you're being rude," said Barret, also trying not to laugh. "Tifa looks pretty no matter what she does with her hair."

Marlene scowled, continuing to sneak glances at the pile of hair on the bathroom floor.

"It looks good," said Cloud, because it did. It didn't quite look like Tifa anymore -- he'd never in her life seen her with anything shorter than shoulder length, and it hadn't occurred to him that she might do anything to the contrary -- but it would, eventually. "Do you want anyone to heal that? You're not supposed to be doing magic."

"It'll heal on its own now," she said, holding up her thumb. The injury now looked several days old. "Remember?"

"I… I guess it will."

"I'm good at White," said Aeris. "Cloud said so, anyway. I was, I mean."

"What's this ‘was' shit?" said Cloud. "You promised I'd get to teach you."

"I -- but I…"

"Just try not to disfigure me too much and we'll call it even."

Aeris nodded wordlessly.

"...That was a joke," said Cloud. "I'm gonna teach you anyway."

She nodded again. Cloud looked at Tifa for help.

"Aeris? You alright?" she asked.

"Yes. Yes, of course." She sat down. "...I miss my cat. What a funny thing to think about right now, when I'm going to get to learn magic. What a stupid…"

Tifa sat down next to her, giving her shoulders a small squeeze.

"Which reminds me," said Tifa, turning her attention to Cloud. "You know Time magic is considered White, right?"

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Sure, if you subscribe to that stupid 'mana can have frequencies' nonsense."

"It's a solid study!" she returned. "We know they do!"

"Okay, but they're completely arbitrary. That doesn't mean you should start grouping magic categories around them. That's -- that's like saying everything brown is meat, and everything that isn't brown is a vegetable."

"They're reliable trends. The only reason you don't like that theory is because it proposed at the end summoning could also be classified as White, which I acknowledge is questionable, but there was no data to support it, and it was more of a food for thought sort of --"

"Magic is the caster's will interacting with and manipulating energy, period. The nature of that manipulation and how the will is used is what quantifies the categories --"

"That's all just qualia. We can't objectively measure what it's like for someone else to think. You can't base a system off that."

"It's a field shaped by qualia to begin with. Magic can't exist without specified intent and willpower in the first place, so why not classify it along those --"

"Oh, I should mention," said Yuffie grinning. "While you were gone, they actually settled that debate."

Cloud and Tifa both went silent in anticipation. At the very least, even if he was wrong (which he wasn't) this would be finally decided once and --

"They've created a new category. Time magic is officially classified as Red."

"WHAT?!" Tifa exploded.

"That's bullshit!" he agreed. "That's -- you're lying again, just to fuck with us."

"She's not," said Jessie. "They published it back in October."

"What -- what's wrong with Red?" asked Aeris.

"You can't just add branches!" fumed Tifa. "The colours mean things in relation to casting! What the hell aspect of magic does 'Red' represent, bad vibes?"

"Blood alcohol content," suggested Cloud.

"Elevation from sea level."

"Fuckability."

"Resale value."

"Time signature."

"Hey -- look, I just saw the news, I didn't read the journal or anything," said Jessie, clearly taken aback at how angry it had made them both. Which was really more her problem than anything else, who wouldn't be furious at something like this? Beside her, Yuffie was cackling wildly. She clearly knew how much this was going to piss them off, the little shrike.

"Oh, man I'm looking forward to having you guys as housemates," Yuffie said, wiping her eyes.

Cloud opened his mouth to agree, then closed it upon seeing the exhausted look on Tifa's face.

"We're moving out as soon as possible, you know," said Tifa firmly.

He let her take care of the negotiation. He wondered what the windows at the palace were like, and if the spare room he'd get would have a particularly large one with a lot of sun.

 

---

 

Aeris was going to have roommates.

She'd had roommates before, when she'd attended university, but attending college as a thirteen year-old was quite different from doing it as an adult. She'd have roommates properly. Like Zack.

Yuffie seemed like the sort of person one would expect from a roommate -- loud and prone to nonsense. But then afterwards she'd be living with some of these people full time.

She'd never had to -- gotten to share a living space with anyone else but Cassiopeia before. What if they broke her plants? What if she had to start hiding all the shows they watched? What if she forgot a dish in the sink again and it became everyone's problem? What if…

Zack didn't seem too worried about this, but then he'd had loads of friends his entire life. Tifa had mentioned friends she'd had when she was younger, and Cloud… well, he had these people now, at least. But what if…

Then again, so did she.

Maybe she could show everyone how her carnations were sprouting. Maybe they could walk by and see them themselves, and think of her every time they did it.

"Y'know," said Yuffie, dragging her back to reality, "when all's said and done, finding a building with four bedrooms on short notice isn't gonna be easy."

"...Three," said Cloud.

"Huh?"

"Three rooms," said Cloud. "Tifa and I can share. It'd be easier. And… and you wanted to, right?"

Tifa blinked. "What?"

"I thought… I thought you wanted to," said Cloud. "And I wanted to, but I was worried you wouldn't want to. I wasn't even sure if you felt that way, and… if we are a couple, we should, right?"

"Well… I mean, are you doing it because we ‘should' or because you want to?"

"What about you?"

"We -- we need to stop doing this," said Cloud. "Look -- we're going to sleep in the same bed. If… if you want to."

"I do, but --"

"Great, so what's the problem? From now on, just -- just tell me stuff."

"I will!"

"Great. Start now. We're moving. What's a thing that bugs you about the last place that you think I should fix?"

"Well… the bed --"

"We both did the bed. Pick something else."

"The things you do that bug me are things we can deal with," she said gently. "Don't worry about it."

Cloud held her gaze and waited. Tifa didn't reply.

"Zack broke my nose," said Cloud. "I can handle being told to be a better roommate."

He waited. He knew this game.

He was better at this game now.

"...I hate that you can't wash dishes," she said at last.

Cloud nodded. "Am I allowed to try again, so I can learn?"

"No." Cloud rolled his eyes. "But... if you pick up the slack on something else, we can call it even."

"I can do military corners for your bed."

"Nah, I like the blankets the way they are."

"Trash?" suggested Aeris.

"I already do trash. Can I at least load the dishwasher?"

"Dishes only. No soap."

Cloud nodded. "No soap."

Tifa hesitated for a moment, chewing her lip.

"I... also hate that you won't see a doctor."

Cloud sighed heavily, but she continued anyway. "You have no papers, Cloud. That isn't safe." She turned and nodded to Aeris. "Something for you and Zack to think about pretty soon, too."

"How am I supposed to get papers?" he asked. "I don't have a birth certificate anymore, if I ever had one to begin with. Shinra purged everything years ago."

"You'll have to apply for one," said Tifa. "Reeve can probably help. Barret could probably help, he had to get Marlene set up from nothing after Corel burned. Anyone could help if you just asked them, but you won't. You don't have to see a doctor, but -- you should at least have some sort of ID. Paperwork. Anything. What if something happens to one of us again?"

There was a long pause. Then he crossed his arms -- well, tried to, probably out of habit, and instead settled for putting his hand on his hips -- and raised an eyebrow. "So you're okay with that now, are you?"

Tifa stared at him. Several expressions flitted across her face all at once. "What do you mean?"

"When I told you I was -- I was serious about wanting to stay here, did you just not believe me?" said Cloud. "If anyone's afraid of getting in too deep, it's you."

Tifa's eyes narrowed. "That isn't --"

"Tifa," replied Cloud in disbelief, "I told you I wanted kids."

"And I told you I don't. I thought we settled that."

"We did, but -- but really think about it, for a minute. Did you think I was saying that to -- to be funny? As a joke? Do you think I'm so stupid I'd just suggest that without realising it means, 'Hey, Tifa, I want to invest at minimum the next twenty years of my life with you'?" His own frown deepened. "You won't even call me your boyfriend."

Aeris glanced nervously between the two of them. "Er..."

"Well, do you want an open relationship?" she returned.

"Aha! So we are in a relationship?"

"I don't fucking know. Are we? Is this a relationship if I can't trust you to have my back on things like taxes, or hospital visitation rights, or fireworks shows?"

"I figured out fireworks! I'm fine with fireworks now."

"The fireworks aren't the point! Yes, okay, this is a relationship."

"So, did you want to open it? What are we doing here? I thought you were opening it since you didn't want me calling you my partner --"

"Because I didn't want to look like a creep for dating you! You make that really hard, you know?! If you would just -- get an ID at least, I can at least prove I'm not doing this because you have nowhere else to go, or -- or because I groomed you as soon as you left Hojo. If you're just gonna agree to everything I say, then what's the difference between me just -- forcing you --"

"I showed you --"

"I know, but I want it said. I want to say it."

"Guys..." said Aeris. They didn't hear her. She glanced at Barret and Yuffie uncomfortably. Barret was making a big show of reading the nearest box of cereal for nutritional facts. Yuffie was snapping her gum and idly recording the entire thing on her phone.

Cloud and Tifa were gradually getting louder.

"--said you were okay with topping! I kept offering to switch! Either this, this entire relationship, is something you want to put energy into, or it isn't --"

"Topping isn't the issue! It's -- okay, yes, I also hate doing that all the time too --"

"'All the time,' she says. When was the last time you even saw me with my pants off?"

"I didn't feel comfortable just asking if you were gonna say yes to everything. I know it's stupid now! You don't have to tell me it's stupid --"

"You can say you miss women! We can do an open thing if you miss women!"

"Do you miss men?"

"Don't be an asshole. I wasn't lying about that to avoid you, I didn't know. I wasn't lying to Jessie, either --"

"Please don't involve me," said Jessie quickly.

"Well, then there's your answer. If it was you, I'd have told you."

"No, you wouldn't have," said Cloud with a small smirk. "This is the first time you've even admitted we're in a relationship."

It was one of the strangest rows Aeris had ever seen. Not so much the words, or even the tone -- but they seemed strangely invigorated by it, in a way. And as Tifa let out a frustrated roar and stormed past him, slamming the door behind her so hard the wood cracked, she distinctly saw him smiling.

Nobody else moved. Cid coughed in discomfort.

"...What the hell was that?" asked Zack. "Did you just get dumped?"

"No idea," said Cloud calmly, a jittery grin still plastered on his face. "We've never done that properly before. She wouldn't have dared. Me neither, really. I'll give her space, check in a couple hours. Gotta head out myself. Cid, can I borrow your hat?"

And then without another word, he snatched it off the table anyway, turned on his heel, and followed her through the door out into the snow, a distinct spring in his step.

Chapter 66: I am.

Notes:

Here we are at the very last chapter (aside from the epilogue). I'll be posting that on the sixth anniversary of this fic (June 15th). Look forward to it! That said, I'm not putting author's notes on the epilogue's intro, so here we go one last time.

Thank you to:
Belderiver
la_regina_scrive
DarthTofu
Denebola_Leo
voidrotted
Ash
Sanctum_C
Kaley
Larissa
Fire Arrow
sub_divided
materiodictable
Raaj
Cat

and anyone else I've sought help from over the years that I've dragged into beta'ing. Thank you to vareth, makosinnergy, WaifuJuju, cirrusnimbus, lireside, deathrebirthsenshi, nayu, perihadion, Will, and frankly too many people to count for their emotional support.

Lastly, thank you, for reading. If I was writing this just for me, I wouldn't have written it out at all because I already know how the story goes; the fact that other people wanted to see this dumb pee joke that rapidly got so badly out of hand has been what's kept me going through all these years for the entirety of this massive undertaking. I have a couple short story oneshot side pieces planned for this universe for fun, but this was always intended as a complete story with a specific outline and endpoint since June of 2017 when I posted the chapter, and after 66 chapters and an epilogue and 6 versions of the outline, and not only is it finally over, but the act of ending it is something I never thought I'd have the privilege and burden of doing. Thank you again for being here.

Earth was a different place after the Southampton Incident; but not all that different.

A lot of videos surfaced in the aftermath. For every confirmed hoax, another three videos of a dragon, or a woman disappearing into thin air, or glass rippling like water, popped up on the internet. It got harder and harder to tell what was real at all, even with the authorities frantically scrambling for damage control that was entirely beyond them.

The Gainsborough Extraplanar Research Project was a bust. CERN had immediately spilled its guts to the press about the ways they'd been leaned on. Dr. Aeris Gainsborough herself had simultaneously been declared dead and was "asked to resign" after certain rumours about her findings got too big to contain. A small monument was in the works, with all the names of those that had fallen in Southampton, and the team of doctors that had died along with them, engraved in a plague below it. All but one -- Dr. Zachary Fair, PhD.

They hadn't called off the manhunt yet. There was one last piece of evidence that suggested that he was perhaps alive, and might have clues as to his whereabouts -- the same piece of evidence they'd tried and tried and tried to expunge from the web, more than any other. After the video had been uploaded from somewhere in France, Spanish translated and subtitled in three languages, it had been reposted again and again countless times, on video hosting sites, and mirrors, shared and reshared across a thousand message boards, the information copied, the words replicated, retranslated, transcribed, clipped, repeated and discussed, spread for the next person to discover.

It was a video of the potentially late Zack Fair, seemingly shot from inside the facility. The recording was amateurish and hasty. There were no microphones set up, the audio tinny and thin from what the camera's onboard mic had recorded. The footage had not been edited any, every uncomfortable pause and blunder left as it was. It hadn't been touched up, if the nasty-looking bruise along his jaw was any indication, but there was still something not quite right with his eyes. Gone was the natural air of charisma that seemed to pour out of him. He looked tired and stretched and resigned; there was a question if it was actually Zack Fair at all.

Regardless, for_aaron.mp4 was everywhere now.

The video, at first, consisted of Zack fumbling with the camera, causing the audio to crackle and pop, his stare unfocused as he didn't seem to realise right away that it was recording. When he apparently did, he set it down on what was presumably a table and sat there for a moment.

"If you're watching this," he began, and then he stopped. "I'm..."

He paused again, for longer this time. Conversation (perhaps Dr. Gainsborough? That was the most popular theory) could be faintly heard in the background, talking about some sort of virus.

"To my family," he began again, more certainly this time. "If... I want you to know, you might not... I probably won't be able to come home for a little while. We -- we found some things that... they're pretty big. The aliens are a footnote, and one of 'em throws a pretty nasty right hook." A nervous, breathy laugh, covering the tremor in his voice. "To be honest, I don't even know if they'll let you see this video. We made the higher-ups pretty mad. Mighta broken some stuff, too."

Another pause. He began to reach for the camera, then appeared to think better of it.

"Look," he said, "I don't know what the hell they're gonna have told you guys by the time this comes out, or if I'll even be --"

He let out a weary sigh. Tried again.

"To my mom: You were -- you were always so proud of every little dumb thing I did. And when I said I wanted to do everything when I grew up, you decided I should have the chance to at least try. Being here was... was a privilege I never would have imagined I'd get in my wildest dreams. You gave me something that was... that was more -- that meant more to me than I -- it was..." A pause that went on second after second, staring at some spot on the floor. "It was more than I ever could have deserved on my own."

His voice sounded strained, and he glanced over his shoulder before once again looking determinedly at the camera.

"Dad, you were -- you would always find a reason to be happy, and you'd always try and share that with me. If someone wasn't smiling, you'd -- you'd always go out of your way to fix that, even when I -- even when it didn't seem like it would ever get better. You taught me that it was always worth it to try and make someone's day better. I... I only wish I'd been the sort of person that could do that.

"Aaron --"

He swallowed thickly. Scratched at his eye. Appeared to reach for the camera again, and once again thought better of it. Swore under his breath.

Tried again.

"You were braver than I ever was," said Zack. "And... I think you succeeded more than I could have ever hoped to. And -- and I hope one day, Mom and Dad see that too. And I love you. Okay? And -- and I know I didn't show it enough, and I don't expect you to forgive me, but I love you."

The video froze; jittered, and warped; distorted into a smeared, pixellated mess. But Zack's voice continued to play anyway, the quality much clearer than the camera should've possibly allowed for. He was speaking a language no one had yet identified, but there were subtitles provided for this too -- just a single line of dialogue, for a single phrase.

"Deep down, the only things in us are imaginary numbers."

 

---

 

Cloud and Tifa storming out the way they had left the group abuzz with conversation. On top of that, there were calls to be made, and space that needed to be cleared on the airship for furniture, and stopgap repairs to be made, and strings Reeve had to pull, and responsibilities everyone had to rebuild yet again, and Yuffie getting into a very loud discussion with her father over the phone as everyone scrambled to fit everything into tomorrow all at once…

Aeris decided to be by herself for a bit, at least one more time.

Her walk took her out past Edge, into the barren wasteland surrounding it. The landscape was littered with deactivated mechs sporting rather large guns, all of them twisted up with dried, sickly weeds. The further out she got, however, the more the dry cracked earth gave way to sparse tufts of grass, and then undergrowth. Most of it was dead and brown now, but she could tell from the way the dirt was packed beneath them that the roots were still in place, waiting for the first big thaw of the season.

Her foot slipped on sandy soil that was more loose than she was expecting, and she shrieked as she slid down the hill onto the beachfront. It too was grey and dead, but the seaweed washing up on shore looked fresh.

Aeris spread a blanket she’d swiped from Barret out on the sand in a place that was relatively free of rocks, and sat down to watch the ocean. Occasionally, something dead would wash ashore that looked a bit like a jellyfish and a bit like a squid, but not quite like either. Various seabirds began to descend on it, picking its body clean. She’d have to ask what it was that had died later.

There were seagulls on this planet, too.

She picked the grit out of her palms. No dirt under the nails anymore, and no calluses or scars either. Unfamiliar hands.

The ocean washed in, and out, and in again.

"Didn’t think I’d find you here."

Zack. He’d followed her.

"Then how did you find me here?" she asked.

"To be honest… I was gonna come here myself anyway. Picked up your scent halfway through."

"You’ve gotten too used to saying that, I think."

"Gonna have to." Zack sat down next to her on the sand. "...Everything’s different now."

"Yes."

"...Now what?"

"Pardon?"

"I don’t know. I feel like -- I think I’m supposed to be doing something," said Zack. The seagulls scattered and did not return. "I -- I killed five people. You know? Should that -- shouldn’t I feel different, now that I’m a murderer? It’s always different in movies."

"You also saved my life," said Aeris.

"...Yeah."

"So… now you’re a person that’s killed five people, and that saved my life," she finished, leaning against him. The mako made him feel as though he were running a fever, which was fine by her. She probably should have borrowed someone’s jacket before coming out here. The sun may have been out, but it was still the middle of winter. "You’re that person forever now. Until something happens to him, anyway. So… how does it feel?"

"...Yeah."

"In my case, the answer is simple. I’ve got us all packed up," said Aeris, holding up the backpack that contained everything they’d brought from Earth.

Zack laughed. "That simple, then?"

"...I hope it can be. I mean…" Aeris turned and craned her neck over her shoulder. Midgar’s ruins could be seen on the horizon, even out here. "Well. I don’t know what I’ll do next, anyway."

"I know," said Zack. "Just for now."

"Huh?"

"The entire time I was travelling with Cloud, I kept thinking -- well. Anyway. You’re here now, so… look, we’ve gotta be on an airship out of this place by tonight, and Tifa and Cloud are gonna be on bed rest for a while. So you and me, in a few hours we’re gonna head up to the bridge and you’re gonna see this place at night. Properly, without there being a bunch of eyeballs and hands coming from the sky."

"...Am I looking for anything in particular?"

"Only if you want to. But… I should warn you, it’s -- it’s wonderful, but it’s different. It’s a different sky."

"That… that sounds nice," said Aeris. "I don’t know any of the constellations, though."

"Then I’ll ask. Or we’ll just make some up. It’s astrology, it’s all made up anyway."

"...You kept thinking what?"

"Huh?"

"When you were with Cloud, what did you keep thinking?"

Zack didn’t answer right away.

"...That you deserved to be here, and not me," he said eventually. "But… that’s not why I asked you to do this with me. I -- I don’t think it’s about deserving. None of us deserved any of this shit, but it’s here."

"...Yeah."

"I still feel weird about just -- couch surfing. Do you?"

"No. I had to sleep in a car for most of this trip. I am never sleeping in another car again."

"Oh, a car. That must have been so hard for you."

"It’s not a contest!"

"Shall I peel you a grape, your highness?"

"Well, how many government buildings did you rob?"

"You’re not gonna make a habit of that, are you?"

"I could," said Aeris. "I might. New universe. I could tell everyone here I’m a famed assassin seductress on Earth. Nobody could fact check me."

"Got a codename picked out?"

"Still working on that. Something about lilies, perhaps. Lily Fury. The Blood Lily. Blood Rose? Everyone always picks roses, it seems like, but it’s lilies you put on a casket after someone’s killed, isn’t it?"

"Mm. Well, let me know when you think of something. Gotta keep our story straight."

"What about you?"asked Aeris.

"I think… I think I want out of the spotlight for a while," said Zack.

"...I’m sorry about your family," she said, giving his shoulder a small squeeze.

"They’ll be okay without me. Think anyone bothered to show up to the vigil service? Or did… did he --"

"That doesn’t matter."

"No. I guess it doesn’t." Zack sighed. "...Think you’re gonna get a new cat?"

"...Maybe," said Aeris. "Think you’ll get a new rat?"

"I have no idea how to take care of rats."

"You might not have room for its cage, either," added Aeris. "You know… it’s funny. Cloud said we would visit that canyon. And… maybe later, I’ll hold him to that. This place is really beautiful, you know, and then I got to thinking… the Earth is beautiful, too, and I just -- I never went anywhere. I never really saw that either. And there’s so much to make up for, different sky and everything like you said…."

The tide was slowly coming in.

"...Would you have a seder with me, in the spring?" she asked quietly. "I wouldn’t have cared before, but… nobody in this entire universe knows what it is but you."

"...Yeah. Just get me a jacket or something for Christmas," replied Zack, giving her shoulder another squeeze. "We’ll call it even."

The waves lapped more insistently towards where they were sitting. Aeris stood and began to tug the blanket out from under Zack.

"...We’re overplanning this," said Zack. "You know what I wanna do right now?" He stood and began removing his shoes. "Go swimming."

"It’s the middle of the winter," said Aeris, shaking sand out of the blanket. "I’m not going splashing about in the ocean in the winter. Getting sprayed when I was falling over it was bad enough."

"You’re being a baby," said Zack. "People swim in the ocean in the winter all the time."

"No they don’t."

"They do. You have to wear clothes and stuff, but they do."

"Eugh. Well -- still. Don’t go in there. I was with Cloud when we fell in -- over it? Whichever, and it’s awful."

"It’s fine. Watch."

Zack stood up, removed his shoes, and trudged into the waves before Aeris even had time to get out another warning.

He came running back a moment later, gasping and stumbling towards his socks.

"Oh, fuck me that’s cold," he wheezed. "Oh, fuck --"

"I told you."

"Yeah, you fucking did, I guess. Shit…!"

"You know what?" said Aeris. "If the ocean’s still there in a couple months, who knows?"

Zack continued to swear beside her. Aeris took a long look at the horizon as the fog began to burn off, revealing rolling waves tumbling over one another into infinity.

She’d walk back to the ship in a moment. For now, though, the shoreline was growing closer, churning the sand in front of her into foam, before sweeping it away in the relentless rush of the tide.

 

---

 

Shinra Tower had collapsed. Vincent’s grave was gone.

It hadn’t been a very good grave, admittedly. It wasn’t even where his body was. That had rotted away in the same landfill they’d dumped Cloud in a long time ago, most likely.

Instead, he went back to the church, and retrieved the White Materia from the pool there, willing it out of the water and into his outstretched palm. Maybe he’d give that to Yuffie as well. The last thing they needed was for some random passerby to find it and try using it. Though, admittedly, the chances were slim -- it was inert in his hand as it had been when it had been implanted in his chest.

He tossed the healing materia into the pool in its place. It settled into the silt, already half-buried.

"Can’t visit you anymore," said Cloud. "If you were ever really here. I gotta get out of town on short notice, and… it might be a long time before I can come back."

It was cold here. He shouldn’t have gotten his hand wet.

"I guess this is goodbye, Vincent. I’m gonna try to do better than you did."

He left. The abandoned church remained as empty as it had been before.

The streets of Edge, too, were empty when he started his walk, but they gradually began to fill over time. With survivors, with people that didn’t seem to know where they were or how long they had been gone, with those that were frozen in place, not sure what exactly they had seen. All of them cautiously looking at the sky as it slowly filled with more and more light. Some people that had been present in the mob glowered at him as he passed. Some -- customers of his -- began to wave to him, relieved at his survival, and then reeling in shock when he turned to look at them, slitted eyes glowing brightly in the evening light, sans one arm. He smiled and waved in return anyway. Most watched him carefully with suspicion and fear.

A few people smiled back. One of them even walked up to him.

"...You aren't dead," Jensen said flatly, as she accompanied him.

"I don't think so," said Cloud. "You aren't, either."

"Going back to work?" asked Jensen. Cloud nodded. "Good. I left my jacket in there last time. The good one. Hopefully the looters didn't take it."

"Yeah... I'm just here to grab some stuff myself. We'll come back for heavier stuff tomorrow. Already got an airship lined up."

"Oh. Guess the bar's not reopening? I've been on default income the whole time."

Cloud shook his head. "Having a defective bioweapon around the food is bad for business. Half the town knows."

"Hey, I still decided to work there. Kept my trap shut about it," replied Jensen. "How many other people do you think knew the whole time? That's an excuse."

"...We can't stay in Edge," said Cloud. "My legal status is still up in the air, and we're not sticking around to see whether Reeve wins the election, and if he'll have enough sway with the rest of the winners for it to matter if he does."

"Where are you running off to?"

"...The Wutaian Imperial Family's decided to offer us political asylum."

"No, but -- for real, though."

"..."

"Shut the fuck up. Who the hell did you have to kill to swing that?"

"Sephiroth."

"Uh-huh. You know, one of these days you're gonna tell me the real story. No way they let your skinny ass into Soldier."

Seventh Heaven now loomed above them, the inside looking cold and forlorn.

He unlocked the front door with his key, and she slipped inside.

Second drawer from the bottom in my bedroom, Tifa had said. Most of their belongings had been left alone, but all the food they'd had was missing entirely.

Jensen reclaimed her jacket without comment, then turned to face him.

"...I'm probably not gonna see you again, right?" she asked.

"You have my phone number."

"You're a coworker. That's weird."

Cloud shrugged.

"It's been real."

"Yeah. Thanks for -- for covering for me."

"The rest of us owed you. Thanks for threatening to stab that one dude with his own hot wing bones. Took one for the team like a champ."

"Er -- yeah."

He quietly watched her go, taking another look around the back of house, and climbed the stairs to their living quarters.

Instead of doing what he came here to do, he immediately hauled his toolkit over his shoulder, then raided Tifa's room for clean clothes and... well, he wasn't really sure what piece of home to bring to her. After having her entire life uprooted time and time again, the part that she'd liked having was the home itself.

It didn't seem like much to ask for, in Cloud's opinion; but then, these things never did.

In the end, he settled on all her different kinds of fancy bath soaps, which he carefully tucked into his toolkit as well. They all smelled delicious, even to humans, apparently. And it was important that wherever they wound up, it still smelled enough like home. The different soaps would probably help with that. Not to mention a nice hot bath.

He stopped for a moment in his bedroom, staring at the golden ratio carved into his wall. He stared at it for a long while, and then wrote 144 on the adjoining wall. In regular numbers, with a permanent marker from his desk. As an afterthought, he drew a crude sketch beside that of a man and a woman, their hands raised in greeting, and between them added a rat.

In Tifa’s room, he found the paperwork in the second drawer from the bottom, like she'd said. He folded it all carefully and tucked it into his pocket, then went back downstairs and stepped out to check out the alley behind the bar.

Cloud allowed himself a small moment of mourning over the fact that Fenrir, in his absence and in the panic of the world nearly ending, had been knocked over, left in the snow, and was now sporting a dead battery. He spent a moment slowly charging it himself, realising as he went that it probably wouldn't hold a charge anymore anyway. He gave her a reassuring pat on the seat, then sped off to the real reason he'd come back here.

When Ms. Suk opened the door, she looked him over in silence -- his bruised and battered skin, the way his coat sleeve was now tucked inside the coat itself, at the glow in his eyes.

"...You finally got yourself a hat," she said at last, gesturing to the knit cap on his head.

Cloud nodded. "Helps with the cold."

"Yes, dear, that's what hats are for," she said brusquely. "Come on. You're letting the heat out."

She made tomato sandwiches and tea in silence, and he realised after entirely too long that she was waiting for an explanation from him.

He told her the truth.

Or at least, as much of it that he could manage, and that was his to tell. He told her about Jenova, and Shinra, and Hojo, and Avalanche, and geostigma, and then Aeris; and he tried at least a bit to tell her about the music, even though he could no longer hear it. She interrupted on multiple occasions to ensure he drank his tea before it got cold.

His throat was very sore by the end of it. She made him more tea. His left shoulder and the arm his body was still telling him he had were still wracked with pain, but the soreness in his back slowly abated as he sat there and warmed himself.

When she returned with the second pot, he dug the little red radio out of his pocket and offered it to her.

"...You said I should fix it," said Cloud. "It was never actually broken. It should work okay now."

"You wouldn't have taken it if I had just given it to you," she said. "Stop talking and drink your tea."

Cloud swallowed hard and obliged.

"...I'll write to you," he said after another few minutes. "If you want me to."

"Yes, I think I'd quite enjoy that," said Ms. Suk. "You're going to Wutai, then? Do you speak Wutaian well?"

"...Some," said Cloud. "I've been there before. Besides just for Shinra. I had to learn."

"Told you you had a good ear," she said, nodding in satisfaction. "You've met Kisaragi's daughter, then? What is she like?"

He blinked for a moment, trying to sort through the mess of words in his head for a language he'd actually tried to learn properly. "She is... very loud. She likes to laugh, and she likes spending time with me. Once, she paid me five gil for to eat a wicker beetle."

Ms. Suk frowned in disapproval.

"She joined Avalanche," he quickly added. "She did it for Wutai."

"Mm. You'll have to tell me more in your letter."

"I will," he said. "But -- listen."

He removed one of the papers he'd taken from the bar -- the deed -- and handed it to Ms. Suk.

She stared at it, and did not take it from him.

"Look -- consider it payment for everything you've done for us, consider it a gift from Tifa and I. But -- you talk to those kids, I know you do. So, when you see them again, tell them Rabbit Guy -- tell them..."

Goodbye? To trust an adult besides him, so they'd have somewhere to go? That Tifa said they could have the burnt out husk of what used to be their home? That --

"I'll do my best," she replied, cutting off his train of thought. "You aren't the only person in Edge. The city will not be empty when you've left."

Yes -- yes, of course there were. Of course there were other people.

"Tell them everything," said Cloud. "If you can -- please tell them everything you can."

When he stood to leave, she helped stuff another bag of clothes roughly into one of the sword compartments on his bike, and for good measure clipped the radio onto his belt. He turned around as best he could from where he was sitting and hugged her tightly.

Fenrir barely started up a second time. She'd probably need a lot more work than just the battery.

It was much harder to balance his bike on his shoulders with only one arm, and he had reluctantly enlisted Barret's help loading it onto the airship. Between the two of them, it only actually took them an hour to drag everything they owned out of the building, and another thirty minutes to get it loaded up.

He would have a lot of building to do soon, to make a home for everyone from scratch all over again.

He left actually packing the stuff up properly to Barret and Cid. Everything he had just been through physically was catching up to him quite insistently, and took another hour of him just sitting there waiting for the muscle spasms to die down before he felt well enough to go look for Tifa. She couldn't have gone far from the landing site, at least. She, like him, was not really in great shape at the moment.

He'd known where she was the entire time, of course, the thing from another world etched into their DNA trying to reassemble itself. He'd had years to get used to it, at least. Eventually, she would too.

She was just barely outside the city, he knew. And aside from wanting air, she had things to take care of. That much he'd been able to sense.

What he hadn't sensed until he drew near enough to feel them moving was the massive crowd of people surrounding her. He picked up speed, lamenting he'd left his swords on the airship, and snow and ice swirled upwards from the ground and crystalised itself into a chunky, inelegant dagger in his hand.

Cloud found her sitting atop the cabin of a burnt out truck on the outskirts of Edge. Everyone's voices were raised.

"It's not going to be the same without you. You'll tell me how you made that one cocktail with the apple juice, right?"

"My husband and I met at your bar. Potato skins and Cosmo Candles, I'll never forget..."

"If you ever change your mind and want to visit, my daughter owes her life to you."

"Does it let you see the future?"

Tifa laughed. "No, it's just an eye." She looked up then, across the crowd, and saw him. She waved.

The citizens of Edge turned around to stare at him. He awkwardly dispelled his weapon and looked away.

"Guys," she said calmly, "this is Cloud."

There was no way everyone hadn't noticed his eyes. At least they all knew why he wore sunglasses indoors now.

"...He did this to you?" asked one of the men gently.

"Oh, no," she said. "I drank his blood, and then I had to transfuse a bunch more of it to keep it from killing me."

No one seemed to know how to respond to that.

"Is that that one busboy?" asked another one, frowning incredulously.

Tifa nodded. "We'll be living together. I found him in the trash. He has a nice ass and he knows how to carve little animals out of wood, so you can't convince me otherwise." She waved Cloud over. "Come say hi."

"...Hi," said Cloud quietly. He waved. "I. Um." There were a lot of eyes on him now. The courage he'd summoned up earlier had melted away with the dagger. "Just came to talk."

"...This is goodbye, everyone," she said. "Private conversation, sorry."

One of the older women sighed. "You can do much better than that, dear. Please take care of yourself when you've left, will you?"

"I will."

It took a few more minutes for everyone to actually leave, most insisting on one last handshake or hug. She'd been quite popular with the regulars, no surprises there. The world was in shambles again. No one was screaming and throwing things at her, or telling her she should be dead. Just goodbyes. Most of them even had the decency to not glower at Cloud as they left.

And then it was just them. She watched them go, staring out across the city, neon lights and lamp posts began to flicker on one by one as the sun slowly dipped behind the skyline of the Midgar ruins and out of sight.

"...Hey," he said.

She turned around and nodded to him.

"You didn't have to come out here," she said, sliding down from the roof.

"I know. Thought I should."

"...Yeah, I guess you should. You were right. About a lot of things."

"I mean... I would've settled for a 'sorry for shouting'," said Cloud. "I'm sorry, too."

"No," she said, "even before that. You were right about other things."

"I was wrong about a lot of things, too," he added pointedly.

"You were right about me," said Tifa.

"Maybe."

His back was beginning to complain again. He'd probably have to take it easy over the next couple days. He'd forgotten that getting stabbed and blown up repeatedly made you hurt a lot for a while, and the pain from his various injuries was getting quite bad now. He brushed the snow off the hood of an old muscle car already being reclaimed by weeds and sat down with a groan, scooting back against the windshield.

Snow silently drifted down around him. He closed his eyes and focused on the bite of cold as each flake settled on his face, and felt a little more awake. His breath was steam, whipped away by the wind, and if he stared for too long the snow started to look like static, filling the air around him.

Tifa sat down next to him. Warm. Solid. Three eyes, burning with mako that made them glow a dull orange and framed by short white hair, stared into his own two.

She looked away.

"And here's the part where I say I'm disfigured, and then you say 'nah, babe, you're still hot', and we bury the whole thing under the rug," she said with a sigh.

"Is that what you want me to say?" asked Cloud. "Do you like them?"

"Of course I don't like them," said Tifa. "They're disgusting."

"Yeah."

"Rude," said Tifa halfheartedly. "Whatever happened to, ‘No, Tifa, you’ll always be beautiful!’?"

"I was always prettier than you and Jessie put together. We’ve got objective proof, too."

A short huff of laughter. "I thought guys weren’t pretty."

"Gorgeous, then. Even with my gross eyes." Cloud gave a luxurious stretch before slouching even further back against the windshield. "Why be coy about it? You're all fucked up now. I've been fucked up for years," he said. He looked away. "...We probably always were. No surprise to you, I’m sure."

"You can’t keep blaming yourself," she objected. "I know how hard you always tried, so don’t tell me --"

"Not.. I guess," said Cloud. "I mean -- for you, sure. For our family. Not for me. Never for me. You helped me no matter what it did to you. Made me happier than I ever thought I'd be in my life. I didn't -- I never thought anyone could love me. Ever. And then you did, and... I didn't want to ruin everything. All I ever wanted was to make you happy." He looked away himself, then. "But you didn't want someone to just make you happy, did you? You wanted a person."

His eyes watered. From the cold, from everything he'd done -- he wasn't sure.

Tifa nodded slowly.

"Because you loved me. Because I was a person." He swallowed thickly. "...I didn't even think I was a person. Not really. I spent a lot of time thinking I was doing it wrong, wondering what it actually felt like to care about someone, the way a person would, but you acted like -- like I was real. Like all the good things I tried to do for you -- you acted like... that's who I was." He took a deep breath to steady his voice again, and wiped the tears from his eyes. "I think -- I think I could try being that person. Maybe he was real."

Tifa nodded again. Tears were silently streaming down her own face now as she stared at the ground. "Hey -- look on the bright side," she said with a forced smile. "Maybe we can finally have sex without weeks of worrying about contamination."

Cloud felt his cheeks grow red, and he coughed. "Yeah, I -- I guess."

"Unless you don't want to," Tifa quickly added.

"I do," he said. "It's just... there's -- other problems. With me, I mean. Physical ones."

"...They don't have to be problems," said Tifa. "There are a lot of things people can do together."

Cloud went even redder. "Yes. I mean -- of course there are --" He cleared his throat. "But I meant... if I could solve some of them -- they sell patches, I think, with hormones in them -- so things are less of a crapshoot --"

"Is that something you want?" she asked, frowning. "Because it doesn't have to be."

"...I don't know," he said truthfully. "I don't know which would be easier, for either of us." He scratched at his chin. Despite everything, he’d manifested himself with this face again -- the one that couldn’t even grow a beard. His face.

He shifted in his seat. "But... it's not just about this. It's... after everything tried to make together... I can do better. I want to do better."

"How will I know you aren't just -- trying to make me happy again?" asked Tifa.

"You won't," said Cloud. "I might not either. You'll be deciding who I am as much as I will. And... it'll be hard no matter what. I'll screw up, and it won't be your job to fix it. But you'll want to anyway, just like I'll want to fix it but I won't know how sometimes, and I'll wait for you to tell me." He wiped his eyes again and took a deeper, steadier breath. "...We'll take it slow. And... sometimes we'll make mistakes. Because we're both fucked up people."

Tifa let out a shaky huff of laughter. "That's all we gotta do -- remember we're fucked up people, then. Easy." She leaned into him, and he hooked his remaining arm around her shoulder and leaned right back.

"Yeah," said Cloud, watching the snow settle into their footprints bit by bit. "Yeah. We're people...."

They sat together for a long while. At some point Tifa reached up to lace her fingers through his own, and he realised how cold their hands were growing. The snow stopped eventually, and the sky they stared out across was pink and orange, the snow a rich purple in the evening light. His cheeks stung from the cold, and he could see Tifa's face was just as windburned as his own. Slowly, reluctantly, he slid off the car and stood, helping Tifa to her feet as well.

He wasn't sure which one of them started it, as his own lips pressed firmly against Tifa's. The world was quiet now, the soft sound of her breathing in his ears, the warmth of it on his cheek, the feel of callused fingers cradling his face. It was enough to just stand there, alive and awake and too full of everything, wanting to scream and weep and laugh and feeling the weight of himself settle into his bones as he breathed with her.

In the end, he was the one that pulled apart first.

"We should head back," he said, trying not to shiver too much. "Make sure no one thinks we're dead."

"They'll come looking for us soon anyway, after the exit we made."

Cloud nodded. "...I like the hair."

Tifa gave a weary laugh in response. Cloud frowned.

"No," he said firmly. "I do. I like it. It -- it suits you."

Her smile settled into something more genuine. This was the longest he could ever remember that they'd just stood there looking at each others' faces.

"...Your nose is all red," he said eventually, because it was the only thing left he felt like he hadn't said already.

"Mm," said Tifa. "Can I even catch colds anymore?"

"Not sure," said Cloud. "Don't want to find out. Let's go."

The blades of the airship's propellers gently stirred the snowflakes into a million different spiralling paths as they moved through the air. Edge was now aglow with colour from shop fronts and homes alike, the light glancing off the untouched snow covering the endless expanse of snowbanks surrounding the city, turning white into red and gold and green and blue, sliding around the hills created by buried plants and abandoned sweepers, indistinguishable from one another under the ice, and the grooves of their own footsteps.

The world was here. Cloud was in it.

Notes:

END OF PART THREE

Chapter 67: Coda

Summary:

Coda

Notes:

A conclusion.

Cloud had one of his bad days, then.

By all accounts, it could have been much worse. He woke up remembering his name, and that he was safe, as he usually did. But the world was pressing in on him much too aggressively for him to push through into it and convince it he physically existed, no matter how firmly he believed it was there.

He looked around his study -- at the way the light streaming in refracted midair into colours he had no name for, and was scarcely sure humans would even be able to see, the way the walls seemed to shift around as he moved his eyes over them, no more substantial than air. The wheels on the wheelchair he'd built -- reserved for only sort-of bad days, when he'd be able to manifest but would simply be in too much pain to stand for long -- seemed to be revolving on their own depending on which angle he viewed them from, like little cross-sections of something much bigger. He stared out through what might have once been a window across the outskirts of Wutai's capitol, completely empty of people besides him. Across from his old mattress that they'd set up as a rudimentary couch, Beef Wellington's perch lay similarly abandoned.

He took a deep breath to calm himself, and allowed his meagre foothold on the outskirts of reality to slide away.

It was quiet here, as much as a non-physical space could have properties like light or sound to begin with, but not empty. Streams of consciousness flowed gently around him, the way a stream might lick past his fingers, if he had them.

Cloud cautiously spread himself through Jenova, the soft buzz of its many voices not enough to drown him out today. Aeris and Tifa were still asleep, and he tried to avoid intruding into dreams when he could (as enjoyable as they were at times, it was a matter of principle). He probed a bit further and found Zack out for his morning jog, through the now sparsely populated, though still not empty, streets. The trees were already in full bloom, but Zack was still bundled up in a jacket as though it were freezing. The secondhand sensations trickling through -- the wind rushing past him and the colours of the shops and living spaces lining the streets filling his vision -- were almost as good as the real thing. Almost.

No Tifa today? he asked. Zack startled and tripped over his own feet.

No, she said she was tired, he replied once he'd gotten his bearings. Need a hand?

Yeah. Sor -- thank you.

Zack knew who Cloud was, and that he was a real person standing here beside him. Cloud neatly slotted himself into the space that had been made for him in reality. Every nerve lit up at once, taking in the world, and he stood hunched over for a moment breathing heavily as Zack rubbed his back and waited for him to adjust to existing.

"You good?" he asked. "I can run back and grab the chair." Cloud flashed a thumbs up and straightened up. He was still wearing the clothes he'd fallen asleep in, the left sleeve of his sweater still tucked inside the shirt-- Zack's clearest mental image of him.

"You wanna come with?" Zack added.

Cloud shook his head this time. "I wanna get dressed properly. And I still gotta feed Beef."

Zack snorted. "Can't believe you let her name him that."

"Why's that?" asked Cloud, looking around, seeing the light and colour of the real world for himself. "She said it was a food. People name pets after food all the time."

"Yeah, but -- never mind. Gonna circle the shop a couple times. I won't be far."

Cloud nodded. Then, for good measure, he gave Zack a hug goodbye. Zack even squeezed back this time.

"Later, then," he replied.

He spent a few more moments watching Zack run, waiting until he turned a corner before heading inside himself. He couldn't risk getting too far away from the information that let him leak through as a real person, if he wasn't able to do it himself. Even getting this far was pushing it, they knew -- but he'd been doing better lately, so perhaps. It couldn't hurt to try. And he wouldn't mind waiting to exist, just for a moment, if Zack wanted a little more time with his thoughts.

The front door to the bakery was locked and his keys were inside, since Cloud had never actually left properly, so he phased through it and went back upstairs to his study. Beef Wellington began burbling excitedly the moment he entered.

He'd originally found Beef in a trash can, his head stuck in a glass bottle, struggling for breath. His family had objected quite firmly to the idea of nursing vermin back to health -- especially since Cloud also refused to confine him to a cage. Everyone had been certain he'd fly away the minute his wings worked properly again. Which, he had. Cloud hadn't stopped him.

Except, he then came back.

In the end, Tifa had been the one to step in on his behalf and point out that it was her building, and that Beef was Cloud's pigeon, and that he could stay as long as he kept him upstairs and cleaned up after him... and took him to a vet.

"That goddamn bird," Cid had groused last week, "lives better than you do." Which Cloud thought was wildly unfair. Really, at most he'd converted one of the walls of his study across from his desk into a place for Beef to roost. There were a couple spots for him to nest, and toys for him to enjoy that Cloud had salvaged or carved from various things. Some of them, like the little bell, or the tiny recreation of a bathroom Cloud had set up seemed to be a hit. (Beef could spend hours preening in front of the mirror.) Others, like the little puzzle cube, went entirely ignored. It was all trial and error, and pigeons, as far as Cloud was concerned, were basically just smaller chocobos that nobody cared about, and they seemed to like him about the same.

He set out a plate of sliced bell peppers -- drenched in extra water, since he also seemed to like bathing in it -- on the platform next to the little hammock that Cloud had built for Beef himself, and clicked his tongue. Beef immediately waddled over from on top of his cage (little more than a place for him to sleep in at night), leaving Cloud to shower and change clothes properly.

He hadn't timed how long he'd been in there. Long enough for him to hear Zack unlocking the front door and letting himself in.

The bedroom -- their bedroom, the one that he shared with a whole other person, was situated across from Zack's. It was cramped and colourful and largely full of Aeris's and Tifa's design sensibilities, since they were both more inclined to bring home tchotchkes and knicknacks and knew much more about furniture than he did. Tifa was still buried under the blankets, a couple of her eyepatches piled up on the bedside table next to her atop a pile of photos he and Aeris had taken that they hadn't had time to get framed yet. She didn't wake even as he rummaged through the first drawer he opened. He let her sleep.

The shirt he had borrowed from Tifa still smelled like her, mixing with the scent of fresh laundry. It took him only a moment to pin the arm of this one up as well, although soon he hopefully wouldn't have to. He couldn't find out now, at any rate. And he hadn't even finished saying good morning to Beef yet.

Cloud barely looked up from giving Beef another gentle kiss on his little head in between scritches when Zack knocked softly on the screen door of the study that Cloud had set up in front of his actual one. This was Beef's room too, after all. He could feel Zack rolling his eyes. Cloud ignored it.

"Shower's free," said Cloud. "I'll be out of your hair anyway. I've got a thing with Aeris later, and a moped to fix after that."

"Actually, I was hoping I could watch you work."

"What about your appointment?"

Zack stared at him blankly.

"For the sleeve."

There was still a serial number on Zack's wrist branding him Shinra property. They'd considered a number of options before he ultimately decided that if they were going to live in Wutai, he was going to cover it by getting a traditional tattoo done, up and down his entire arm.

"Oh yeah, that," said Zack, waving a hand dismissively. "I cancelled that last week."

Cloud nodded. "Too many needles?"

"Nah. I'm keeping the number."

It was Cloud's turn to stare blankly now.

"It's a reminder," he said. "Of a lot of things. Maybe later I'll go back and get a tattoo done, but it'll be somewhere else. Not to cover this one."

"You're gonna need to cover it with something," said Cloud.

"Or what?" said Zack. "You didn't even question yours for months after Tifa spared your feelings about it, and it was on your own damn body. What's a stranger in public gonna say to me? Nobody even confronts anyone if you wear your pyjamas go to buy milk."

Zack was -- not quieter, because he never shut up regardless, but certainly more subdued these days. For all intents and purposes, he'd lost his entire family. It was certainly nothing Cloud was a stranger to, but he'd never been around someone this fresh from the incident before. Aeris had said it was normal to be like this, and Zack seemed more willing to talk to her about it than him. Cloud would just have to trust them both.

"...Wanna help me prep?"

Cloud nodded earnestly. He did in fact want to help prep. He gave Beef Wellington one last scratch before following Zack downstairs, stepping over a pile of plywood at the base of the stairwell that had, at one point, been intended to become a ramp. Halfway into planning, Cloud realised the stairs were too steep for one, as well as too narrow. They'd fled Edge quickly enough to move into the first building available, unaware of the extent of the state Cloud was in now, and with even less time to plan for things like logistics. Zack was usually up the earliest (besides himself, of course) and if Cloud was having a not-great-but-still-able-to-physically-be-here day, it was usually up to Zack to carry both Cloud and his chair to the ground floor.

Just another hurdle -- one of many. He'd figure it out eventually.

Mostly, he just enjoyed watching Zack work. He'd been a natural choice when Tifa had been looking for employees to work under her.

("So trashy," Aeris had muttered.)

Running a bakery and cafe was a bit of a step down from a bar and grill, traffic-wise, but with the trial run they’d hosted, things looked very promising for the official opening. There weren't many stores in Wutai that cooked the way Tifa did.

And in fact, there was no one on the Planet that cooked the way Zack did. The closest Barret had been able to get was, "Maybe somewhere 'round Gongaga." Cloud had been unable to manifest through Zack or Tifa entirely for a solid week as they barricaded themselves in the kitchen and set out designing the menu, their minds firmly elsewhere.

Cloud knew by now how easy he was making handling the dough look. It was also endlessly fascinating watching him mush it into a recognisable loaf shape by just shoving it around for a while, knowing that it would still magically come out perfectly soft and fluffy. Cloud had done enough welding projects to know an expert's hands when he saw them, even if Zack's had more in the way of small burns than calluses and grease stains. Zack would enthusiastically explain in vain what his process was. Cloud absorbed less of this conversation than he had of the dark energy one.

Sometimes he thought he understood, just for a moment or two, but it would turn out later to be one of Zack's thoughts, flitting through into Cloud and vice versa. Sometimes for brief moments they'd even lose track of who was thinking what entirely, and it was just a pleasant haze of ingredients and oil and a shared, single consciousness.

At times, it was also a vicious feedback loop if things were not going well that day. It was usually Tifa (who could much more easily come and go from the hivemind in general than they could from one another) that had to drag him out of it, and Cloud would wake up to a roomful of shattered lightbulbs and fear-scent and a very disoriented Zack.

Today, though, there was only the sound of Zack's voice explaining to him about the timing of proofs, and idle chatter about some empanadas dulces he was going to attempt later, and his hands gently guiding Cloud's through warm, tacky dough.

And then, just as the kitchen was filling with the smell of blueberries, Zack's focus inevitably lapsed, and the world went nothing once more.

Zack didn't notice right away. Cloud watched through his memories -- freshly formed and quickly discarded, a fleeting echo of the real thing -- as the sugar water in the pan began to thicken.

...Hey --

Shit! Sorry, I'll --

No, it's okay. I'll wait for the others.

You don't have to.

It's not so bad this time. Seems like you're feeling better.

...Guess I am, yeah.

Some days the nothing became unbearable on its own. But for now, it was nice to have his world narrowed down to distant murmurings of someone else's mind. He could still perceive himself this way, at least, and against something much more pleasant than the first time.

Eventually, he grew restless enough to break his rule about dreams, and let himself elsewhere.

Aeris did not react to his arrival in her old lab. Why should she? It was just a dream, as far as she was concerned, and now there was simply another idea in it. Cloud tensed at his surroundings and tried not to look.

Aeris's own thoughts and perception washed around him, and as Cloud entered them they began reshaping him.

She was a child of perhaps six years old, organising a pile of dolls in some inscrutable order. As she went to pick him up as well, she hesitated. She wasn't truly a part of Jenova, and thus could not sense him; but she must have decided he looked familiar, because suddenly he was next to her as a child as well, as she carefully instructed him on which dolls were "compromised" or not.

With Aeris, he was little more than a passenger for these things. He sincerely hoped she wouldn't manifest him like this; Yuffie would never let him hear the end of it.

There was always something of a risk, letting himself into the top layer of reality through someone else's idea of him, and dreams only magnified it. The ideas in dreams were not always coherent, and Cloud himself, in this state, consisted of nothing but an idea, albeit one that was now self-aware. They could be pleasant escapes into someone else's mindscape full of thought and sensation, until they awoke and were able to usher him out; or they could just as easily distort him into something that barely counted as a person, until he managed to gather enough willpower to reorient himself again. Aeris's in particular were quite volatile, her own will being what it was.

As it turned out, she had been inspecting their outfits, and now he and Aeris were going to a large building to watch a man with a box taped to his head read nonsense from a sheepskin scroll. Their job was to sit in respectful silence, and to occasionally interrupt him with booing and hissing and shouting. Cloud generally did not question the things the dreams prompted him to do, nor did he expect them to make much sense.

It was only while she was fussing with the little cap on his head that refused to stay on that she suddenly paused and gave Cloud a second look. Cloud waved at her.

Aeris's eyes widened in surprise, and the dream ended immediately. Caught off guard, he found himself pressed up against the outer edges of the world, still six and convinced he needed to shout at strangers, in Aeris's abandoned bedroom. He sat down on the bed and waited patiently to be made to exist, hoping she'd at least be able to conceive of a him that wasn't quite so entangled in everything that had just happened.

To his great relief, he blinked and found himself wearing the clothes he'd put on this morning and a sleeve pinned up to cover the half-a-left-arm he had. The bedroom was still empty, but he could hear the sink running down the hall. He knocked on the door.

She opened it and returned to fussing with her hair. "I really wish you'd have warned me," she said without missing a beat, painstakingly assembling a rather shoddy-looking bun. "God knows what I'd have done to you if I hadn't realised."

"It'd work itself out eventually, one way or another," he replied with a shrug. "Besides, last time I 'warned' you, you just started screaming."

"...Hm. I suppose I did, didn't I?"

He didn't know what it looked like to people in the real world as he made himself leak through into it on the back of other ideas, and due to the subjective nature of his existence he never would. It didn't seem particularly pleasant, though, and Aeris seemed to be having the hardest time getting used to it.

"Well, don't come crying to me if you turn out funny again. Enchantments today, right?" she asked.

"I mean, eventually," said Cloud. "I was thinking we could check out the Lucky Crab or something first."

"Oh! Well -- yes, of course." She sighed and gave up on whatever hairstyle she had been attempting and just tied it up into twintails. Tifa was the one that knew how to make Aeris's hair do fancy things, and usually set aside time to do it for her, but Tifa was, somehow, still asleep, and it didn't seem as though anyone was willing to wake her.

"But enchantments afterwards," added Aeris firmly, slipping her notebook into her bag.

"Enchantments afterwards," agreed Cloud.

He wound up doing most of the talking in his own passable Wutaian as they sat down at the table and Aeris flipped through the menus.

It had been four months, and he still felt naked in public without his sunglasses. Everyone could see, if they chose to look.

The first few weeks after they'd arrived in the capitol, Yuffie had made it a point to personally drag them through Wutai and introduce him to everyone on his block, and a few of her friends for good measure (Yuffie, apparently, had friends outside of Avalanche, which brought him to the realisation that nobody else did). By the end of the first month, there wasn't a single person around their home that didn't personally know his name, and, more importantly, his face.

Just like last time, there was no way she could have told them the real story, of course. Who would have believed it? But "escaped from Shinra's POW program and then helped to overthrow them, and have moved here as refugees" was something the locals seemed willing enough to buy, even if it was technically a bit more detail than Cloud would have preferred everyone knowing.

They were never going to be heralded as heroes, but in Cloud's opinion that sort of thing was nonsense in the first place, and he was already processing the alien sensation of being considered locals. The owner's son, a boy around fifteen years old, barely even stared at Cloud's eyes anymore while bringing out their pork buns. The owner herself barely did more than greet him politely and ask him how Barret was doing.

Aeris insisted on grilling him over the cake they shared for dessert, even as Cloud sat there and picked the blueberries off the top.

"So -- if an enchantment is just a spell effect that is continually applied, but also it continually applies itself, then -- what makes them different from summons?" asked Aeris, taking her notebook out.

"Well, complexity, obviously," said Cloud, stealing a sip from her drink. "But also mana supply. Correctly-applied enchantments and constructs will keep functioning without any more input from the caster. Things like that -- curses, enchantments, they're all considered White magic. Things that need careful construction."

"Is there a Black equivalent?"

Cloud, instead of answering, took an actual bite of their cake, chewed for several moments, and swallowed. Aeris rolled her eyes.

"Hey, I wanted a lunch date," objected Cloud. "Blue's a subset of Black, I guess, where you just let the power take whatever shape it will. You see it a lot more in nature, with animals. We can go over that later, it's maybe the most dangerous thing to learn besides summoning. You know there's no shame in not getting this perfect the first time? This is advanced stuff you're asking me."

"I'm not Zack," she pouted. "But the notes -- the notes I want perfect, so I can review."

She needn't have bothered worrying. Aeris, as it turned out, was startlingly good at White, and terrifyingly already seemed to have a decent theoretical understanding of how to curdle the flesh off a man's bones with a well-placed curse. She might even be skilled enough to give him a run for his money one day (though he'd never admit that aloud, at least for the time being).

People didn't always notice Cloud was there sometimes, so it was Aeris that wound up having to flag down the owner's son for the check while Cloud finished eating the garnish.

He ordered another couple buns to go before following Aeris back home and behind their building. Her garden was only little fledgling sprouts so far, but he could already smell the rich medley of herbs and flowers waiting to be grown. With everything going on scent-wise, it was a pretty useless spot to meditate in, at least for him. Aeris seemed to thrive in it, however, and Cloud was not the one that needed to focus.

Cloud himself was nowhere near skilled enough with White magic to actually create an enchantment, but he still knew enough about magic to analyse them. He had already prepared a box full of pieces he'd acquired during his travels -- mostly jewelry and knives, since the metal components made for naturally good conductors. He had specifically pointed out to Aeris the ring that would suck the life out of whomever put it on and made her promise to use it for academic purposes only. And while they both knew rationally she had no reason to do otherwise, he could tell that there was a very large part of her that wanted to pop it onto her finger for just an instant, just to see. Best to move this along.

Aeris was not infected, and was simply a human, true, but she shared DNA with Jenova the same as the rest of them, and was not a native part of this universe just as they now were; and, more importantly, Jenova was still Jenova.

He felt her slip under his skin, take control of his lungs -- and then, just as quickly she began to spread, taking control of his magic, as she had before. On top of the learning she had to do, she also had to learn to make someone cast spells in her vicinity.

He'd offered lessons to both Aeris and Zack as a matter of practicality. Zack was interested in learning as much as any other person with the opportunity, but Aeris had decided that studying magic meant studying magic. She'd announced her intentions the second day to co-author a paper with him, which was quite a step up from explaining day one materia safety to Avalanche.

As it had been before, it was Cloud's soul actually doing the casting, but Aeris guiding the form the magic should take. In this case, it was little more than a gentle probing of the ring (of course she'd immediately gone for the death ring) sitting in her right palm. In his own hand what Cloud was pretty sure was the corresponding materia for the spell in question: destruction. Ninety-five percent of enchantments were created with a healing or restorative materia, so it figured that she went for the weird one.

"The minute you start to dip into casting --"

"I'll stop," she said.

"You promise?"

"I promise I'll stop. Shh."

Cloud "shh"ed back and went back to spotting.

It was a good thing she was the one doing the casting here, because Cloud swiftly found himself distracted by the plants again. There weren't that many leaves showing yet, but she'd already carefully pointed out several of them to him before and taught him the English names: bright pink carnations, like on Ms. Suk's blanket; regular chestnuts and "horse" (goat) chestnuts, which she hoped to transfer to the ground eventually when they were big enough; geraniums that Cloud had taken as payment for a job once and had brought straight home to her; cabbage, for pickling and frying; mugwort and rosemary and basil and garlic for cooking.

She'd had her heart set on honeysuckle -- this plant Aeris had described that smelled wonderful and that you could lick the nectar right out of -- but as far as Cloud knew nothing like that existed on the Planet, at least that he'd been able to find during his travels.

There were plants that she was new to as well, ones that they didn't have on Earth. Pahsana could be dried and candied, which she'd immediately taken to, and curiels were good for stews and pickling as well, along with the cabbage.

He was most excited about the strawberries. The strawberries were his.

Or -- they were Aeris's, but Aeris was teaching him to take care of them. Admittedly, she'd also done most of the hard work involved with that, since he wasn't exactly good at it. But officially, the strawberries were his, and Tifa had insisted upon making some sort of cake when they were ripe.

"Ah -- damn it --"

The little wisps of magic she'd been weaving out from the ring in midair spasmed, then flashed into Black and immediately went out.

"Second safety rule --"

"Commit, I know," she sighed. "Have you got any other tips? Is this what you did on the road?"

"Nah. I just used whatever it was for a couple hours. Then after we met Cid, we just gave everything to him so he could tell us what it was."

"That's how you knew about the death ring, then?"

"...Yeah, we'll go with that," said Cloud. "What's eating you?"

"Nothing's --"

Cloud gave her a look.

"...Reeve said the feds called him again," said Aeris. "The WRO reinstated your membership, by the way."

"Goddamn vampires."

"You can't blame them," said Aeris. "And… I don't know. If Zack got drunk and bit someone, it wouldn't hurt if they had some sort of treatment. Like for rabies."

"If you give them blood, they'll want more."

"I know."

"Do you really want that for yourself?"

"If I knew, I'd have either gone in already or told them to shove off," said Aeris. "But… I don't really care about the needles either way. If they could help… I just don't like seeing you stuck like this."

"...Everybody's stuck like something," said Cloud, shrugging. "It's… scary. But things were always scary. And they were good then, too."

"Were they?"

Cloud nodded. "Barret's real good at buying presents." He huffed in frustration. "...I'm not really cut out to teach you this bit, I guess. I just wanted to. I thought I could because I'd figured out organic cores for machine-automated casting, and I figured this wouldn't be too different, but… well, let's just get Cid on the phone. Maybe he can walk you through it."

Aeris shook her head, and smiled teasingly at him. "No. We're both going to try again tomorrow and sit here and be terrible at this for however long it takes us, and then we're going to learn about this together. And then I can point and laugh at you when I finally outstrip you."

"I have a twenty year head start, but yeah, sure."

"I'll ask Tifa."

"She doesn't mess with White much either, she's just better at it than I am. Besides, she's asleep," said Cloud firmly.

"Still?"

"...I guess I could wake her up," said Cloud, climbing to his feet. "Just thought she could use a lie-in. Last one before she's gotta start helping Zack with dough prep. We haven't made her get up this early in years."

"Let her sleep, then," said Aeris. "We can check out the palace, see if there's any books Yuffie's not using on the subject."

"...You go," said Cloud. "I'm gonna take care of some stuff."

"...Are you sure? You needed me this morning."

"I'll wake her up eventually. It'll be fine."

"...You know," said Aeris, "that house at the edge of town, the one overrun with stray cats -- there's a big grey one that trusts me now. If you want to come see him tomorrow."

So she was going through with it after all. He'd have to cat-proof his study until he knew how it'd respond to pigeons. "You got a name picked out?"

"Pudding," said Aeris decisively. "He looks like a Pudding. You'll see."

"Pudding and Beef Wellington," said Cloud, shaking his head. "Zack's gonna give you shit for this again."

He helped Aeris to her feet, and took an extra moment to make sure every bit of cursed metal he had was accounted for before letting her go.

Without anyone overtly acknowledging he existed, he could already feel himself beginning to fade. Still, he could use the time he had for now.

The little desk in his study had a pile of invoices on it for repair work, as per usual, but now he had other kinds of documents to prepare as well. He brushed the paperwork aside, slid a fresh sheet of paper into his typewriter, set aside one of his leftover pork buns to snack on, and began to compose:

Dear Miss Sook,

Thank you for your letter, and the almond cookies they were Delisous. Please send tell Aia hello from me if you see her.

I have been Doing very good with Beef Welington. Aeris says this is the name of a meat Pie, but Zack thinks it is a bad name to Give him I think it's a good name.

Tifa is doing good she has a bakery now, and all of the bread tastes exstremely good we will try to Send you some.

I am sorry it took so long to reply to your Letter I was very dizzy last week and couldn

Cloud sighed and put away the letter for later. In the other room, Tifa gently snored on, oblivious.

The building was quiet. Zack was long gone, having already left for an early lunch himself. Eventually, Cloud got restless enough to start another project altogether.

With Aeris no longer maintaining him, and Tifa not consciously hosting him, he only barely managed to finish in time. If a stranger not used to looking at things that were almost real but not quite were to look in the window, they would see an empty bakery, still closed for today. Even Zack's gaze would slide off him at first, unless he knew there was something there to see.

He hurried upstairs to Tifa and sat next to her on her -- their bed, it was their room now -- waiting for her to notice him. He only barely hesitated -- only barely scolded himself for daring to touch her without permission -- before throwing caution to the wind and placing his hand over hers.

It didn't take long for her to rouse properly, once his presence was anchored to her own consciousness. She stared at him blearily through three sleep-encrusted eyes, her hair rumpled. She'd chosen to keep it short after all, shorter than his, even, and she hadn't bothered dyeing it.

It looked really good on her, actually.

"Got a surprise for you," he said, without waiting for her to finish picking grit out of her eyes.

"Mm?"

"Stay here," he said, and ran back downstairs.

He came back up with two fried eggs, the yolk perfectly framed by the whites, and a few slices of buttered toast.

Tifa blinked in surprise and rubbed a bit harder at her lower left eye for good measure. "Where'd you get that?"

"Made it," said Cloud proudly. "...I mean, I cheated a little, used Zack's memories."

"Yeah, but Zack didn't cook this for me," said Tifa, smiling as she punctured the first yolk with the corner of her toast. "What brought this on?"

Cloud shrugged. "Been practising for a while. The memories thing, not actually cooking. It's harder than you'd think, because the muscle memory isn't there, so I had to --"

"I believe you," said Tifa. "This turned out good. You want any?"

Cloud shook his head. "It's a present."

"Then, thank you," said Tifa. "It's delicious."

He told her about his morning while she ate: Zack was busy doing test batches today, and did not play him in basketball, which was all well and good since Zack usually won anyway; Aeris had decided to grow gentian, and she had isolated the peppermint from everything else but it was still slowly creeping over towards the rest of her garden; he would probably call Barret later, to see if he could stay with him and Marlene for a few days in Corel.

Then he waited.

Tifa, then, decided to tell him about things.

Aeris wants me at a meeting in Kalm, explained Tifa, not wanting to speak with her mouth full of toast. Something about negotiations. Reeve thinks it could be helpful to have me there.

"Do you want to go?"

Maybe, said Tifa. I'm not convinced he's right, but he knows more about the politics side of things than I would. Thinks it could be good to show a respected member of the community that also happens to be infected. I just don't want Aeris to spend the rest of her life donating bone marrow every week, you know? She finally swallowed. "Plus, Yuffie said she'd help me get the bakery set up this week. I don't wanna have to reschedule."

"You wanna proxy me? After tomorrow, I don't have anywhere I have to be for repairs until next Thursday."

"Maybe," said Tifa, mopping up her plate with the last bit of toast. "You need time off, too, don't you?"

Cloud shrugged. "I hate sitting around. You can only twiddle your thumbs so much before you stop having them."

"...Then, maybe," she repeated. "We'll see. I haven't even decided if I wanna go in the first place."

Cloud nodded.

"...We could spar instead," said Cloud. "Been a while."

"I guess it has," said Tifa. "Swords or fists?"

"Fists." He didn't want to be teaching her anything sword-related, at least until he recovered a bit more.

"A proper spar," she said with a nod. She smiled. "Promise you'll be gentle?"

Cloud grunted and willed her empty plate downstairs and into the sink. He was pretty sure even if Tifa hadn't had years of formal martial arts training and another thirty kilos on him, he'd still be losing anyway. She wouldn't be acting like this if they were learning swordplay, but he kept the Fusion Swords tucked up inside Fenrir these days. Not much call for them anymore outside of road trips and lessons.

"Not like you to be a sore loser," said Tifa. "I could go easy on you, if you're gonna be like that."

"No, just… you're enjoying it, right?" said Cloud. "Even if it's not a good challenge."

Tifa shrugged. "For a guy with bare minimum MPAF hand-to-hand training, you're better than most people I've fought. Not surprising. You got tutored by Zangan-sensei's best student, or so I hear." Her smile shifted into a smirk. "Plus, if you get to be smug about how good you are at magic to anything that'll stay still long enough to listen, then I get to pound your face down into the mat."

"But -- do you enjoy it?"

"Do you?"

"...Yeah."

"Then so do I. And when you start being an actual challenge, I'll enjoy it more."

Cloud managed a smile in return. He wasn't wasting her time. That was -- good. And his breakfast-lunch was edible, and that had made her happy too.

He wasn't sure what else to say after that.

Tifa did not offer any clues to help.

"..."

"..."

"Wanna have sex?" asked Tifa suddenly.

"Oh! Yeah, okay."

And then they did. It felt good. Sex felt good.

It was also educational. Tifa was now much chattier about the whole thing, which apparently made it much easier. Every time they did it, Tifa wound up teaching him something new. Sex, as it turned out, was not only complicated, but one could get good at doing it. He'd always known that, of course, but he'd always assumed that had more to do with stamina. (He had never been under any illusions about size, or the lack thereof, at least -- gods knew the toy Tifa usually used was about the same size as he was, and it was certainly more than enough.)

He'd thought it was fairly straightforward: He liked feeling safe, and also good. And now after telling her that, Tifa was telling him about all kinds of ways to feel, all specific to her, some of which were very confusing, and some of which he thought he might even be able to pull off, and…

One didn't just get good at sex, apparently; he could get good at Sex With Tifa. And if that was the case, maybe she could also get better at Sex With Cloud. It was a dizzying, overwhelming prospect to even consider.

It was also something else Tifa had immediately cracked up at him for when he told her about his theory out loud. When she'd finished, however, she'd smiled and asked him to prove it.

Cloud dozed off after they'd finished and awoke to find Tifa had already tucked him back into her -- their bed, put on her eyepatch, and gone downstairs to run inventory. He was alone in their room, listening to the wind chimes outside.

It was lavishly decorated. His dresser with the three drawers. His leather jacket hung on a doorknob. Tifa's blankets, in bright colours, draped over his body. Her bedside table, with the lamp shaped like a fish, a housewarming gift from Jessie.

The wind chimes stilled. He quietly flickered out of existence.

The room was empty -- of life, of sound, of air. The walls shifted and moved in ways they couldn't in a place that was fully real. Things watched from the dark. The void howled around him -- just noise, often oppressive silence. It hadn't been music for months now. It wouldn't be, ever again.

He wasn't real anymore -- but then, he never had been. Why should that stop him now?

It would be easy to press himself back into the world, when the shape of himself felt so obvious, as did the way the world formed itself around him. So he did. He perceived himself -- knew that he was here, and himself, and that none of this was all that real to begin with, and stepped into being properly.

The world leapt out at him sharply, in the way it only could to a real person actually in it. He was acutely aware of the stiffness of his back, and the way the floorboards subtly creaked under his feet as he slid out of bed and put his weight on them, and the way the air moved past his skin as he moved through space and displaced it, instead of leaking from one idea to the next.

He got dressed again carefully, remembering the way his flesh felt to manoeuvre. It felt just as solid as it ever did to him, whether it was something that only lasted a day, or made it three whole weeks. Atop the dresser were the picture frames he had lined up on his desk, now filled with Polaroid photos from Cosmo Canyon. His own stunned face from when Aeris had photographed him and Barret unawares; Zack pointing to a windmill with a big candid smile and just a bit of Aeris's thumb; Yuffie pulling Tifa's eyepatch to the other side to make it look as though she had four eyes; his family -- Avalanche, Zack, Aeris, himself -- smiling and waving at him from around the Candle. If he stared at it for long enough, he could swear he felt the heat from the fire on his skin, and the voices of the scholars discussing the idea of a Planet without a Lifestream over chunks of grilled meat cooked on heated stones -- and perhaps he could.

His body was as he understood it -- a distinct entity from anyone's subconsciousness. Part of himself. As real as anyone else's. Definitely on the small side of things, slight features like his mother's, battered and worn in places, and in others...

His arm had been carefully bandaged while it regrew. He hadn't dared remove them until it was finished for fear of infection. Whatever it looked like under there, it probably wasn't pretty.

He nervously began to peel them off one by one. He'd been hoping to manifest himself reliably again for the last couple weeks, and after a few false starts, he was here. At least, he hoped he was here. He'd know for sure in a moment.

The last bandage fell away, revealing his freshly regenerated arm. He gingerly flexed the fingers he'd regrown, finding the movement somewhat difficult as muscles he'd never used before twitched to life for the first time. The skin was a pale pink, newly grown, and extremely soft. Too soft, even, compared to the right, which was weathered and covered in calluses and freckles and scars from countless fights and repairs and everything in between. Unfamiliar.

His tattoo was gone. The only thing on his left wrist was more bare, unmarred skin.

It didn't look like his hand. Not yet anyway.

The early afternoon sun shone through his window. Beef was perched near the top of his coop, eyes closed, enjoying the warmth. Cloud gave him another scratch and smoothed out his feathers, then knelt to lace his boots back up for the day ahead of him. There were people waiting for him.

He took one last look at the arm that wasn’t his yet.

That was fine; he had plenty of time to break it in.

Notes:

And thus ends Baby's First Fanfiction!

Dedicated to my mother, who read this entire goddamn thing despite barely knowing what a video james is and encouraged me from start to finish.

Could parts of it have been executed better? For sure. Could this have been shorter? Absofuckinlutely. Will I get off my ass and go back and fix any of it? Absolutely the fuck not. God I can't wait to write something with lower stakes that's significantly shorter. Which is what this thing was supposed to be, mind you, so god knows if I'll manage to stick to that. Time will tell.

My biggest regret is not sacrificing story pacing and quality in order to outright go for onscreen OT4, because that would've pissed off the greatest possible number of people, which is what I set out to do with this thing in the first place because I hate this community and especially hate everyone that is invested in the LTD. Suck my ass. <3

UHHHH HOUSEKEEPING

1. If you have any fanart or fanfic you wanna shoot my way, I will continue linking it here. No I don't care how long after the fact you're reading this, I guarantee if you send me something I'll still go apeshit over it and still want to show the world. On a related note, if y'all wanna do my job of writing poly shit out of spite towards the LTD crowd for me I'm obviously not going to stop you.
2. I promised I'd go back after the story was over and explain all the number jokes/other blink-and-you'll-miss-it trivia, so a post will be forthcoming shortly.

Remember when this thing was a five hundred word pee joke about a bad shipping argument that I was only gonna show to two people?

To everyone that somehow made it all the way to the end, thank you for your time. Your support has meant more to me over the years than I can possibly express. Take heart in the joy of being doomed to become utterly unrecognisable to yourself; and that whatever gets up and walks away from your ashes will still get to wake up and look out a window and watch it happening to everyone else. The divine art of creation is utterly mundane and flimsy and substantiated by nothing, and all the more worthwhile for it. Please look forward to becoming yourselves tomorrow, and if you can please pet a cat for me.

-Squid

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of The Number I