Chapter Text
He’s starting to get really tired. Really tired.
With every second that passes by he’s sure his mind is rotting away. Degrading.
Events of late have left him dizzy, nauseous even- the constant static in his head, the memories, the visions. He’s drowning, entirely engulfed and overwhelmed by the many woes of the world.
He thinks it may be beginning to take its toll. After all, why did he even start on this quest? What even is the quest?
Does he want to destroy Sephiroth? Does he want to erase Shinra from the face of the planet? The dying planet. Does he want to save said planet? Does he want to find Zack?
Every time he thinks about it- really thinks about it- the static grows louder and the pain that always lingers grows ever more insistent. He can’t believe he had forgotten so much. How could he have forgotten Zack? Zack’s death? The image of his eyes shutting and his head dropping to the side - the blood on his fingers that made it so difficult to hold his limp cadaver close and mourn him properly. His hands are so often stained with blood, but he had actually forgotten how it felt when it belonged to someone he cared about. Zack.
Zack.
His best friend. Only friend. He had abandoned his home, along with Tifa, and thus didn't deserve her feiendship. But Zack was there, smiling, laughing, chatting like everything wasn't about to end miserably. Until he wasn't, and then it did. He had forgotten all of that, for all the good it did him since the image of his friend laying still and cold and pale, beaten, bloody, dead- is now burnt into the forefront of his mind. All of a sudden he’s lost Aerith and Zack both and he wants nothing more than to join them and finally be rid of all the hurt. Though the second his thoughts spiral to this point the static burns, and Cloud, forced to wince and clutch his head like many times before, hears a distant voice- “It’s not yet your time, puppet”...
But still, the salt in his tears burn his eyes and his eyelashes are dewy as they fall. Remembrance is bitter. What’s more is that there are still missing pieces. He remembers… poetry? The sombre recital of loveless, he believes, though he can't seem to place the memory. Whatever, he’s not much of a poetry guy anyway.
And he vaguely remembers something about a coma? It makes sense. Except it doesn’t. If it was a mako-induced coma, how is he alive? He should be dead- wishes he was- “not yet, puppet” -but that means he must come to terms with losing however many years of his life it was. Oh, Gods, how old was he? How did he not notice that he was no longer fifteen?
How long had he been going through the motions, not even clocking that the reason his relationship with Tifa is so rocky is because he dropped off the map for a good four or five years? Tifa's "Where were you? You still won't tell me!" Resonates in his mind, and he was so close to the truth. He'd just assumed he'd hit his head or something, causing a few missing links in his memory.
He'd just brushed it off because of course he couldn't tell her classified information, but why? He's not loyal to Shinra. He should be spilling all of their dirty secrets. Not once did he suspect that he'd lost five years of memory, and that he really, physically couldn't tell Tifa about it if he wanted to. After all, you never realise that you've forgotten something until you're reminded. And reminded he was.
That’s how he ends up in front of Tifa later on, when his eyes are no longer wet, eye twitching while he tries to swat away lingering doubts that she’s an imposter. He doesn’t remember feeling a pulse back then, when he'd nearly killed Sephiroth. -Or had killed him, considering they're currently being haunted now.
“How old are you?”
“What?”
Red eyes squint at him in question as she tilts her head, flyaway strands of hair that don’t quite reach her ponytail falling over her face at the sudden and exaggerated movement. Her brow furrows and a puff of air is forced from between her lips, bitten and chewed red. A nervous habit forced back to the surface by the stress of losing a loved one, he supposes.
“Cloud, don’t you know it’s rude to ask a girl that? Besides, you already know, we are the same age you know…”
Barret raises an eyebrow at the interaction, scoffing when she remains stubborn. He doesn’t even pretend to know anything about the etiquette behind talking to a lady and what obscure questions can or can’t be asked for the sake of politeness. He thinks, being known terrorists and all, they're probably be past the point of politeness. But he does seem to be curious now.
“Didn’t you two grow up together? ‘thought you two were best buds…”
“ugh - twenty! Okay? Are you two happy now?”
The indignation in her voice is palpable, though it doesn’t carry much weight to it anymore. Cloud feels like he’s never been further away from her despite being in the same dusty, low-lit hotel room that the group yet again has to share to save money. None of it really matters right now, though.
“I’m… twenty?...”
The mercenary hates this room, it’s much brighter and louder and much, much less tolerable tonight. Tifa and Barret's equally confused and concerned looks fly right past his head as the static grows louder.
His head feels much fuzzier than normal, and what's usually just background noise in his head is now screaming in his ears and sounds like metal scraping along metal in an excruciating melody. Why is it so loud in here? Why does his head hurt so much?! Hands fly to his scalp at roughly the same time as the sting of rattling pain in his knees when he collapses to the wooden floor. There he lays, hands on his head and groaning in agony, his clothes rustling and catching on splinters of wood while his body writhes in an effort to be rid of the pain. Then there are footsteps thundering towards him and voices entirely too loud, screaming his name at him as if he doesn't know it.
It doesn’t register that he’s screaming until the pain in his throat worsens, though he cries out in agony still as blue, mako-flecked eyes roll backward. Feeling like he was just struck by lightning, each of his nerve endings light up with a searing, genuinely blinding pain- It hurts-it hurts!Ithurts!- that drives his back into an arch.
His hands tear at the unruly golden spikes and his teeth could crack under the amount of pressure he clenches his jaw with, though he’s somehow still filling the room with a gut-wrenching wail, and in a last, desperate attempt to be rid of the hurt he rears his head back and smashes it into the floor, denting the weak panels with his SOLDIER strength, to the horror of his friends crowding him. It clocks in their minds at the same time that he’s trying to knock himself out.
Tifa knew he had been acting weird as of late, Barret and Red and even Yuffie could sense it. Though the behaviour had been getting more and more unexplainable- forgetting his own name a couple of days ago, spacing out in the middle of a conversation, talking to himself, attacking things that simply aren’t there… If given some time, a pen and some paper, Tifa could make a comprehensive list of all the strange behaviours displayed by her friend, but right now she had none of these things, and only the breath to nearly choke on in panic when a sickening crack fills the room and Cloud starts to do what can only be described as seizing.
If anyone were to ask, Tifa would say it’s difficult to explain with words the feeling of her heart launching to her throat. So many feelings rush through her panicked and overwhelmed brain at once, and all she remembers in the moment is the words of her mentor who not only taught her how to fight and be strong, but to protect and help others- “protect the head".
She bundles up a nearby pillow as she remembers that you must protect the head while someone has a seizure. He’s undoubtedly given himself a concussion at the very least with that crack to the skull, any more damage could mean the difference between injured and brain damaged.
“Shit! I think he’s having a seizure!”
Barret snaps into action moving a table and a bed out of the way so that Cloud has enough room to not injure himself any more, and then he remembers to crudely turn him onto his side when he hears what sounds like a gurgled, choked, groan. Yuffie and Red are terrified, having never seen this kind of thing before and wondering if Cloud will even recover. He's usually the dependable one, but if he dies like this- could they manage without him? Yuffie wonders if she's ready to lose another friend so soon. It's a silly thought really, since noone can ever truly be ready for something like that.
On the floor, Cloud seizes for another minute or so, though to everyone in the room holding their breath, it felt like a year. Though when the convulsions stop, and his hands go limp from where they were digging permanent dents into the wooden flooring, and his tears finally stop, Cloud is barely responsive. Blood pools from the wound on his head and he vomits then, coughing and hacking into the pillow while even Barret frowns and strokes his hair, trying to soothe him after the shit show that just happened.
Many curagas and a lightly bandaged head later, Cloud wakes up and like a tidal wave, the memory of his spiralling thoughts and memories and the fucking seizure they resulted in all come crashing back into him. He must’ve overwhelmed his brain while it was still recovering from getting those memories back in the first place. But then he feels the following wave of embarrassment when he fully comprehends that holy shit, he just had a seizure in front of everyone. There’s no way he’ll live the humiliation down.
He’s tired, in pain, and alone, and it feels shitty, though just as he thinks that, Barret and Yuffie walk in to check on him, the latter of which happily bounces up to him and hugs him less than gently. Cloud can’t say he’s a great fan of bear hugs, but it does feel nice.
“Oh! You’re alive! Barret, he’s alive! Cloud you scared the crap outta me!”
The loud and high pitched voice makes his ears ring, and Barret’s quick to pull her away despite her visible disappointment. There’s a flash of something near unrecognisable in Barret’s eyes, but Cloud is reminded of the look that Tifa gives him sometimes, like he’s done something to make her worry. Honestly, he’s sick of people looking at him like that. SOLDIER pride and all that- he’s meant to be stronger than this.
“You good? ‘Cracked your head pretty bad back there, soldier boy. ‘Think it was because of all those memories messing with your head?”
A groan resonates through the room. So they’ve noticed it’s his memories giving him grief. Just great. Eventually they’ll realise how much of a liability he is and drop him, he thinks to himself, but then he’s suddenly feeling a large hand in his hair, petting him and holding him close like he’s precious and it has him freezing up like he was just petrified, his brain simultaneously combusting as all of his previous thoughts come to an abrupt halt and he’s left comically stunned.
Right now he feels like shit, head covered in bandages as he rests in the hotel bed but he thinks he’s never been happier. Except from maybe when he was with Zack. Would Zack have held him like this? Told him that everything would be alright in the end?
Right now he’s happy, but the hurting still doesnt stop.
“You really did give us a scare, soldier boy. Don’t do it again. You’re part of the team, and I don’t think any of us will handle it well if we lost another of our own…” There’s genuine softness in his voice, one that’s rarely heard from the headstrong fighter, but before the stunned mercenary can even register it and react, Tifa bursts in, and shit just goes downhill from there.
Tifa, bless her soul, is distraught with worry, blubbered apologies and big, fat tears rolling down her cheeks as she makes a beeline to where Cloud is currently sat. Red and Cid and Vincent follow on, and although they were also worried and alarmed when they’d first heard the news, or saw the seizure happening as Red did, they weren’t crying in full force like Tifa is. Barret doesn’t let go and Cloud doesn’t know how to feel about it- especially when he’s enveloped into a tight, almost bone breaking hug by a worried sick bartender who thinks she was the cause, or at least a catalyst for both not doing anything about his strange behaviour and then getting upset at him for it.
It’s all Cloud can do to just place a hand on her mid-back and half-heartedly return the embrace, slightly embarrassed by all of the attention.
FInally, Cloud speaks, broken out of his stupor.
“Tifa, i’m fine-”
She is obviously not impressed.
“Fine? Fine?! You collapsed, Cloud- you forgot how old you were! And then, if you have to be reminded- you had a seizure! You are not fine! You can’t just wake up from this and say ‘oh, no, nothing’s wrong, everything’s fine’ like you always do and go on like nothing happened because this isn’t the first time you’ve passed out because of a memory, but it is the first time you’ve had a seizure, and nearly cracked your skull open on the floor!”
They both wince at her tone, but Tifa out of regret. She’s getting upset again. “Start taking better care of yourself, Cloud, please. I- We- were terrified when you collapsed, I thought you were going to die…” And the weight of the statement sits heavily in his chest. All he ever seems to do lately is scare and worry everybody.
Barret clears his throat, causing Red’s previously flattened ears to perk up. “I think we could all stand to do some occasional Cloud-watching…” The bad joke fills the silence, but at least Cid snorts as Yuffie raises an eyebrow at him. Though Yuffie seems to change her mind about the joke a couple of seconds later as she praises him for how "genius" that is. Cloud merely rolls his eyes. At least they don’t think he’s a liability. It’s a start.
Chapter 2: Chapter 2
Summary:
a second chapter! yayy! another seizure and more comfort in this one
i hope this doesnt feel rushed or anything, i tried to make it at least as good as the first chapter if not better <33
if you like, please take the time to leave me a comment, the good ones always make my day!
Chapter Text
There’s that dizziness again.
The unsteady pump of his heart beating in his ears and his throat. He swears he can taste it.
It’s the dead of night, and the stale air of the hotel room is choking him. Cloud can’t remember when he woke up, or where he is, or why he’s here. What was he doing again?
It feels like he’s forgotten something important. Something vital. Wasn’t he trying to–... to what? He can’t quite grasp the memory. Cloud stands from the bed, slow and lethargic in his movements, unable to recall how he got here. Under the low light of the moon that leaks through the blinds Cloud is almost completely bathed in darkness. Figure obscured by the night, the only sign of life in the stillness of the room is that of mako-tainted eyes, luminous and peering into the void.
Unmoving, his eyes pierce the blackness as if trained on something hiding in the corner of the room. For a second gleaming green eyes– almost mirroring his own, and so familiar– gazing straight back at him. Before the blond can even take his next breath the vision is no more, and there’s the distinct feeling of warm air kissing his neck. Cloud doesn’t even have the time to feel dread or fear, and his heart drops to his stomach upon the knowledge that something behind him is radiating a heat that feels so present– so alive–...
Lips parted and eyes wide with fright, the hairs on the back of clouds neck stand on end, his chest heaving with laboured breaths. Bile rises to his throat at the smell of ash and fire and burning flesh- and the memories play on repeat when a large, leather-clad hand caresses his shoulder with a gentleness so bitter, so revolting.
His spine straightens at the flashing in his eyes, Sephiroth standing amongst the flames of his home and family, Sephiroth staring straight through him after killing Tifa– Tifa with no pulse, Tifa laying cold and dead on the floor of the decrepit mako reactor, right alongside the body of her father having failed to protect her.
In only a matter of seconds the mercenary is gripping his head and clenching his teeth, groaning in pain and writhing while liquid silver cascades over his shoulder, a cat-like grin sinister and malevolent barely brushing the shell of his ear.
With an aborted and agonised yell Cloud swings behind him in a fit of rage.
Only, there’s nothing there.
Nothing but empty space greets Cloud, but the feeling of being watched still lingers and he swivels frantically, pivoting from one foot to the other in an effort to find and finally kill the perpetrator. But he finds nothing.
His head throbs. The static gets worse and worse by the second, disabling the mercenary and driving him to his knees. He’s dizzy again, the floor spinning beneath him and the ringing in his ears almost deafening. Distressed whimpers and cries fill the room and echo off the walls, and distantly he can hear that low, bone-chilling voice, absent of any uncertainty, invading his head.
“That’s it, puppet. Writhe for me.”
“Get out of my head!!”
His voice travels straight through the thin walls of the hotel, and just as he crumples to the cold floor, the lights are switched on upon the arrival of Vincent, the first to react and to help his comrade. In hindsight no one knows how Vincent could react so quickly when he didn't even rent a room with them, and was adamant that he wasn’t watching over them protectively.
It’s been a few weeks since the last incident with no lingering issues. Sue them for being hopeful that it was just a one time thing. Apparently they were very wrong.
Just seconds after the blinding light floods Cloud’s vision he goes rigid, head snapping back and eyes going white. It doesn't take very long for Cloud to be crowded again, but this time he kicks out, choked noises gurgling from his throat and acting as Vincent’s cue to roll him onto his side quickly and efficiently. Right on time for the seizing boy to vomit onto the floor.
Vincent’s appearance is the same as always, but everyone else is dishevelled and barely dressed. Though any residual tiredness is sucked out of them in wake of the adrenaline still pumping through their veins after hearing Cloud’s desperate cry for help. Vincent snaps at the rest of the gang to give him space, insisting that the blond would definitely not be witnessed a trembling, weakened mess by the people that depend on him to be strong.
Cloud can only convulse on the cold, uncomfortable floor, completely aware of his friends watching with helpless expressions, his bile forcing itself from his lips and his body betraying him. So very few times in his life has he felt this vulnerable and afraid.
Over and over again, like a broken record he thinks “What’s happening to me? Why am I hurting? Why is everyone just staring?”
Desperately he wants answers, but only agonised, strained whimpers break through, unable to properly articulate his distress. Curse his body. His weak body.
The body that was never fast enough, or strong enough. Maybe this is penance for all those people he couldn’t save. Loved ones, loved ones of loved ones…
His mom, Tifa, her family, Zack, Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, Aerith-
From the fog, Vincent’s voice catches his attention, and his focus is ripped from his memories and back to the reality of his impotence. To the tears flowing from his eyes and the pain in every joint and muscle objecting against his involuntary contractions.
“Cloud, I’m sure you can hear me. You’re having another seizure. It’ll soon be over, worry not. The others have left. You probably wouldn't have wanted an audience for this.”
For all that it matters, the talking helps.
Overcome with waves of grief and longing for people he’ll never see again, It’s like he’s sixteen all over again.
Oh, that’s right. He never got to age past that point, did he? Not really. Trapped in stasis for so long…
Physically he’s, what? 20, did Tifa say? But he’s never felt so much like the lost and scared teenager he was before. For the first time in years, Cloud just wants to be held. He misses the comfort provided by his mom. He misses his best friend. He can’t bear to look at Tifa after abandoning her. After failing to save her. After trying to kill her.
Although it doesn’t take much longer for the seizing to stop, the seconds pass by like days to the blond, waiting for his body to listen to him again, and stop causing him so much pain. Cloud is exhausted before it even ends, and as the last minor tremors wrack his body, his eyelids droop.
Vincent takes the opportunity to call in Tifa to help clean him up, who’s by his side so fast it’s like she never left. It took some stern words from Vincent to get some privacy, knowing how important it is having been exposed to Hojo’s unfortunate victims. Very often, one’s dignity is all they have left.
Cloud feels… rough, to put it lightly.
His throat and joints are killing him, and his head is throbbing after the electrical malfunction in his brain. There’s vomit on his lips and in his hair, and sweat soaks his clothes. He doesn’t even have the strength to object to the suffocating warmth of Tifa wrapping her arms around him like he’s something to be cherished.
For the most part he lays there, limp, accepting the affection he doesn’t nearly deserve. Tifa’s shirt is wet with his tears and vomit and it only makes shame well in his chest- heavy and unbearable while his friends clean him up and try to make him comfortable.
Why is that he becomes so filled with longing after these memories resurface? He wonders if it’s got anything to do with the fact that he never got to process the death of his loved ones at the time? Sephiroth left him near death shortly after Nibelheim. Then he lost the next four years of life in a mako-induced coma. Then, the second he wakes up he finds his best friend bleeding out and riddled with bullet wounds. Executed.
They exchange their last words to each other.
Then nothing.
He didn’t even get the chance to mourn.
And so, as soon as he can twitch his fingers without cringing, he’s returning the hug. Blond hair brushes Tifa’s neck and her breathing stutters in surprise. She pulls him up carefully, slowly. God only knows why she keeps forgiving him for all of his shortcomings.
“You’ll be okay, Cloud. You’ll be alright. It’s over.”
Cloud finds solace in her reassurance. It’s like a weight on his shoulders he didn’t even know was there was just lifted away.
Vincent gives him some space, choosing to properly survey the room and ensure its safety while Cloud is led back to his bed.
Freckled, pale cheeks are wiped gently by Yuffie while Tifa tries to tuck him in, their worried gazes meeting for a second in shared misery. Nothing that they can do will help their friend. They can almost feel the weight of Cloud’s guilt tugging at their shoulders. It hurts to feel so useless.
It’s a sentiment Cloud shares.
But as they both refuse to leave his side and Red hesitantly curls up on the foot of his bed in a show of support, maybe the path to understanding shortens a little. Maybe, eventually, they can learn to move on.
Barret sighs, low and tired, reading the girls’ thoughts as if he’s psychic. The floorboards creak under his weight as he settles by the bottom of the bed for the night, legs splayed across the floor to get comfortable. Vincent is quite happy to spend the rest of the night watching over his newfound family under the cover of darkness, and nods in acknowledgement of the grateful look glassing over bright red eyes.
If Cloud could keep his eyes open for any longer he would surely thank his friends for staying. He would think of so many things to say and would stumble over a way to properly put them into words. But he can’t, and the only thing he has the time to say is a truly shattered sounding “thankyou…”. His childhood friend giggles, overwhelmed with relief and admiring her favourite version of her friend: sleepy Cloud.
Until dawn they sit together, sleeping soundly and basking in the comfort and security of each other.
Cloud’s never slept so comfortably, cramped and crushed between the snoring bodies of his friends, awkwardly splayed out over and around him and his bed.
Would they keep him company tonight as well if he asked? He hopes so. (Nothing would make them happier.)
Chapter 3: Chapter 3
Summary:
Cloud's mental health starts to seriously suffer upon his thoughts of Zack. Grief and Sorrow consumes him on a trip with barret, what will happen next?
Notes:
hey! been a couple days lol, worry not though i just work long hours and it tires me out.
anyway, i wanted to go a little more in depth into clouds grief, just because im in my feels having lost a family member recently and because i reckon that once cloud had those memories back, he actually figures out why he feels so empty when he thinks of this guy that he couldnt even remember the name of, yk?
he never actually had the time to grieve before his memory was lost, and once he gets it back i reckon it all comes crashing back to him. i feel like that would cause a mental break in anyone, especially the boy who failed SOLDIER because he wasn't mentally strong enough.
but thats just my two cents on it lmao. im thinking in the next chapter i might havve cloud regress back to when he was 16- i think that would be really interesting!
Chapter Text
It seems that Cloud’s incidents are usually a few days apart. Tifa hates that they're becoming so common that a pattern can be established.
Not all of them are as bad as that first one was. Sometimes his seizures are quiet. Just yesterday Tifa had questioned Cloud for suddenly freezing up in the middle of the busy path they were traversing with no explanation. When he stayed a little too still for a little too long, Tifa distinctly remembers her heart dropping to her stomach as she rushed forwards on autopilot, having expected him to fall.
But he didn’t.
He just… stood there.
It lasted for all of fifteen worrying, anxiety-inducing seconds. When thinking back on it, Tifa knows that fifteen measly seconds is nothing, but in the moment it felt like each second passing by was an hour.
There was no other way to explain it; he just stood in the middle of the pathway, like time had stopped mid-step. Mako-blue eyes were trained ahead in a true thousand-yard stare, only broken by the laboured fluttering of his eyelids. Other than that he remained completely unresponsive. But he didn’t fall – not this time.
Then, as quickly as he’d stopped, he’d started again; sort of like one of the dodgy lights back at seventh heaven. Flickering for a moment before coming back to life like nothing had happened.
He’d tilted his head in confusion - probably wondering how on Earth she had gotten up in his face all of a sudden, and why she was staring at him like he’d grown a second head. And when she’d explained to him what he had been doing he outright denied it.
“No, I've been… i was here- a-and you were behind me- and then… you were in front of me again…”
Shit, it’s not even the first time he’s felt like this - randomly snapping into awareness in the middle of the day, feeling like he’s lost time.
It reminds Tifa of all the times that he had been staring off into space before, seeing things that weren’t there, going totally unresponsive…
Perhaps Cloud has been having these seizures the whole time, right in front of them. Because she knows that’s what it was. Nothing could convince her otherwise - that was a seizure, albeit very small. It fills her with an entirely different kind of dread to think that they hadn’t even noticed.
That something might’ve been wrong from the start.
Today, the group had split up to get a few jobs done quicker and scrape up some more funds. Cloud was paired with Barret. Previously, they didn’t get along too well, always butting heads about something or other, but it’s not quite as tense anymore. In fact, Barret’s down-to-earth attitude has been grounding on a few occasions, when his thoughts began to overwhelm him.
Plus, it’s an added bonus, he supposes, that Barret has shown himself capable of handling Cloud’s episodes. He doesn’t know that the gunman had kept a close eye on Cloud ever since the incident by the bridge in Corel. He knew that Cloud was easily influenced - he just didn’t think he’d up and waltz off a bridge. Since then, he's been more than just a little hesitant to let him go off on his own.
Ever since then, Barret's looked at him differently. It’s not like he thinks badly of the guy - not anymore - but he thinks he sees the boy more for what he really is, now. A kid. A kid, trying to be a hero. There have been instances where he seems considerably younger, almost like Yuffie’s age, and after learning about the mako tanks - when Cloud finally remembered where all those years went, it made a lot of sense.
He really is an awkward teenager who’s seen far too much, living in the body of a 20 year old. Even if his own kid is nothing like Cloud, pure-hearted and unwaveringly kind as she is, he still feels the urge to protect this kid with the fucked up memory.
Though it gets very tiring, constantly worrying about whether the guy who’s supposed to be watching his back is going to wander off or faint at some point.
And Cloud’s not stupid.
He’s not blind, either. He knows that he can’t be trusted anymore. It tears a bigger hole in his hollow heart.
“Stop it! I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not some dumb kid. I’ll be fine.” His freckled face pinches into something a little too close to a pout for Barret to take him all that seriously, but, yeah- he acquiesces- Cloud has a point. He isn’t a kid, nor is he incompetent.
He must’ve noticed how Barret would tense whenever he so much as breathed wrong, or how his arms would flinch every time it looked like Cloud was about to falter. Seeing first-hand how little faith his comrade had in him only spiralled his thoughts deeper into self-doubt and misery; What kind of “living legacy” would let themself fall to such a level? Let themself fail so consistently?
These thoughts plagued him throughout the rest of the evening despite the many distractions, and the air between the two remained tense. No success seemed enough for him to feel like less of a disappointment. Even once the mission had been completed and the two of them were on their way back to their lodgings for the evening with their reward, there was still a lingering feeling of inadequacy.
In contempt of what he’d said to Barret earlier, he knew that the gunman had a point. The distrust is visible on his face. What’s the point in even trying if even his friends are just waiting for him to keel over any second. It must be some kind of sick joke. And he’s supposed to be Zack’s living legacy? Please. He shouldn’t even be living in the first place. He was just a trooper, no one would’ve bat an eyelid if Zack had just let him die. He should’ve just left him in that tank. But Zack was too good of a man, and that’s what got him killed in his stead.
What state would the world be in if he had taken his place? Probably a much better one, he’s sure of that much at least. The gods must get off watching him try, and try, and inevitably fail. The blonde finds himself regretting, but of what he’s not exactly sure. Zack would’ve been faster. Zack would’ve saved Biggs and Jessie. Aerith would still be alive. If only Zack had survived instead.
But he didn’t. The world had lost one of its most incredible creations, and all because Cloud just wasn’t good enough. And he didn’t even have the decency to remember the guy. Cloud has never felt so worthless.
With each new thought Cloud’s head begins to pang, but he simply squints his eyes against the setting sun and counts on it being a head-wound from getting smacked around a little too much earlier by a few stray fiends. Maybe it’s just a lingering status effect.
Whatever. They’re almost back at the hotel. The atmosphere between him and Barret remains stale and silent and usually Cloud would be grateful for it, but he’s just so exhausted. Another hour or so and they’ll be settled back into their rooms.
The silence doesn’t last much longer, unfortunately. Can’t a guy just get five minutes to wish he was dead?
“Hey, Soldier boy… You’ve been pretty quiet lately. ‘You doing okay over there? Stop actin’ like a sad puppy already.”
That set him off like a firework, so many things happening all at once.
Blinding pain strikes through his body like a bolt of lightning. It almost feels like Sephiroth’s Thundaga. Just so, it’s paralysing and head-splitting. His steps stagger, hand flinching to his head, but it doesn’t even make it there before he’s crashing down to his knees, grunting and hissing in pain as his body betrays him for what must be the hundredth time, muscles cramping and weakening despite his struggle.
In Barret’s eyes Cloud seems to fall in slow motion, crumbling like a house on fire. It’s when the blond is crying out in agony that he finally switches back on and rushes to the boy’s side.
Cloud has never felt like this- no fit nor seizure nor enemy attack has ever felt like his skull being ripped in two. Even in the past, flashing memories that don’t belong to him forcing their way into his head hadn’t even felt anything like this. The pain seems to last forever, causing his eyes to roll back and tears to fall all while Barret helps him sit still.
He twitches and rips at the ground, pulling up grass and getting mud all over his gloves. He chokes on his own breath, gasping and clinging onto Barret before it all overcomes his system. There's not enough breath in his lungs to keep him conscious, and not enough oxygen in his brain for him to comprehend what Barret is saying. And then, finally, darkness.
Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Summary:
While Cloud dreams, Tifa worries after his health and reflects on her own inaction in the past.
Notes:
this took me so long and im sure it probably wont even make sense lmfaoo im so sorry guys i really tried my best but i am deleriously tired.
anyway heres a little tifa interlude for you all. i dived a alittle bit into clouds mental health as well, and i feel like a lot of this pieced togwther really well! im pleased with the progress this chapter presents so if it makes no sense i need you to pretend it does. <333
Chapter Text
Memories haunt him as he sleeps, playing out of order in a jumbled mess while he twitches and his eyelids flutter.
Even while sleeping, rest eludes him. His mind remains fractured. There is no sanctuary nor refuge in sleep.
His dream mainly consists of Zack and Aerith, but unlike any other dream he’s ever had in its detail. He remains hyper-focused on the crease in their brows and the dimples on their cheeks, and down to the very last freckle on Aerith’s nose. He thinks he might even be able to count each of Zack’s individual eyelashes if he wasn’t primarily focused on the gaping hole in his chest.
They laugh and smile sweetly in his dream, talking indistinctly with each other and all the while Cloud stares at the chasmal void where his heart is supposed to be. The sensations hit him all at once, the shakiness in his hands and knees, the weakness in his legs, the unease in his stomach.
It’s so cold. His fingertips lose feeling first, then his toes, a starkly terrifying chill climbing from his ankles to his knees and onwards.
It’s cold, and terribly lonely – the feeling of decay.
Aerith and Zack are no longer smiling, the sonorous laughter that had put his mind and soul at peace now nowhere to be heard. They seemed so happy, but when he finally tears his eyes away from his rotting body he’s alone again in a vast white liminal space.
Just like that, he’s alone again.
In a blink he’s on the floor, his lips and fingers blue and his skin clammy and colourless. Sweat drenches his brow.
Gunshots fill the air. His ears ring and mako-blue eyes snap open with renewed life. When had they closed? Among the shrill ringing and gunshots colliding with metal and sand, there’s voices. Many of them.
Desert sands sting his eyes and nothing greets him other than a vast expanse of rocky terrain. Where’s the noise coming from? Why does his chest hurt and his stomach drop?
Why does he grieve?
The blond tries desperately to reach an arm out, to hold himself up, to do anything.
It’s useless.
His head is clouded and his vision is faded, the rocks in front of him waving and swaying when he’s pretty sure they’re supposed to be still. Suddenly he feels motion sick. The nausea is harrowing. Sickness and weakness strokes down his spine and renders his limbs inoperative one by one.
It’s an abrupt reminder that despite everything - despite the many trials he has faced - he still hasn’t changed. He may as well have stayed in stasis. Life wouldn’t be nearly as bleak if he had just stayed trapped in a glass tank like the rotted corpse of a lab specimen. His mind is torn between being sucked into the moment, the past - harrowed by loss and anguish - and remembering that it’s all just a memory.
He flickers between a despaired resignation knowing that all is lost, and the hope that something can still be done, disregarding the fact that none of this is real. Not the gunshots, not the pained gasping of someone he used to know, not the surreal feeling of granite and crushed rock digging into his back.
While Cloud is stuck in his head, the scenery changes again. It’s not a change for the better.
Please, anything but this.
Anything.
He finds no mercy in this dreamscape.
The sight of Zack - sweet, dear Zack - bleeding out of his head again and into clouds lap is a familiar sight since he got his memories back. Most of them, anyway.
Not once has the memory changed or degraded like Cloud himself has. It should be… reassuring? To know that as his body rots and degrades, his memory will remain slightly less impacted, despite its usual unreliability. How pleasant. It’s almost mocking in its irony.
The familiarity of the sight doesn’t make it any less distressing. Not when he’s stuck trying to hold his best friend in his last moments, failing to stop the bleeding and needing to carry the weight of his last words.
Living legacy…
Then, he hears it.
“Stop pretending as if you were sad. Face it- you turn your back on the present and live in the past. Because the light of the present is too much”
That silky voice, low and rich and vainglorious, full of malice and amusement. It creeps down the back of his neck, raising his hair and stealing his breath.
And he jerks awake with a start.
Barret had painstakingly carried the comatose mercenary back to their hotel in the space of an hour. After trying to snap the boy out of his daze proved fruitless the only option left was to make their way back to relative safety as quickly as possible.
At least he hadn’t thrown up on him. Yet.
Small victories, he thinks.
Now he sits in Cloud’s room, guarding him as he lays over the covers; he wouldn’t describe Cloud as looking restful, really. What he’s doing is not resting, if the twitching of his fingertips and the crease between his brows is anything to go by.
Idly, he realises how rare a sight it is for Cloud to look peaceful. No, the boy looks tortured.
Barret keeps his unease to himself; poor Tifa’d nearly had a minor brain bleed seeing Cloud carted into his room over Barret’s shoulder. At least one of them needs to be level headed - it’s only fair that he let her worry about her sickly childhood friend.
Belatedly, she realises that nothing good will come of him waking up, regardless of how much she wants him to. The ornery mercenary will doubtlessly try to run away and deal with this all on his own.
Even before, when he had unexpectedly fallen to one of his episodes, he had tried to get up again and walk it off on his own. Quite frankly, she’s sick of him bleeding himself dry for everyone around him.
Why must he continue to sacrifice when he has next to nothing left?
Knowing Cloud, he’ll try to run away again and leave her in the dust to deal with this all in isolation. Her face scrunches at the bitter thought. Her forehead scrunches and her eyes squint in a heated glare directed at the nearest drywall. Red eyes are glossed over with tears she refuses to shed, and her fists clench so hard that her nails leave crescent moon indents on her palms.
Oh, how wrong she was - back when she thought he might stop this self-destructive streak. She almost feels neglectful. Ever since she first saw him again after so long, she knew something was wrong with him- something that she couldn’t quite place. He wasn’t the same sweet, withdrawn boy he once was.
That isn’t to say that people can’t change after years of combat and servitude. But he came back a completely different person. What she got back was barely the broken exoskeleton of the person he once was.
Suddenly he was stoic and tough, and ready to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. And towards the end he was convinced that he was decaying. He was so convinced that even Tifa herself had started to fear he was right.
That he was actively decomposing.
But that wasn’t it either.
He had begun to take bigger risks more frequently, attacking and defending with a reckless abandon as opposed to his usual calculated approach.
The blond had described to her the feeling of rotting - decomposing from the inside. He feared his scrambled memory was a symptom of “degradation”. That SOLDIER never lasted long before succumbing to it.
By then she was already more than suspicious. One too many comments here and there about Cloud not actually being SOLDIER.
When she had met back with Dr. Sheiran again in Corel and covertly explained his situation, he had explained to her something known as Cotard’s delusion. It was a perfect fit; from there many more puzzle pieces fell into place.
She remembers him saying that “Cotard’s delusion” could be a signifier of Schizophrenia, and he didn’t seem surprised when he’d heard tell of how Cloud would see things that weren’t there, attack out of nowhere, how he would hear voices, or imagine things that hadn’t happened-. He had merely nodded in resignation, pitying the boy for his mind that’s acting against him.
Briefly he went into detail about how Cotard’s delusion could also be an aftereffect of a seizure - something that, at the time, was irrelevant to her. She hadn’t known about his seizures yet.
There’s a dull ache in her chest when she recognises that Cloud might have even been having these seizures even then. Sure, she had suspected before, but having something that’s as close to proof as she can possibly get is nerve-wracking.
Having even speculated that her best friend might be crazy or mentally ill made guilt claw at her gut and left a bad taste in her mouth. It’s much easier to stomach the thought of it being the seizures behind it all- it creates a sense of relief. She doesn’t know why, really; Knowing the cause isn’t going to change the reality of his condition.
Nevertheless, something has obviously happened to make the seizures worse.
What, exactly, she has no clue.
Tifa’s somber thought process is interrupted by a strained yell coming from Cloud’s room, and the subsequent commotion caused by Barret trying to calm the younger man down. Before she can even recognise her own response she’s up on her feet in less than a few short seconds. Her feet thud lightly across old wooden flooring, carrying her straight through the door and into the room opposite.
The air in the room is stifling and hits her like a brick wall as she passes the dent on the floor, caused by Cloud’s first- no- what was thought to be- Cloud's first seizure. It still hasn’t been repaired.
All thoughts are ejected from her mind violently at a panicked Cloud’s strained words as he struggles through a scuffle with the gunman.
“Who even are you?! Get off me! Off!”
Abruptly she skids to an immediate halt, eyes wide as saucers at the scene before her.
“T-Tifa?... What are you…?”
The blond calms considerably, releasing his iron grip on Barret’s shoulder. His confusion upon seeing her is probably the only thing keeping him from shooting out the door, she clocks.
“Where am I? Why do you-... look so…” he pauses, apparently stunned “different…?”.
Chapter 5: Chapter 5
Summary:
Cloud wakes up disoriented and confused, and tifa's presence brings up too many questions for his newly rewired brain to cope with, inducing a panic attack.
Notes:
okay ive had a terrible day and im working every day for the next like week and i just really wanted to get this chapter out before i forgot what i was even writing about halfway through it lmao
also i kind of feel like some of this comes across as tifa bashing and tbh i didn't want to portray it that way but like she couldn't really do much to help Cloud and i wanted it to reflect as frustration at herself, because i feel like throughout the game she's always been frustrated at herself for not being able to do more in a lot of situations, much like cloud himself. i don't actually hate her lol
Chapter Text
The scene playing out in front of her isn’t exactly a reassuring one. Collected confusion is the first emotion she recognises as her eyes skim over the bodies of the two men in the room. An emotion shared amongst the three of them.
“I was just lookin’ out for ya” he begins “-so ya didn’t have a fit in ya sleep or somethin’! Is this the thanks I get?” In the heat of the moment he doesn’t quite understand just how confused and terrified the boy is while simultaneously trying to hold the blonde down with enough strength so that he can’t lash out like a cornered animal.
The attempt is rather short lived. Cloud’s hysteric ramblings ensure that much.
“Who even are you?! Get off me! Off!-” The inflection of his tone and the break in his voice betrays him, and the sincerity of his plea spears through Barret’s chest in the form of an ugly, crushing sense of guilt.
Barret’s arms effectively go limp, letting the boy free in wake of the sheer, unadulterated panic he’s met with. The grip he’d had on Cloud’s arms was bruising- as was Cloud’s grip on his shoulders, loosened since Tifa’s sudden appearance-, and in his SOLDIER uniform the stark white finger impressions decorating the lithe muscle of his biceps slowly fade but are clearly visible to anyone with the wherewithal to look.
The gunner flinches at the reminder of his own force staring him right in the face.
He seems to have only just noticed Tifa’s appearance in the room with them, and time seems to stand still in the following few seconds.
“T-Tifa?... What are you…?” he breathes. “Where am I? Why do you-... look so…” he pauses, apparently stunned at the sight of her “different…?”
“Okay, what on Earth is going on right now?!” her tone is sturdy but wavers towards the end- her breath caught in her throat. She’s completely blindsided –has no idea how to address what her childhood friend just said, or just how worrying those words really are. So she doesn’t. Instead, much like she did when she first suspected something was wrong with the boy, she did nothing, and simply hoped it was her imagination.
Things just got exceptionally more complicated.
The rest of the gang are all out completing their own separate commissions and have not yet returned; Vincent cannot take charge, Red cannot break down the situation, Yuffie cannot provide comfort, Aerith…
Right, Aerith is gone.
The reminder is starkly harrowing.
It steals the breath from her lungs; her grief is incomprehensible in the moment, truly hitting her like a bullet to the heart and giving her no time to recover or deescalate the situation. Regardless, no one is here to help her other than Barret –and he obviously isn’t very popular with the blond as of right now.
“Cloud-...?” her tone is inquisitive but more incredulous than anything, brows furrowed and head tilted in that typical Tifa-esque fashion that makes Cloud’s head pang. A stray lock of hair falls over her shoulder and he’s circumvented with a sense of deja-vu that’s so nauseating his mouth waters and his stomach drops.
He’s just woken up to find a complete stranger looming over him, built like a grizzly bear despite seeming half asleep. There’s a strange throbbing in the back of his head, right around the base of his skull and his childhood friend –or an imposter who looks exactly like her, a distant voice whispers– is staring him in the face.
Snippets of memories flash behind his eyelids every time he blinks, and they burn in every sense of the word.
Blazing orange and red; the haunting gaze of his hero -as he relives the memory of his home ablaze, it feels like the fire sears his brain and flows like magma through his veins. All he can manage to do in response is wince, anguished by the most recent image he can picture.
Tifa, lifeless and cold in his arms.
Murdered by Sephiroth.
Where is he now? How is Tifa alive?! Maybe she’s a fake. Maybe Sephiroth was doing him a favour… he can feel it- the sweet voice in the back of his mind stroking up and down his spine and settling in his heart- “She’s not real, my puppet…”. But how could she not be real? He feels as if he’s missing something important.
Cloud chokes on his spit and his head pangs again, neck craning back and face contorting with agony. For a short, electrifying moment Tifa and Barret both jolt to his aid, fearing another seizure, but the boy simply cries and hides his face in his hands. There’s far too much happening in his head, flashing memories and pain and loss and longing- where’s his friend? He remembers Zack being here just a minute ago before his world ended…
“Z-Zack-! Zack?! Where is he? Tifa? -Please, my head-! I don’t understand! Zack!” he calls out to him, once again incognizant to the tragedy that had befallen him. His voice is strained and his throat is raw as he cries the name of his best friend, fearful of the lack of response. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows. Knows that he’s lost.
Faced with the oppressive sense of bereavement he struggles to stay afloat, the loss of his home and his mother fresh like an open wound- and he bleeds.
Tifa’s heart shatters for Cloud, standing there uselessly as Barret tries to quiet him, but the blonde wastes no time scrambling from the bed to leave. His skin gleams with a light sheen of sweat and his tears leave tracks on freckled cheeks, scintillating in the light. When had he started to cry?
The world narrows down to Cloud at that moment, and the dread pooling in the pit of Tifa’s stomach as he has to be restrained to the bed, kicking and weeping.
And there he is.
There‘s the real Cloud, she thinks. It's been a while since she’s seen him; vulnerable and pitiful like a puppy, and eager for change he can’t engender.
There is Cloud, in all his glory- having shed the skin of Zack and SOLDIER. And he is weak and afraid. His world is crumbling to pieces in front of him all over again and there’s absolutely nothing they can do to mitigate the damage.
“Tifa!- Please!- Please!- Where is he? Where’s mom?” and Tifa can do nothing but behold him, silent in her grief. How have things escalated to this out of nowhere? Is he really, truly degrading? she had known for a while that there was something wrong, that the stress put on his mind would have consequences. And yet, she had neglected to act- to do anything at all as his mind shattered slowly like glass under steadily increasing pressure right in front of them.
All along she had known. When she first found him slumped over at the train station, muttering to himself like a madman; when he had misremembered how long he had been gone. And she did nothing but watch.
What could she have done to stop this, after all? Really, it was bound to happen.
The blonde tries to struggle with all of his strength, but with no idea how to use it, he stands little chance of breaking free. His chest hurts and his head is killing him, and this man is far too strong- he may as well just give up– what would he even do with this newfound freedom, anyway? Find Zack? His mother? Maybe if Tifa’s alive, then they might be too-
Because she was dead, wasn’t she? His thoughts come in a whirlwind of mania, recent events hitting him like a brick to the face. It feels like he’s falling down into a hole of doubt and fear.
He doubts his memories and can’t tell the difference between what’s real and his imagination. All he wanted was to join SOLDIER and meet his hero. Now his mother is gone and he doesn’t know where he is. And the friend who he vaguely remembers lying on the floor cold and pale and still and bleeding and–
–Is standing right in front of him and looking at him like he’s crazy.
As he’s forced to lay back onto the bed, pressed down by this nameless man for reasons he can’t grasp, he grimaces and gasps, clawing at the bedsheets and arching his neck back to grit through the pain resonating through his head, bouncing across his skull. Pain lights up the nerves from his toes up to his temples and Cloud can’t think straight, let alone find a reason to be anything more than miserable.
Eventually he calms down enough for the ringing in his ears to fade. “–orry bud, ‘last thing we need’s a runaway SOLDIER on the loose right now…” and that voice is… completely unfamiliar to him, though simultaneously accompanied by a dizzying sense of deja-vu.
SOLDIER? What does he mean by that? What SOLDIER? Zack? No, they were referring to him, but why?
He’s no SOLDIER.
Shame accumulates in a black spot across his heart, leaving a sickening taste in his mouth and making him want to shut his eyes and escape the gaze of his witnesses. He’d promised he would be a SOLDIER the next time she saw him.
He’s a failure.
Tifa’s morose silence regarding Zack is yet another catalyst to his quickly increasing panic. Everytime he says his name her heart seems to bleed.
As he struggles to catch his breath, his frenzied thoughts play on repeat, and though they do, he can’t focus on a single one.
Zack is missing, his mother gone, his home decimated. What is left of him now? Where is he? How did he get here? Why does Tifa look so different? Why? Why?! It feels like he’s breathing in the smoke of Nibelheim’s flames all over again, sucking it into his lungs only for it to burn him from the inside and scorch his blood. His eyes burn and he struggles harder, desperately flailing to escape this situation and abandon it all.
His vision seems to shut down but he doesn’t stop struggling, deaf to the pleas of his friends and writhing at the stabbing pain in his heart. It feels like… like drowning- how does he know what that feels like? Why does he hurt? Is he going crazy?
He doesn’t get an answer. What he does get is a slow descent into unconsciousness, awareness slipping away one sense at a time.
From Tifa and Barret’s perspective Cloud gets more and more combative, fighting to get away like a bird with its wings tied down. His head knocks from side to side and his eyes turn unseeing in his terror, breaths coming in rapid and agonised puffs, fingers clawing at Barret’s arms. The man grimaces but doesn’t falter until Cloud rapidly loses strength, movements becoming slow and lethargic until, finally, his eyes roll back, and he slumps.
Well, what the hell are they going to do now?
Chapter 6: Chapter 6
Summary:
Cloud wakes up, but finding Zack and his mother is the only goal on his mind.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
When the others arrive back to the hotel throughout the late evening, Vincent and Cid first and Yuffie paired with Red trailing along shortly after, it’s up to Barret to fill them in regarding Cloud’s most recent deterioration.
Tifa couldn’t bring herself to say it outloud.
Beside herself with worry for her friend, she refuses to leave his bedside. His hand had been enclosed within hers for hours in spite of his hot flushes in his unconsciousness, and in spite of his palms starting to sweat.
What was the catalyst for Cloud losing all of his memories again? Surely he can’t be degrading? Tifa doesn’t even think he was in SOLDIER in the first place, she just never brought it up to avoid messing with his head.. And she sure as hell wasn’t ever convinced that he was lying. As she sits, sombre, by his side she deliberates Cloud’s past, and is rewarded only with more confusion.
The first time she had seen him again at that trainstation back in Sector 7, he was in such a delicate, fragile state. Thinking about it now, she realises that he’s remained that way- easily shatterable. Upon seeing him suffering from shellshock, muttering to himself and unresponsive like he was locked in his own body, all she could think to do in that moment past her cocktail of contradicting emotions was try to get him somewhat lucid.
It was oddly surreal to be treating him so carefully despite his muscle and the giant weapon he was carrying. They must’ve looked mad to the passerby guarde that couldn’t manage to get a response from the blond.
She vividly remembers feeling like she was stepping on eggshells the whole time she was speaking to him, approaching like she would a wounded animal. Thankfully the boy had for the most part snapped back into his senses, and seemed to recover quickly– a complete turnaround from his enfeebled, spiritless self just moments before.
How long would he have remained that way, had she not been there?
Her tender grip on his hand strengthens in response to the thought. Now that she really ruminates on it, anything could’ve happened to him like that. Especially in Sector 7. He was so vulnerable back then.
He really could’ve died.
It wasn’t even deliberate, the way she had asked him how many years it had been. She had just been so happy- so relieved to see him again, thankful that he was okay.
But he wasn’t.
Not really.
When the number reached her ears, “five”, bewilderment was the first emotion she had felt at the time. Utter confusion, followed by an awful sense of foreboding. Something was definitely wrong… right? It had been seven.
Right?
At the time, standing there in the chill with her childhood friend that she had found like a broken doll on the sidewalk, sun rapidly setting, doubt spread through her mind like disease. Cloud had quit Shinra to become a mercenary, right? But now he was standing here clad in SOLDIER uniform, sword and all, mako blues staring straight through her.
Striking irides, almost ghostly in the low light, had been so convincing. You can’t fake that gaze– that signature SOLDIER glow.
And now he was saying it had been five years when it had been seven? Had she miscounted? Did she misremember?
Was it actually her that was losing her mind?
And at Kalm… She was certain. She could’ve sworn he wasn’t there for the Nibelheim disaster -calling it a massacre stirred a mournful feeling in her heart- but there he was, standing there, recounting events he shouldn’t have known about; Depicting vivid descriptions of details nobody but she could’ve known. Her and maybe Sephiroth himself.
Plus the soldier that she vaguely remembered as Zack. Cloud was not there to see any of that. But he was so accurately describing it all, it was really like he was.
Again, doubt had stopped her from interjecting- from asking what the hell he was talking about because he was not there, damnit- demanding how he knew all of the minutiae- the photo they took- how injured she was- the burning of the village…
But doubt had silenced her. She had doubted herself and her own recount of events. It was a catastrophe, and a pretty traumatic one, after all- a little paramnesia was to be expected. But how could she have misremembered Cloud’s presence- there’s no way. Cloud had to be wrong. And the omission of Zack? Especially knowing now how precious he was to the boy. Zack was the first person he’d looked for today.
Sure, Tifa was there for him, but Cloud had been looking for Zack.
And not only did she doubt her own memory, she was worried about his continually frail state of mind. God only knows what might’ve set him off. She had seen him driven to incapacitating headaches over seemingly nothing, and such a large lapse in his timeline definitely did not bode well.
Which brings the question now, what does he remember? Repeatedly she’d been asking herself this over the last few months, and now it looks like she’s starting from square one all over again. It all seems so hopeless.
At least he remembers who she is, unlike Barret and more than likely the rest of the gang too.
Tifa’s torn to pieces over the comatose blond, thumb stroking the skin of his palm- gloves removed. Big red eyes take in the sight of him, miserable and forlorn.
And if this is how bad his mind’s gotten after steadily growing worse, what’s yet to come?
Why could he only remember her? He’d called her name but treated Barret like a stranger. And what had he meant when he’d said she looked different? Just how much more has he forgotten? It feels as if Cloud forgetting Barret is just scratching the surface.
That fear that was so reminiscent of the Cloud she knew in childhood- his confusion, his visible distress…
And then he started asking– begging– for her to tell him where Zack is- where his mother is.
It's like he’s gone back in time.
What does this mean? How can he not remember her death?!
Before, he had remembered it like he was there- like the flames had burnt it into his mind, he just refused to talk about it until then. But now it’s like she’s been hurled back to when they were kids. When he was just a boy, barely a day spent out of Nibelheim. He was so much more timid back then.
At least, if he knows who Zack is, he must remember joining Shinra. She could piece together that much. But he doesn’t seem to know anything about being SOLDIER from the look on his face when Barret had mentioned it.
There’s a list of questions in her head, ready for when Cloud next wakes up; The others are surely just as worried. The room is filled with a nervous energy, shared by the entire team.
Despite the suddenness of it all, none of them are actually surprised. No, this wasn’t unexpected. It would’ve been naive to have expected these headaches and episodes to lead to nothing.
It’s just such a drastic change.
Cloud sleeps for hours, and while he does the team take it in turns to watch over him. They’re all sharing the same room, which makes it much easier for the boy to never be alone, but the anxiety is just about driving Tifa out of her mind.
“Honestly Barret,” she starts, sounding indignant “did you have to be so rough with him? He was terrified!” Somewhere in the back of her mind she knows that she’s in the wrong for that, but right now she desperately needs something to be angry at while her friend’s mind seems to be hanging by a thread.
“Oh, come on, Tifa! I was just makin’ sure he didn’t run off like he usually does! And don’t tell me I'm wrong, either! You know that’s the first thing he’d do!” They both continue to bicker back and forth, taking out their shot nerves on eachother while Red and even Cait Sith chime in as attempted damage control. They only end up fanning the flames.
Up until now he had been more or less quiet or busy doing his own research for their next destination, but even now he wishes he had stayed at the terminal a little longer instead of coming back to this.
Barret gets more and more aggravated with being blamed and in the moment he forgets to lower his voice and promptly gets shushed by a pouting Yuffie. Finally, the dispute trickles into an uncomfortable silence, leaving a bitter taste in the mouth.
His face scrunches in regret, and neither him nor Tifa comment on the unshed tears in her beady eyes. All she wants is for Cloud to start feeling better, and for everyone to stop arguing with one-another. Really, is that so difficult?
Cloud sleeps, ignorant to the tense atmosphere and the uneasiness of his friends. He sleeps through the remainder of the day, and well into the night, until his eyes blink open drearily at some point in the early morning.
…very early morning, by the lack of light filtering through cheap curtains and the tweeting of morning birds outside.
His head feels as if it’s been stuffed with cotton and he’s barely capable of thought until he sees the figure of a complete stranger hunched by his bedside in the dark. Terror runs cold in his veins and he breaks into a cold sweat, going completely still until his eyes adjust and he agonises over the last thing he remembers.
That’s right- he was being pinned by a stranger while Tifa, his friend, looked on and did nothing to help. Why? Why would she do that? Betrayal is a bitter pill to swallow, as if he didn't already have enough crap to worry about.
Why would she stand ther, and do nothing?
Duvet-covered chest barely rising or falling with his shallow breaths, he slowly peels his clammy hand away from that of this… person. Then, he notices that they aren’t alone.
Many strangers fill the room, all asleep by the looks of it, and Tifa is in the next bed. He doesn’t ruminate on that fact long enough to want to stay- doesn't spare a thought toward how diffferent she seems this time, and slowly he eases himself out of the bed.
Footsteps light, posture shrinking into himself upon hearing the shuffling of sleeping bodies scattered throughout the room. He makes it out without incident, bypassing the sword that laid behind the door without even a passing glance. After all, as a mere trooper, he never had a weapon to call his own, no. -Only the rifle handed to him prior to a mission. The dry leaves and dirt beneath his feet are barely disturbed in his wake, silent as the night when he stalks through the grey of early morning, eager to disappear and find his mom, and his real friend, lost after Nibelheim.
'Cause she’s not his real friend.
She’s not real at all, he hears a quiet voice say behind him. Though when he turns to look, startled and perturbed by such an odd thought, -because surely it was just simple ideation - theorization in his head that he’d only thought he'd heard, right?- he's met only with the sight of the dingy hotel he must've been staying in with those... people.
But how could somebody not be real? -The sickening images of Tifa’s dead body that flash in his eyes and knock the breath out of his lungs drive a stake through his heart, as if answering the question for him.
The blond has to fight away a gag at the memory, quickly turns away, and wanders into the unknown to get away from it all, unsteady legs holding far more power than he remembers them having before.
He'll find Zack. And he'll find his mom, even if it's just gravestones he's met with. He has to.
The tears stinging his eyes don't hinder him in his treck forwards, but he can't get them to stop either.
Notes:
oh dear, what are we going to do now?
lemme just say that he knows everyone in neibelheim is most likely dead, but he's just straight up caught in a limbo between the dread and hopelessness of acceptance- and stright up denial lol.
i tried to sort of wiggle in some sephiroth type whispers and thoughts here and there, like the occasional doubt of things being real- basically that voice in his head is actuallhyh sephiroth trying to spread animosity and like cast doubt in his mind. i also thought i was so smart when i wrote that bit about him hearing a voice behind him but deliberately didnt put it in quotation marks because sephiroth is messing with his head. dont mind me lmao
anyway hope ya'll liked it and if you did, PLEASE please please leave me a comment, i read every single one and i love them dearly- they make me so happy to see! <3333
Chapter 7: Chapter 7
Summary:
Cloud is lost, and then he is found again.
Notes:
IM BACK BABBYYYYYY
Im so sorry to those of you who were eagerly awaiting the next update- life has been lifing for the past few weeks and ive been working like 30+ hours overtime for a little extra money and unfortunately i just went to a wake for a loved one a couple of days ago that i still havent quite processed the passing of. ive been so exhausted lately that daytime naps are becoming a regular occurance after work 😩
anyway here's chappy seven, im sorry that it's just impossible for me to end my chapters on anything but cliffhangers, ive tried but it's like the spirits wont let me not turture yall
hope you enjoy anyway <33
Chapter Text
On he walks, barely aware of his own destination.
Nibelheim, maybe? It was the last place he saw them both, after all. Is there even anything left of it after the fire? The more he ponders on it, the more miserable he becomes; Head swarmed with morbid speculation and dread over what he might find once he gets there, and a distant but disorienting buzz.
–That is, if he gets there.
A bead of sweat trails its way from his temple to his jaw, leaving a glistening trail behind to catch the light of the hot sun currently beating down on his weary form. Face pale and ghostly, lacking any of the rosy or freckled hue it had before, Cloud presses on- determined to ignore the developing paranoia that slowly claws its fingers up his back and around his throat.
Every gaze held with a passerby, every loud noise, every passing shadow- his heart works overtime in his chest. It beats unsteadily against his ribs and he can hear the pulsing of his blood in his ears, fingertips going numb and legs growing shaky. Is it the vaguely curious and unsubtle stares of strangers in the street making him feel like he might keel over?
Anyone else would probably be blistered an angry red from such a long period of direct exposure to the harsh rays of the sun, but not this mako-infused boy. Instead his skin wears a sickly ashen colour, a sheen of sweat glazed over his skin. Enhanced body, fighting the burn of the sun quicker than it can fester but failing to combat this sickness. Of course, he’s not invincible. He still burns, and bleeds, and hurts. His skin cells are still dying, they just regenerate faster than they can die. The feeling is indescribably painful as flesh remoulds itself.
Of course, any onlooker would raise a curious eyebrow at the obviously confused and disoriented passerby stumbling through the streets. And sure, one could argue that someone- anyone!- should have stopped to help by now but it would make minimal difference. They still part in the streets to make way, to avoid him. Everyone knows what response they’ll be met with. As if it was a universal acknowledgment that’s completely flown over his head.
Why would they help, after all?
Everyone's seen them before, it's really nothing new- whispers of soulless husks dragging themselves to a destination unknown, haggard men barely able to lift their feet- running themselves ragged. It’s just another ‘cloaked freak’. They will only trail past, unresponsive. Why would this one be any different? And while not quite ‘cloaked’, he certainly acts the part of the gaunt and cadaverous figures that have earned themselves such a reputation. No one bats an eyelid even if he’s not dressed the part- all assuming he’s after that stated ‘reunion’, that religiously falls from their lips.
And ever since he’d left that hotel so many hours ago -how long has it been?- he’d had the distinct feeling that he was being followed.
Watched.
Like pins and needles he can feel the heated gaze of another- others?- tracing across prickled gooseflesh. Distinctly different from being stared at like a criminal by strangers, it’s something much more sinister. Something insidious.
Though there is no longer sufficient strength in his body to do anything about it except to fear. To agonize. Legs which once felt so unnaturally strong now drag with each step, tripping him up and buckling beneath him. If he had the sense, he might describe such a shitty feeling as being dosed up on caffeine while still wrought with an unshakeable, bone-deep exhaustion.
It’s similar, right down to the shaking hands and feet, the rapid heartbeat, the over-tired alertness, and the conflicting heaviness in the limbs and the overwhelming need for rest.
As a trooper, he’s had many of those days, fuelled only by caffeine and willpower. Though after Nibelheim and Sephiroth…
He supposes he quits, now. No use chasing after a dream long dead.
Real rest, he wants for. Not passing out for a few nightmare fueled hours, no. Sleep. Respite. He aches for it.
When was the last time he’d eaten something, again? He can’t remember. He can't even remember what day it is. How many days has he been asleep since Nibelheim? Mind wandering, he thinks about how different Tifa looked- but not different enough to be unrecognisable- God, he hadn’t been comatose had he?...
Flashes of visions, so quick he can’t quite put a finger on them- all vaguely resembling a body. Thinking about her for too long makes his head buzz louder. Makes his thoughts want to stray away without conscious effort.
The boy gasps and drags himself down derelict junkyard roads, heaving himself past decayed exoskeletons of what used to be buildings and machinery alike, through small towns and villages brimming with uncomfortable habitants that actively avoid looking him in the eye. And yet, undeterred by the constant change of scenery, that presence he felt at the very beginning of his journey has not dwindled. Contrarily, it’s become almost suffocating; Growing closer despite his efforts to gain distance.
Cloud’s mind can't seem to stay in one place as he carries himself, sheer force of will being the only thing keeping him upright- as always. Even so, the boy is visibly on his last legs, even if there’s nothing and noone around him to witness.
No signs of life.
He had managed to make the journey from the furthest parts of outer Corel, and almost all the way to Nibelheim. It took much longer than it should’ve, especially given his current condition and the fact that he didn’t even know where he was at first. He just followed the tug he felt pulling at him like a thread, tied right to his heart.
Like a puppet string.
Until his focus is ripped from his thoughts; The previously unnerving prickle at the base of his neck turns into a blood chilling alarm, demanding he runs away or dodges right now. Throat tight and dry he whirls himself around with great effort that has him stumbling backwards, muscles straining and chest heaving, and immediately he’s hit with nothing but the rays of the sun at its hottest. There's no one there. Is he going crazy? Confusion has little time to set in.
There’s a hand on his shoulder, unmoving, like it’s been there a while but he’s only just noticed it. Strength pouring from each finger as it curls around the joint and digs in. Seized with panic, Cloud’s heart flutters maladroitly where it sits in his chest, nearly jumping to his throat as the world narrows to each finger he can feel bruising his skin down to the prints. To the breath on the back of his neck.
Heart palpitating and mouth dry, Cloud is frozen in place, unable to will any kind of movement, afraid he’d set something off by disturbing the air. But the fingers dig deeper and a throaty chuckle sounds from behind him and despite his skin burning in the hot sun, he’s never felt so chilled. That’s what he thinks, anyway.
Sephiroth. He’d recognise that voice- that laugh- any day of the week. Someone he once looked up to like royalty. Like divinity, even.
That bastard.
After a swift mental kick up the ass he finds renewed life, his muscles strain and tighten, -he swings around once more with all the momentum he can physically carry. Footsteps clumsy and unbalanced, half defeated by exhaustion alone, he clenches his hand and puts every memory of his mother and friends –his hometown– and his crushed dreams behind the force of his punch.
And his fist catches something.
Hard.
Only, the second his eyes fall on black leather boots and SOLDIER gear, his eyes burn, and his head spins. There's static, and ringing in his ears every time he tries to drink in the surely glorious sight of that sick bastard being clocked in the eye- but it’s impossible when his eyes divert away uncontrollably and static sears the already fried connections in his brain. And it burns. Like he’s trying to look at the sun.
Or at some kind of inconceivable horror.
Delirious with pain and disorientation he groans and shouts with a broken, cracking voice, hands clutched at his head uselessly- grabbing and clawing at his hair with wild abandon. The static grows and he stumbles, eyes screwed shut and green and blue spots are burnt into his vision. His centre of gravity is thrown completely askew in seconds. He doesn't even comprehend what’s happened until he hits the floor hard like a brick house bulldozed over.
Fuck, the pain is debilitating. His ears have popped and his eyes are unseeing, nausea creeping from his stomach despite its lack of contents. On the floor he writhes like a damaged butterfly in the palm of a child, unaware of its agony and broken wings in their palms. It feels as if the ground beneath him is spinning, rough debris and stone stabbing at his flesh, and that each joint is being pinned down by some kind of invisible force.
It’s then that his body finally succumbs, and without his friends to protect him he’s completely exposed and vulnerable as he seizes. Cloud jerks and chokes and goes rigid, though still fully aware- and with no memories of anything like this ever happening to him before, he is afraid.
He’s so afraid.
Never has he been so utterly miserable. He’s despaired when his body no longer listens to him, and he feels weak and utterly alone. He feels sick to his stomach, mouth now watering enough for him to choke on it, and with nobody there to look after him or tell him what’s happening- why does he feel like this? Why is his body failing him?- he soon feels overwhelmed. Hot water runs down the bridge of his nose and into his hairline, and it's one of the last things he feels before his body capitulates to the fog of exhaustion. That, and a heavy pit of dread and terror.
Is he going to die?
Tseng clenches his jaw and holds his hand to it, the skin already bruising as a result of Cloud’s force, but just as his eyes narrow into a cutting glare and his body stiffens to retaliate with violence, he sees the boy fall to the floor in an ungraceful heap. He had only come across the blond by coincidence- but upon seeing how battered and weak he looked, he would have been remiss not to attempt his capture.
He had not expected the boy to start having… a seizure? Right in front of him.
Although they had been at a temporary stalemate, he knew that Rufus’ focus would eventually be recaptured by the troublesome boy and his terrorist buddies. Thus, this would have been an opportune moment to move in. But faced with a medical anomaly- there were no records of Cloud being epileptic or suffering from seizures- he stumbles a little.
If he were feeling any amount of perturbed it doesn’t show in his actions whatsoever, his steps confident but wide while he comes to the boy’s aid. He had only meant to capture- not frighten to death. Was this all because he was too rough when he was obviously weakened?
Maybe he had been poisoned.
Possibility after possibility emerges in Tseng’s mind in explanation to Cloud’s condition while he pillows the boy’s head with his hand- the blond seemingly intent on cracking his head open on the cobblestone floor. And as he contemplates the chances of having found Cloud in this state, he also finds it suspiciously out of character for his companions to be nowhere in sight. The boy surely hasn’t been excommunicated- perhaps he went off on his own.
It had almost seemed as if Cloud had lost his mind and just started… wandering.
He wasn’t cohesive, and could barely look at Tseng as an expression of terror morphed his usually soft but pouty features. It was almost like Cloud had been looking straight through him- seeing something that wasn’t there. He’d looked haunted. That unpleasant swirl of emotions had been mixed largely with fury, in addition- probably explaining the punch. But it’s not as if Tseng had done anything to warrant such a response.
No matter. His thoughts are mere questions he won’t get answers to until he finds the boy medical attention, and so- he slips his hand to his pocket to call his boss and arrange for the appropriate transportation and facilities as the last of Cloud’s spasms wreak havoc on his body.
It’s only when he starts to choke and wheeze does Tseng’s brow furrow further- and with swift precision he puts his emergency first aid training into practice. He heaves the boy up and leans him against his chest with his head over his shoulder with no great amount of effort. The boy has practically withered. With his body weight practically slumping into Tseng’s instead of away, it’s easier for Tseng to effectively hit the area of his back just above the diaphragm to force out the obstruction- that most likely being his own saliva, he thinks clinically.
All it takes is three blows to the back to have the frail SOLDIER impostor tensing and vomiting onto the floor behind Tseng -and thankfully not on him- with a violent hacking before relaxing considerably from the spasming and jolting. It’s to be expected that when Tseng pulls him away like some kind of wounded kitten being held by the scruff, the blond has at some point passed out. The turk can feel Cloud’s skin, sweaty and hot as if burning, and clammy and pale as if half dead.
Just what was he doing, so far from his last known location barely a day ago?
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