Disclamer: Final Fantasy VII is owned exclusively by Square Enix and I make no monetary profit from this writing
A/N: I haven't been posting in Good Doctor's Assistant because of this AU. I'm sorry it was too cute. So warnings: Fem!Cloud (don't you dare start bitching about it, you haven't even read it yet) Fluffy!Sephiroth (because my Sephiroth always comes out fluffy, even when I want him to be an asshole) there will be sex in the second chapter and general cuteness throughout. If you don't like this or are upset that I'm not working on Good Doctor's Assistant, then don't read it. It's that easy.
In Sephiroth's mind, it would always remain a year of wonders. More things happened than he could possibly imagine and all of them combined performed a miracle: they made him so unbelievably happy. Not one of his later successes would ever stand up to the pure circumstance he had been lucky enough to be a part of in that year.
It started when Hojo let him out. Sephiroth had been outside before, but it was a place of mystery and no small amount of fear. In a sense, Sephiroth had been set free, but he had no instruction on what he had to do. He was barely eleven at the time.
The local children had been instructed by their parents to not interact with him if they could help it, so most of his time those first few days was spent wandering around the mountain by himself.
Then a few of the other children encroached upon his territory. He allowed it and used the time to watch them, to see what other children did. One of the younger ones caught his eye, not because he was the biggest or the best, but because the others kept pushing him away. He couldn't understand why. He was smaller than the others, but he could kick the ball just as well as the others. Then one of the older boys spoke.
"Girls don't play football Cloud," he said, "Go back to Tifa or something."
"I want to play," the little blonde one said.
"We don't play with girls," another said. Sephiroth watched the little blonde and realized that what he mistook for a small boy was actually a girl. Her forlorn face as the other boys ran off without her stuck with him. He followed her back to town to make sure she got there all right and watched her get nearly the same treatment from the girls because she wore pants and had dirt on her knees.
It took a few days more before Sephiroth plucked up the courage to actually try to speak to anyone. He spent much of it watching the little blonde move from group to group and always get rejected for some reason or another before finally going back to her house to watch them as Sephiroth did.
What changed their daily lives happened when the pushing escalated. Meaning the girl was actually shoved down when she tried to play football with the boys again. They laughed and jeered as mud from the melting Spring weather splashed on her face. One actually splashed more in.
Sephiroth found himself stepping in. All it took was his presence and they left her there. Sephiroth wasn't sure what he should say to the girl, but she didn't care at that point.
"What are you looking at?" she sniffed miserably. She started to tuck her knees into her chest, a sign Sephiroth knew meant she was very upset but was trying hard not to show it.
"Are you hurt?" Sephiroth asked. She merely fixed him with a cold blue stare behind the splatter on her face. Sephiroth took out one of the handkerchiefs the others made him carry around. Hojo was usually pretty upset if he came back despoiled. He squatted next to her and wiped off her cheek gently.
"It's coming off," he said as he offered her another one. She sniffed again and took it, wiping much more roughly than he had.
"Boys are stupid," she said.
"I am a boy," Sephiroth said.
"Then you must be stupid," she said, "here's your rag back." Sephiroth took it quietly and offered a hand. She refused it and got up on her own. She was still wiping her eyes as she walked away. Sephiroth was at her side with another white cloth.
"Here," he said. She shook her head.
"I don't need it," she said, "just leave me alone."
"What are you called?" Sephiroth asked.
"Not 'sposed to talk to strangers," the girl mumbled.
"Neither am I," Sephiroth said.
"So stop and leave me alone," she said.
"I don't want to be a stranger anymore," Sephiroth said, "People call me Sephiroth." The little girl stopped and looked up at him for a long moment.
"I'm Cloud," she said, "I have to go home now so..."
"Can I talk to you tomorrow?" Sephiroth asked.
"Why?" Cloud asked.
"Because I like talking to you," Sephiroth said, "and you talk to me." Cloud shrugged then ran off before Sephiroth could ask anything else.
Sephiroth waited for Cloud to come back. He watched her wave goodbye to her mother and look around at the other children, already pointedly ignoring her. She started walking up towards where he usually lurked.
He felt nervous all of a sudden. He didn't know what he was going to say to her. He walked around, having nothing better to do. She came up to where she had seen him the day before. She kept her distance.
"So..." she said, "Are we going to talk or what?" She shoved her hands into pockets in pants that were at least a size too big. The waist had been rolled up several times.
"...What did you want to speak about?" Sephiroth asked. She rolled her eyes.
"When you said you wanted to talk I thought that meant you had, you know, a subject," she said. Sephiroth made no move. He felt he had ruined his chance.
"Do you at least read?" she asked. Sephiroth's list of books was small, but it was a place to start because Cloud had read all of them and more. Sephiroth looked at the fount of knowledge of before him who stood a good foot or so below him.
"How old are you?" Sephiroth asked. Cloud hesitated.
"Six and a half," she said. Sephiroth wouldn't have been surprised had she bumped up age by a few months, but let her lie to him.
"How do you know all this?" Sephiroth asked.
"My Mom knows stuff," Cloud said, "We read together a lot too."
"Why don't the other kids like you?" Sephiroth asked. Her eyes turned cold again, they had grown bright and animated while she was talking about books.
"Why don't they like you?" she countered.
"Because I'm not completely human," Sephiroth said, "that's what I've been told." She looked a little shocked by that.
"No wonder you're so stupid," she said, "you live with morons."
"You don't think they told the truth?" Sephiroth asked.
"Not unless you can prove it," she said. Sephiroth stared at her for a long moment. Then he jumped. He landed on a ledge over twenty feet up. Cloud stared up at him.
"Woah," she said.
"I told you," Sephiroth said.
"What else can you do?" she said.
"...You're not...afraid?" Sephiroth asked.
"No, that's awesome!" Cloud said, "You should have started with that!" Sephiroth spent the next few hours running circles around Cloud, performing some low level magic, and jumping around. She thought it was "cool".
"How do you do it?" Cloud said.
"I don't know," Sephiroth said, "I guess they made me that way."
"Do you know if I could do it?" Cloud asked.
"You don't want to," he said, "Not right now anyway."
"Why not?" Cloud asked.
"I'll tell you another time," Sephiroth said.
"It hurts doesn't it?" she said. Sephiroth nodded solemnly.
"I can show you some other things though," Sephiroth said. She looked up.
"Like what?" Cloud asked.
"Have you ever heard of kata?" Sephiroth asked, "I can show you some." Cloud's face lit up and Sephiroth swore her eyes were as bright as his was.
Spring was a season of discovery for both the girl and the boy. Cloud learned fighting stances, sword pattern dances, strength training, and basic self-defense. She loved it. She loved getting sweaty and sore. Sephiroth got glimpses of the imaginary world Cloud would wrap herself in out of loneliness. He thought it was amazing.
Cloud had so much knowledge of the world, but had seen so little of it, so she made it up. Sephiroth thought her own guesses were more interesting than what the real thing could ever be.
She picked a slightly comical figure, oversized clothes on her very slim and tiny figure, hair that stuck up wildly and uncontrollably, and big blue eyes. But her voice was arresting. Her speech was slow and mildly poetic. Had she been a little older, Sephiroth might have accepted her musings as pure truth.
One day, Cloud brought a book. It was so huge she had to haul it up the hill to Sephiroth, huffing and puffing with the effort.
The ended up lying on the ground looking at maps inside. They were of some fantasy land, for the stories told within the tome. She knew them so well, she illustrated the journeys of her favorite characters using only the maps.
"I wanted to be a knight when I was little," she said.
"You still are little," Sephiroth said.
"Hey!" she protested.
"It's true," Sephiroth said defensively.
"Well..." Cloud protested weakly, "when I was smaller." Sephiroth looked at the illustration provided for the illustrious knight.
"I think you would have made a good knight," he said.
"Only boys were supposed to be knights though," Cloud said sadly.
"Why?" Sephiroth asked. Cloud was a good student. She wasn't as good as him, but she had just started.
"I don't know," she said, "boys get to do all the fun stuff. I wish I was a boy sometimes."
"You're not that much different from me," Sephiroth said.
"People think I'm weird because I don't want to do...girl stuff," Cloud said, "and my Mom lets me do what I want, so they don't like her either."
"That's...stupid," Sephiroth said. Cloud stared at him for a long, long moment. Then she burst out laughing. Tears rolled down her face from the force of her mirth as she rolled around, clutching her gut.
"Cloud? Are you alright?" Sephiroth asked. She started laughing again.
Summer was a time when they both agreed they were friends. Cloud had stopped even pretending she wanted anything to do with the stupid boys in the village and went directly to the stupid boy on the mountain.
"Eww, gross!" Cloud said wiping her face off.
"That's what you did to me," Sephiroth protested.
"I did not!" Cloud said, "You kissed me! That's gross!"
"What's the difference?" Sephiroth asked.
"I just tapped your face with my cheek," Cloud said, "you put your gross boy lips on me!"
"People use this as a greeting?" Sephiroth asked.
"It was just a hug, dummy!" Cloud said, "not some nasty kiss."
Fall was the wettest and warmest in Nibelhiem history. It rained for a solid week and it did not freeze. Sephiroth awaited on his hilltop for Cloud to come up to him in her two-size-too-big galoshes and raincoat. She kept pushing up the sleeves, but was no less animated. Sephiroth was loath to take her inside the Mansion and have her meet Hojo so they moved further into the mountains and found a cave system.
There they began an adventure that Sephiroth would never match again. It was mostly the imagination of two lonely souls, but it was so vivid and powerful that they didn't bother to separate the reality from the game.
They had mapped out sections of the tunnels, the most notable section being a mako fountain they had stumbled upon nearly by accident. It had taken Cloud's breath away. Naturally it was marked with an X. Sephiroth never knew what the next day would bring. One day they were knights searching for a lost kingdom, the next they were pirates looking for a place to bury their treasure. It was never exactly the same and creating the scene was all part of the fun.
Then one day they exited to find their usual path had been washed away in mudslide.
"Mom's gonna kill me," Cloud said.
"She has to be able to get to you first," Sephiroth noted.
"Trust me, she can find a way," Cloud said. Sephiroth looked around for a moment before he found a semi-safe way down.
"I can't climb that!" Cloud protested, "there's a least a ten foot drop between two steps!"
"I could carry you," Sephiroth said, "my maximum weight load is currently around 175 lbs. I'm certain you aren't that heavy."
"No way, I'm not letting you pick me up," Cloud said.
"It's either that or wait for someone to find us," Sephiroth said. Cloud whimpered slightly but gave in.
"Climb on my back," Sephiroth said, "That way my arms are free." Cloud did it, being hardly a burden to him as he started his descent. After a brief survey of his route he decided a controlled freefall would be best. He dropped the first ten feet, stopping himself as he heard Cloud shriek.
"Don't drop me," she said.
"I won't," Sephiroth said. Her grip tightened. Sephiroth went through the falls quickly and carefully. Cloud hid her face against his shoulder the entire time, only making small scared noises. She shook slightly when Sephiroth let her down.
"If you tell anyone about me screaming," Cloud started.
"I won't," Sephiroth said.
"It stays a secret," Cloud said firmly.
"Our secret," Sephiroth agreed. Cloud's shrieking wasn't the only one he got to hear that day. The mountainside wasn't the only place flooded out. Parts of the town were washed out, but it was mostly intact. Cloud's mother had been frantic with worry, thinking Cloud had been swept away.
"Ma, I'm alright," Cloud moaned, "you don't have to cause a scene."
"I'll do what I please, young lady," Mrs. Strife said. Sephiroth caught Cloud mumbling, "nota lady" under her breath as he rejoined some of the lab staff at the meeting at the inn (the town hall had been flooded).
"Where have you been?" Mrs. Strife demanded.
"We were just checking out the caves," Cloud said, then she froze. One look at Sephiroth's face told her she might have just messed up.
"We?" Mrs. Strife demanded. Cloud swallowed. Everyone was following the conversation, but she dared not lie to her mother.
"Sephiroth and I," Cloud said. Hojo looked down at Sephiroth then over at the blonde.
"Well I found them," Cloud said, "and Sephiroth was already inside so...we decided to explore them...together." Hojo bought the white lie.
"Really," Hojo sneered, "and you chose her as a guide because?"
"She knew the layout better than I did," Sephiroth said truthfully (Cloud did have the map on her after all), "and I could see better. She didn't hinder me." Hojo nodded thoughtfully, processing Sephiroth's decision. Apparently it didn't garner his full derision because he let it go.
Over the growing crowd Cloud mouthed a "sorry". Sephiroth nodded in reply.
Cloud and Sephiroth parted ways since both of their homes (or places where they slept) were unscathed from mud and water. Hojo was dismissive as ever and that began a preamble to the next wonder, albeit in a roundabout way.
"The locals are getting too friendly with you," Hojo mused, "unless you can convince them to stay away I will have to limit your time outside." Sephiroth was crushed. No more Cloud, no more pretend, no more adventures. He had never felt the urge to cry until that moment, but held it back. He hated to think about what would happen to Cloud if Hojo found out they were friends.
"Cloud I can't see you anymore," Sephiroth said the next day, wanted to sever their ties quickly. Cloud snorted. She was as stubborn as ever.
"Why?" she asked.
"I was sent outside to fend for myself, not to...play," Sephiroth said. Cloud rolled her eyes.
"A typical stupid boy reason," she said.
"Hojo said I can't interact with you anymore," Sephiroth said.
"Do you always do what Hojo says?" Cloud asked.
"Yes," Sephiroth said.
"And therein lies the root of your boyish stupidity," Cloud sighed. Sephiroth knew she only knew what half of those words meant.
"Why can't we keep doing this?" Cloud asked.
"I'm...I'm not meant to be human," Sephiroth said, "I'm an experiment. I'm made to kill things." Cloud knew that already.
"So why'd they make you look human?" Cloud countered. Sephiroth took pause.
"I mean...if you aren't supposed to interact with us lowly humans then why make you look like you could pass as one?" she asked again. Sephiroth took the notion to Hojo and the miracle occurred. After several hours of thinking it over, Hojo tried his next experiment: he kicked Sephiroth out of the Mansion and told him to find his own place to live for a few days.
There was only one place Sephiroth knew to go to. Cloud met him at her garden gate.
"They told me to find somewhere to stay," Sephiroth started. Cloud said nothing else and took his hand to lead him inside.
"Ma!" she called, "Seph needs a place to stay!" Cloud's mother came in and looked Sephiroth up and down.
"What happened?" she asked.
"They said he had to find his own place to stay," Cloud said.
"Let him explain Cloud," Mrs. Strife said. She was leery about the strange looking boy, but Cloud seemed to like him a lot, enough to spend every day with him.
"I have to find someplace to live for the next few days," Sephiroth said.
"And I say mission accomplished," Cloud said.
"Cloud," Mrs. Strife warned, "If you want to stay here you can, Sephiroth." He nodded.
"Sleepover!" Cloud sang out.
"What is that?" Sephiroth asked.
"Dummy. It means that you are sleeping over at my house," Cloud said.
"Give him your room, Cloud," Mrs. Strife said, "You can sleep with me."
"Okay," Cloud called back. Mrs. Strife stayed near the doorway to hear their conversation.
"It's kinda small, and a little messy," Cloud was saying, obviously about their home.
"I like your house," Sephiroth said, "What do we do at a sleepover?"
"I dunno," Cloud said, "I've never had one either."
A sleepover ended up meaning, looking around Cloud's house and seeing what sort of things were inside of it. He was disinterested in their television. The picture was fuzzy and went out every half hour unless someone smacked it. Mrs. Strife was nice enough to show him some books filled with photographs. A great majority were of Cloud as an infant and a toddler.
"Not much appears to have changed," Sephiroth noted. That earned him a kick in the shin. Cloud's hair was almost exactly the same, wild and sticking up at every angle. Her eyes were the same vibrant blue. The only thing that changed was her size.
Cloud fumed at him for a few minutes, but the thought of actually having a sleepover proved too exciting and she forgave him after her trademark insult. Mrs. Strife permitted them to go outside, but demanded they stay within calling distance. Cloud said Sephiroth's hearing range counted so perhaps it was a bit farther than Mrs. Strife had anticipated. Sephiroth learned the joys of puddles and mud. Hojo hated dirt and dust, but there was something rather satisfying after a good splash. Cloud brought them a few sticks and thew drew pictures and messages in the mud to be used at a later date. They were on their way back before Mrs. Strife even called.
Sephiroth hadn't eaten anything like what Mrs. Strife had prepared for dinner. He simply hadn't been exposed to homemade meals before. Even the vegetables were better. Mrs. Strife decided Sephiroth was alright in her book when he asked for seconds and chowed them down.
The rest of the evening proved more fun. Sephiroth had no spare clothes, but Cloud and Mrs. Strife dug some sleep clothes from somewhere and they were...soft. The curfew Mrs. Strife attempted to enforce was ignored in favor of a large tome Sephiroth recognized and Cloud adored.
Sephiroth awoke in front of it, not quite remembering what had happened. He remembered listening sleepily to Cloud's imaginary tale and then...
He looked to his left and saw Cloud curled up next to him. He hadn't seen her sleep before and it was enough to give him pause.
He decided then that Cloud was beautiful.
"Come on," a voice said above him. Mrs. Strife leaned down to pick up her daughter, too sleepy to even stir at the action. Sephiroth watched the young girl groan and embrace her mother. He had forgotten how young she was, or even that he was the elder of the two.
"Go on up to bed," Mrs. Strife said. Sephiroth nodded.
"Good night," he said.
"Mmm...night Seph..." Cloud mumbled in her sleep.
"Good night Sephiroth," Mrs. Strife said, "Sleep tight." That evening, Sephiroth had no problems with that directive.
Winter was freezing. The snow came hard and once it stopped the wind howled at almost every hour. Hojo had let Sephiroth back in at nights, but still had him go outside to see how well he withstood the cold.
Sephiroth didn't care. The cold was unpleasant, but not deadly for him. Besides, once he was out of sight he was free to enter the Strife residence where Cloud would be waiting for him. Mrs. Strife put them to work to earn their keep, mostly by chopping wood, but it became a competition between them. Sephiroth always won, because Cloud hated it when Sephiroth let her win. The traditional Strife payment for their hard labor was a warm concoction Cloud called hot chocolate. Sephiroth had not experienced chocolate before, but would drink the brown liquid all day if he could.
The ventured back out on the days when the Sun beseted the clouds and the wind slowed and stopped. The other children threw snowballs and snowpeople, some attempting to sled. Cloud didn't have a sled, though it was obvious she would have liked to join them. Instead she and Sephiroth made an army of mutant snowmen, one's with two heads and four arms and prepared a final suicide attempt to fight them off of Cloud's doorstep.
For Mrs. Strife, that sight was hilarious.
Sephiroth wasn't sure when they had become so close that physical touch became normal. It wasn't strange or awkward when Cloud slung a thin arm around his shoulder to explain what stupid phrase had just left his mouth. Playful shoving was accepted and fully encouraged, given that Sephiroth never used his full strength on Cloud. It was common to see the pair whispering some strange secret into each others ears. They were practically joined at the hip.
Spring came again, as did the boys with the football and the snobbish girls in their dresses. The duo paid them no mind, and picked up their games precisely where winter had cut them off. Cloud fit into her clothes a little more, Sephiroth stood a little taller, but their roles remained the same.
Sephiroth had gotten to experience the joy of Cloud's seventh birthday (a small private party) when Hojo stated they were leaving.
Leaving? He couldn't. What was he supposed to do without Cloud? Cloud. She was his only friend, and he hers. He couldn't just leave like that. Yet, that's what Hojo insisted would happen.
For the first time, Sephiroth snuck out to go see Cloud.
"They said that we're leaving," Sephiroth said. Cloud said nothing, choking back tears. She knew it would happen, that it was too good to last and she'd be alone again. It still hurt.
"I don't want to go," Sephiroth said, "I love you Cloud." She made a forced laugh.
"No you don't dummy," she said.
"Yes I do," Sephiroth said, "I want to spend the rest of my life with you." Cloud thought a moment, then came up with a plan.
"Then you have to go," she said, "You have to leave. Then one day I'll follow you and we'll be the same."
"I'll write to you," Sephiroth continued, "and you'll write back once you find out where I am." Cloud nodded.
"We'll be knights," Sephiroth said, "you and I. Saving the kingdom together."
"That's just a story dummy," Cloud said.
"It doesn't have to be." Cloud locked him in a hug before letting him go. It was only when she went to Sephiroth's hill and he wasn't there waiting for her that she let herself cry. She couldn't let that stupid boy see them yet.