Author's Note: This fic was inspired (very loosely, in a roundabout "the author obviously has too much time on her hands" way) by writing "Apple Cored" and beginning to think—"What if…?"

"That starry night at the well…and our promise that night…what if the memory was just a lie?"

Tifa shook her head. Doubt was the last thing they needed, trapped in the Lifestream, and she was trying hard to keep her own at bay. "Don't hurry, Cloud…don't answer too quickly. Just keep checking those small emotions and it'll come back…slowly…little by little…"

So he thought. And he thought. And there in the blackness, a girl appeared. She had dark brown hair and wine-red eyes and developing curves covered in a white, frilly dress. She bore more than a passing resemblance to Tifa—the facial structure was there, the frame—yet Tifa's stomach plummeted.

That girl wasn't her, wasn't her anymore than the blond boy sitting on the well was a fourteen-year-old Cloud. The scene would look right to anyone who hadn't known them then; Tifa, on the other hand, immediately noticed the absence of that little ponytail Cloud had worn back then, the one she'd figured had gotten hacked off before he stepped within fifty yards of Shinra HQ, and the clothes he wore were too dark and hers too light, and she hadn't been that busty as a thirteen-year-old—

The scene vanished into darkness.

"Tifa? Is it…?"

The voice of the man standing by her trailed off, but she could hear the terrified question: Is it wrong, am I fake?

Her hands were bunched into fists as fear seized her heart. "Slowly, Cloud. You're rushing yourself, aren't you? You can do it."

"Sorry." You've been so good to me…I don't know what to say… His voice was so plaintive whenever he apologized. She hated the doubt it showed.

"It's all right. Just try again."

He tried. He faltered. He tried again. She corrected him the first two times and then watched as he continued to make mistakes, her mouth going dry.

He doesn't remember this. The town was right but the starry sky was wrong, and the two children struck her as malformed mannequins.

"Cloud," she said loudly, hoping to break him out of his increasingly frantic and counterproductive attempts to focus. "It's okay! Don't worry about the details… You've been sick." It's the mako's fault, Sephiroth's fault. If he hadn't fallen in he'd still remember. "Try something else. A different memory!"

"A—a different memory?"

She bit her lip, wishing he wouldn't look so frail, like a child. "If I say something, and you don't remember it, that doesn't prove anything…if you say something and I remember it too, then…we'll know."

Bright blue eyes darted to the side as the mind was ransacked for a wisp of remembrance. He hedged for a moment: "A memory about what?"

"Me," she answered. "Or—anything, anything that's important to you. Like—why did you join SOLDIER? It seemed like such a sudden decision."

But maybe that was too much to ask, Tifa realized as her childhood friend continued to grip his head. He had struggled with his decision to join SOLDIER even in the Northern Crater—

"I...had a promise to keep."

The answer didn't come from Cloud. It came from a memory of him sitting against a wall, legs akimbo, dressed in a ragged trooper uniform that was ripped down the stomach.

Looking at him, Tifa faltered and then grabbed for the Cloud besides her, squeezing his hand hard. "You were a trooper?!" Her words and thoughts ran frantic together, because seeing him dressed like that, the eureka had smacked her in the face—he'd been in Nibelheim all along that week. She'd carried him on her shoulder back to town after he'd gotten injured and she'd—how could she not have realized, that was how he knew what he did, "Cloud, that's it, you've got it—"

Except he was looking at her like he did not get anything at all, eyeballing the weak trooper with a mixture of surprise and revulsion.

"…Pro…mise…?"

The strange, choked out utterance drew Tifa's attention to a black cloak lying in a strange, twisted heap, and it was only when it shuddered with a rattling breath that she realized there was a living creature beneath it.

The memory of Cloud did not seem to realize the strangeness of the creature or the scene—the basement of the Nibelheim mansion—as he murmured, "A secret…wish…tender memories…"

"Cloud," Tifa asked, "What was wrong with you? Is that another clone?" She stabbed an accusing finger at the bundle of dark cloth, and he eyed it with a strange frown and no answer.

"Ti…fa…" came a croak from beneath the fabric, and the trooper responded with a pained sob, his hand jerkily rising to the rip in his uniform. The woman realized then the grievousness of the wound, a long scar on his torso evidencing an injury that had been treated on the surface but still pained him to the point of delirium.

"Cloud…"

"Sephiroth…how could he…Mom and Tifa, everything, he took…but I…did my best, Tifa, I'm sorry, sorry, not your hero but I…" He laughed roughly, the sound chopped up by hacking, blood-filled coughs.

"Pro…mise…hero….kill…fav…oured" and the cloak crept towards the boy, a pale hand stretching out to clutch his ankle. "Need…promise…"

Dulled blue eyes glanced down, unconcerned by the grip. "The promise…for Tifa…I did it…for Tifa."

"Want…to be…"

"Cloud, what did you do for me?" Tifa asked, and she nearly turned away from the disturbing tableau except the young Cloud slumped over then, head lolling back, limbs slackening, the soft movement of his chest slowing to a standstill.

A long moment passed as she waited for him to move, breathe, give an indication that he had not just passed away. —But of course Cloud hadn't died back then, he was standing next to her now, so any moment now he would lift up his head; he had to still be conscious, or else he wouldn't remember this—

The quivering lump underneath the black cloak slowly rose, the fabric rippling off his form like water in moonlight. He was short, with somewhat delicate facial features—in the poor light, his bones seemed to shift beneath his skin, and as Tifa continued to watch, his blond hair poked up into a spike…

"Oh Holy," she uttered, horrified, at the same moment that the creature murmured, "Tifa…"

"Inside of you, Jenova has merged with Tifa's memories, creating you. Out of Tifa's memory... A boy named Cloud might've just been a part of them."

Or someone else's memory. The memory of Cloud himself.

"I remember now," came the voice at her side, and she whirled away from Cloud—not-Cloud, and her mind was still spinning, Cloud had been at Nibelheim, he'd survived it, but now he was—dead? The concept had yet to be processed— "…The professor always said…Sephiroth had been the best…but even he'd been defeated. I wanted to be him…the one who could challenge him…and I needed his strength…you, Tifa." The blond's head tilted, fixing her with eerily bright eyes. "Now I remember. It wasn't coincidence you found me."

The expression suggested nothing but affection and respect for her, even reverence, but the words chilled her. "You were looking for me."

"Tifa, please, don't be frightened," the clone murmured, reaching for her shoulders and just barely missing as she pulled away. "I won't hurt you, I never once hurt you, Mother created me, but you—you loved me, even though I was a failure—"

"I thought you were my friend," she said, near hysterics. "I thought you were—Cloud, oh God, he's gone…"

Not-Cloud's face settled into a sad, grim frown. "You're always so good to me, and I still let you down. I'm still…just a failure…I can't be your Cloud…"

Blond bangs were clutched at in a familiar gesture, one that had always pulled at her heart. Even through the shock and horror, she felt a twinge of pity. "No, but…maybe…you can be your own person," she offered; it was all she could think of at the moment.

"My own person…?" The idea was received with a bitter laugh. "I'm only a puppet…a failed one." Not-Cloud staggered forward, grabbing her wrist before she could think of jerking it away. "I still need to be stronger…still need your strength."

"My…? Please, Cloud—whoever you are—let go—"

It was the wrong thing to say; or maybe, there had never been a right thing to say. But the clone looked up, piercing her with green gleaming eyes slit with cat pupils, and the darkness of that mind swallowed her up like a flood.

When Tifa awoke, her own eyes were dulled, and as much as AVALANCHE tried to rouse a reaction from her, she wouldn't stir. They hadn't pulled her up from the Lifestream quickly enough; the doctor surmised the shock of the experience had caused extensive brain damage.

Cloud slept on until depression and fatigue dragged all but one of the party away from the scene or down to the depths of sleep. Then he shifted slightly, dropping the facade—to find Barret's gun-arm pointed at his face, the man's eyes widening in alarm.

"The hell did you do to her?!"

The blond didn't respond.

"You've got—"

Cloud laughed, the sound gentle and light as Tifa's ruby eyes crinkled up in the blond's face. "It's okay, Barret, it's me," and Tifa's voice stopped Barret cold for the precious split-second the clone needed to spring from the ground and use its heel in a kick that drove the side of Barret's gun-arm into the man's own jaw. The bigger man fell heavy into the earth, and the clone admired for one moment the combination of mako-enhanced strength with years of martial arts experience, its body still shifting to become more lithe and feminine while retaining brute force.

"See, Tifa, you're my strength," the clone murmured as it ran. There was only one goal in his mind: the snowy North, Master, Mother. It had been a failure for so long, but there must still be some use for it. "You came to me, to help him…you're so kind, Tifa, always so kind…and now I can show you Mother's way. She'll take care of us both. I promise."

Sephiroth: Five years ago you were...constructed by Hojo, piece by piece, right after Nibelheim was burnt. A puppet made up of vibrant Jenova cells, her knowledge, and the power of the Mako. An incomplete Sephiroth-clone. Not even given a number. ...That is your reality.