Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII

Hello everybody! I'm starting a series of oneshots here on, if you hadn't figured it out already, the Cloti pairing. There should be around 7, but, I do have exams at the moment so there should be one oneshot every week, but the day may change. And as for the numbering, it just the number of the prompt - I chose a varying amount out of 2 sets of 50 prompts for each of the pairings I'm doing (you may have seen me elsewhere)

Speaking of which, I did want to publish this on 3/5, but my internet died and now it's the 5/5! Oh well, same week/month/year. So yeah, here is the first of my oneshots, and I hope you'll stick around for more. Thanks!

007. Betray

When I first met Cloud, I didn't know he even had a father. We were still at that young age when things like that didn't matter; when parents were just a mom and dad and list hadn't yet crept into out minds. It was just him and his mother, blond, with pretty teal eyes that always had smile hiding a deep scar in her eyes. They were like the eyes Cloud used to have, back when I really knew that Cloud. They came into the small, backwater town together - just the two of them alone - and settled in without a word. Of course, I heard people talking; casting tuts in his mother's direction and sneering down at poor Cloud. I felt sorry for him, but I never really went near him back then.

About two years later though, his father came into town. He was a distant man, tall, strong, with jaggedly upright warm brown hair, and crisp deep blue eyes. Looking back on it, I suppose he was handsome. But he was also terrifying. He had this aura of power, despite his job as a range keeper somewhere 'out west' (they said). I remember seeing Cloud cower back into his room from the small window I could see into when his father first approached town. Even though I was young, my astute eyes didn't miss the way they flinched around him. He was there for three days of the week Cloud said he was staying, marching out of their small house with a tough bark and a snarl. I tried to comfort Cloud in the following days as none of the other boys did. We grew close, then.

I never saw him again until just before the 'Nibelheim Incident' as it's so clinically called. I ached to see Cloud again in my empty heart - I was young, and ready for adventure and lust and love and the joys of life, with him. But he didn't seem to be coming back soon. Sephiroth, the infamous soldier was due to be visiting soon, and I remember thinking I'd have to make a mental note of asking him for information on Cloud. If he even stopped to talk, of course. But Cloud's father, even in the decade or more that'd passed hadn't changed much. His hair was flatter now, and slightly more dull in colour with a few creases lining his faces like the pages of a manhandled book, but the sharpness in his eyes hadn't faded an inch. And Cloud's mother, the woman who'd become like an aunt to me, still flinched just the slightest bit when he came close to her. I knew why know - of how he used to get drunk and be as volatile as he wanted, doing lord knows what to who and what whenever he wanted. But she left him finally, and it turns out he'd been loosing interest anyway, seeing passing women as he pleased. I felt for the woman - she didn't deserve it. And he, for his part, stormed out once again, vowing that he'd never see this 'wanna-be soldier' son of his again. It took all the restraint I had not to say something, anything to him after that. I know I'm biased towards him, but that was just cruel.

Sometime after the fall of Meteor on Midgar, we'd both just assumed he'd died, plain and simple. I sometimes catch myself looking at Cloud when he's with Denzel and Marlene, and wonder absently how different he is to his own father.

But three years after the fall, we received a monoclonal on the door on a Tuesday morning - earlier than even our children woke us up. Cloud went to answer it, and I followed behind with our young son in my arms. I was curious, but not foolish enough to be in range of the door. I half-wondered in the back of my mind if it was more than probably Yuffie or Vincent coming with a trauma to our door. But there is only so many times Yuffie can get pregnant or Vincent doubt his parenting/life skills.

When cloud opened the door however, and sees not the panicked face of the two aforementioned ninja-types, rather a greying man, with a face lined with creases and glasses, softening the sharp looking in his sapphire eyes. The casual business suit looked odd on his lanky body, but it similarly didn't surprise me too much. He looked almost prosperous in his old age.

"You are...?" Cloud asked slowly, a hint of sleep clogging his voice.

He gave his name, his voice only a touch more wearied than the crass baritone that I remembered. Of course, the last time Cloud had seen him was years ago; it only made sense he wouldn't remember him.

"Come in" cloud said with lips pressed tightly together. I looked at him with a raised eyebrow, but Cloud seemed to know what he was doing.

I wondered how Cloud did it, as he talking with the man who'd betrayed him so badly a lifetime and a half ago. Out son was sitting peacefully on his lap, the same mako-blue eyes as his father curiously staring up at the face, but even he, our one year old son knew that this man was not to be laughed at it with. He was kept out of reach from Cloud's Father by Cloud's watchful eye.

I listened to them, watched them, hated him and loved Cloud even more as I prepared the bar for the day, and took care of our other children. Denzel and Marlene were growing up so fast too, I probably owed it to them to explain it; which I did, to the best of my impartiality. But they too looked somewhat disgusted, and so I left them alone, before my venom at this betrayer spilled over.

And he was gone, out the door again (admittedly not in a blaze of anger as he always had done before), but instead with a possibility of another visit. I would never and will never understand how this man, the father of the most famous man on the face of Gaia now, could ever betray him. And despite all that, all that he's been through, I love Cloud even more.

Well there we are, I hope you liked it, and I hope you'll stick around for more!

Please review if you liked it and follow for more. Thanks!