Beloved Brother,
This story is similar to that cake you like.
The layers are drama, and the humor is the jelly.
Which is mostly in the subtext, so the jelly is inside the layers.
But jelly is kind of sticky, and I think my humor is more sardonic than tacky, so maybe the humor is in the layers.
Which would make the drama the sticky part, and I will admit, it got a bit hard to write at times, but it should be easy to read.
That is, if you have an expansive vocabulary, which you do.
So the vocabulary is like the whipped topping, and if you can see the story underneath all that, you must have read a thesaurus in your childhood like I did.
Except, I think you read the dictionary instead, but that means you won't have any trouble parsing the meaning.
Which is probably the fork.
The parsing, I mean, so dig right in, and enjoy it like cake.
I made it just for you. Although, it may be slightly overdone...
The Best Laid Schemes
Prologue
To start with, Cloud's consciousness was sent back in time.
That isn't exactly the beginning, though. Perhaps, first, it should be understood that The Calamity wasn't the true threat. Sephiroth wasn't either, as he managed thirty years without any apparent desire to burn mountain towns, assassinate Presidents or summon Meteor to end all known life. The two together, though, were a catastrophe. Active cells from Calamity injected into a still forming baby resulted in a level of awareness that the alien hadn't had for millennia. Without Sephiroth, the SOLDIER program and its subsets wouldn't have been enough; inactive cells given to adults made for some bizarre mutations, but only the one with it embedded in his DNA, calling out to "Mother", was sufficient to wake The Calamity.
Even this destructive duo wouldn't have been enough, had it not been for the mako reactors. The Planet had kept The Calamity asleep and harmless since time immemorial. By the time Gaia became aware of the awakened threat, too much of the surface mako had been diverted away. If the alien devourer had been lowered deep into The Planet's core, perhaps even then, the end could have been prevented.
They understood too late. So few left able to hear Gaia's whispers, and none who could truly interpret. So when life withered away, and all that was left were spirits floating aimlessly in a Lifestream with nowhere to send them, some few, strong voices spoke a path into existence. There was not enough left of ... anything ... to remember a time very long ago. But they remembered The Calamity lifted above the crust, above the upper pathways and rivers of mako. High in a mountain, up in the cold peaks of Nibelheim.
Nothing physical could be sent, of course. A vision could be shown, but the only ones who might know it for that, and not dismiss it as a nightmare would be a red-furred creature in a hidden canyon, and a flower girl in the slums of Midgar. Both more likely to be dissected or experimented on than believed or followed. They could seek a way to heal the surface of damage from the reactors, but who would they tell? Who would aid them?
To send back someone's spirit, with all their knowledge and experiences, was unlikely to work. One's self is contained, defined; not so malleable as to make way for an intruder. Even if it was your own future mind, it was unlikely to 'stick'. If only there was someone whose sense of self was less solid, less concrete. Whose mind wasn't quite arranged like everyone else's.
Or if it was the other way around. If many pieces and shards were contained in a single spirit, and it was sent back, some should settle into the younger self before the rest were lost. They wouldn't even have to exist long. There was one who lived in Nibelheim. The Calamity was sealed in its reactor, but there was mako pumping all around it. All he would have to do is open the door to the alien's containment unit. The Planet would do the rest. There would still be dangers, but this would buy the time needed to fix them. It was an easy decision. Who else was so perfectly suited? He was not aware enough to ask, but if there was anyone willing to sacrifice themselves, it was he. They would whisper what must be done, and he could save all.
They took everything that made up Cloud Strife and gathered it into a center core, and all that he had picked up from others was folded around it. Surely they would be the most likely to be lost, and the inner core would be most likely to bind to his younger self. All the strongest spirits, all the voices left in the flickering Lifestream put all their power into sending this one swiftly down the wisp of Lifestream that remembered the past.
This would have been the perfect solution. Except...they chose Cloud Strife.
Chapter 1
Brightness burned his eyes, and cold pierced his lungs. He shuddered a few desperate breaths, and shaded his eyes against the light. He'd heard people speak of expecting lights after death, but why the cold? Once his lungs stopped seizing, the light beyond his eyelids didn't seem so harsh. So he opened his eyes and took stock of his surroundings. The sight that greeted him was...unexpected. That mountain looked just like Nibel Peak, and the light was from the sun glinting sharply off the snow all around him.
Save us.
He didn't quite startle, but did attempt to execute a quick spin to see who spoke. His feet didn't move as fast as his torso, and he kind of twisted around and stumbled. Still, he didn't see anyone.
You were sent back to save us.
Still no one, but Cloud was used to hearing disembodied voices. "Aerith?" It didn't sound like her exactly, but she was the most likely, considering he wasn't currently fighting for his life.
Reunion will destroy us all, stop Sephiroth and Calamity from joining.
That was fainter than before, but he hadn't moved, and why would a voice talking to him drift farther away? Wait, the last Reunion happened a long time ago. It happened several times over the course of...was it years? Maybe months.
Calamity must be...returned to the Lifestream.
Cloud sat down and scratched his head in confusion. His hair felt strange. His hand felt strange. So did his back end, but that was because sitting down in the snow made you quite damp. Hearing voices, and not remembering how he got to his current location meant he was probably having one of those episodes where his body wasn't synced up right. What had Reeve called it? Dysphoria, or was it Disassociation? Pretty fancy words for a lousy sensation. Still, he'd had less of those the more time between him and his latest dunking in the Lifestream.
Return Calamity.
This time he did startle. Yeah, definitely having an episode. If dying made you part of the Lifestream, then was he going to do this for his entire afterlife?
You were...sent back...in time.
That was unlikely. Sometimes if you fell into the Lifestream in one place, you popped out in a different spot. Time will have gone by in the mean time. Forward, not backward. Pretty sure there would have been a big deal about it if traveling to the past was possible.
Save us.
Quieter still, but annoyingly persistent. Cloud sighed. Fine; the afterlife was cold and damp and looked like the Nibel mountains, which was not his idea of a happy ending. He would make his way up to where the reactor used to be, to reassure the...voice...that Jenova was gone, and then maybe he could move on to some place more pleasant. He was hoping to see Zack and Aerith again, but he refused to believe they got stuck in a section of afterlife that resembled Nibelheim.
ooOOOoo
It was taking too long to get there. His perception of time was always a little off during an episode, but climbing up the trails, and through snowdrifts was taking way longer than it should. He triple checked landmarks, so knew he was on track to where the reactor's remains should be. His geography was pretty good overall, and he knew these mountainous paths like...well, not the back of his hand. He was very carefully not looking at his hand, because it still felt strange. He was getting pretty tired, too. It was like his legs were too short and out of shape to walk through the snow easily.
"Don't think about it, it will just make it worse." He muttered.
It was late Spring snow, so a little slushy and slippery, but not very deep. He was cold, but not enough to freeze, and judging by the sun it couldn't be long after mid-day. Just, avoid monsters instead of fighting. He had no weapons, and didn't think he could rely on his hand-to-hand in this state.
Finally, he came to where the old rope bridge used to be, looked up, and saw the reactor. As it used to be, not as it was after Barrett and Tifa went on that drunken rage bender around the world. They had blown up everything that definitely belonged to Shinra, probably belonged to Shinra, and was maybe rented out once or twice to Shinra.
Return...Calamity.
The voice sounded a bit hoarser, as if the effort to talk was wearing it out. Cloud shook his head. This struck him wrong. The voice didn't sound like Aerith at all.
Save ... us ...
He'd never heard a voice so faint howl. It sounded a bit like a sick Nibel wolf pup. Which was fitting, considering where he was. Only, wolves couldn't speak, and Aerith's voice was distinct, and always called him by name so he wouldn't get confused as to who she was talking to.
"You're not Aerith." He stated flatly.
Gaia ... return ... Calamity ...
That was when he knew it was all wrong. The episode he could ignore, randomly appearing on the Nibel mountains, sure why not, not as strange as the Northern Crater. But he wasn't an Ancient. He had no Cetra blood, The Planet couldn't talk to him. But...he had heard a hoarse, somewhat female voice before, that wasn't Aerith's.
Return...
"Jenova." He growled out.
YES ... return ...
"NO! I won't! You can't make me poison the Lifestream with your disgusting waking corpse!" He felt a pressure in his head, and a nearly frantic crooning,
NO ... save us ... return ...
Cloud screamed. In fear from the pressure, in rage from the situation. Not this time. Never again. He wrenched himself backwards, and scrabbled on his hands and knees down the path. Farther and farther, until the pressure was gone. Then he stumbled to his feet and ran blindly, wildly, down the mountain. The voice sounded a few more times, desperate, hoarser, fainter, until he heard it no more. He kept running, sometimes falling, his body becoming increasingly uncoordinated from fatigue. He ran until he was ill, and his lungs burned, and his legs trembled, and still he ran. When he crested the hill leading to Nibelheim, he stopped so quickly he nearly fell over backwards, just catching himself in time.
Nibelheim looked old. The houses were weather-beaten with the occasional bright new board tacked up in repair. That woman by the water tower looked familiar. He had long forgotten the townsfolk's names, but didn't he know that face? He wandered in a daze to where his house used to be, and it was there. Like the reactor. No, don't think of the reactor until you're far away from...it. He opened the door and stepped inside. It smelled like mom's stew something in him whispered. He paused, and focused inward. Male voice, young, maybe his own? If it was Zack's he'd be in Gongaga. No, that was wrong, if it was Zack's he wouldn't think of it as Mom's. Still not quite right, but definitely Zack or his own self, so safe enough.
He looked around, and there was a pot bubbling in the fireplace, and sitting by the window's light was a woman. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a sloppy braid, and when she looked up, bright blue eyes met with his own.
"Oh, Cloud", the woman smiled rather vaguely, "There's stew if you're hungry."
ooOOOoo
Dinner was quiet, and eaten mostly in a daze. His mom said very little, and his responses consisted of one "uhuh" and one "mm". It was getting dark out by then, and his mom went straight from washing up the dishes to getting ready for bed. He couldn't sleep until he was sure it was safe, no matter how tired he was. Back outside, then. Too cold at night still, so he grabbed the blanket off what must be his bed, and headed towards the door.
Cloud paused just before he turned the knob, and glanced back at his mom. She didn't seem to be paying attention. Was this what he usually did?
"Umm, Mom?" He started hesitatingly.
She was brushing her hair, and after a moment looked up, blinking. "Yes, Cloud?"
"I'm going outside. Be back...a lot later."
"Okay", she said a little carelessly, and went back to getting ready for bed.
Alright then, maybe he hadn't needed to say anything? He walked outside and around the house, but found nowhere to climb onto the roof, so where would be a good place to think? A blurry image of what the town looked like from the water tower came to mind. Right, not far to go then. His leg muscles burned, but were less wobbly now that he'd sat for awhile and eaten, so pretty soon he'd climbed up its ladder, and settled down with his blanket keeping the night chill off his shoulders.
Miz Emily. That's who the lady earlier had been. This was actually Nibelheim. Not that creepy knock-off Shinra made to cover up what happened, but the real thing. Cloud grit his teeth, and looked very closely and carefully at his hands. They looked like a smaller version of what he knew his own looked like. No images of other people's hands superimposed themselves over what he saw. He cocked his head to listen. No voices, no maniacal laughter. He studied the few buildings that could be seen from his vantage point. It was nearly complete dark, so not much detail, but they most certainly weren't on fire.
This was no afterlife. So as absurd as it was to think, maybe he was in the past. Jenova never did manage to leave The Planet to go devour other worlds, so maybe when she died, she sort of hovered in the Lifestream like Aerith. But to send him back in time? Actually...that made perfect sense. She wanted him to "return" her to the Lifestream, where no doubt she intended to consume The Planet through it's very heart, and then use the energy to leave and repeat elsewhere. Jenova said Reunion between her and Sephiroth mustn't happen. That might have been just her trying to trick him. On the other hand, while the two together managed to destroy...just about everything, several times over, maybe she couldn't leave when they're united. Nearly a win-win situation for that monstrosity. Convince the "puppet" to return you and: destruction and finally getting to a new world. If that fails: consume all life again.
Which put Cloud and the unknowing entire world's population at risk. Sephiroth and Cloud were the only ones she could control that he ever knew of, so if he stayed away, and stopped Sephiroth, and found a way to destroy her completely and utterly, then it would just be the mako reactors threatening everyone's very existence.
The reactors...were a problem completely beyond his ability to change. Despite what AVALANCHE wanted to think, blowing them up only fixed the problem when Shinra became unable to make more. Destroying Shinra wasn't something just one person could do, either. AVALANCHE destroyed the main thing that made their money, Sephiroth killed the President, the army was decimated by malfunctioning robots, the last SOLDIERs went rogue and died gruesome deaths after Hojo destroyed his research before trying to destroy the world, and Reeve said that three fourths of the Turks simply vanished. The dying in obscure "accidents" kind, not the "I retired" kind. And the company still kept functioning. In the end, the only thing able to take Shinra down was Meteor, and that was not something Cloud ever wanted to see again.
Really, of all their attempts to save the world, the only one they ever succeeded at was killing Sephiroth. Crazy scientists and Jenova brought him back over and over, but Cloud killed him every time. Usually by himself. The first time Cloud wasn't even SOLDIER. If Sephiroth was dead, and Cloud stayed far away from Nibelheim, there would be no one to hear or do Jenova's bidding. Maybe Hojo, but his plans had always seemed to revolve around a live Sephiroth.
Cloud leaned back against the drum of the water tower, tilted his head up to gaze at the stars, and started to scheme.
ooOOOoo
The night on the water tower was long and cold. Whenever his eyes blinked closed too long, and his head started nodding, he'd take off the blanket, stretch, and wait until the shivering made him wide awake. He didn't dare sleep, though. He didn't know how far Jenova could reach. That day was so confusing to remember. Cloud, and Zack, and Sephiroth, and Tifa all remembered it differently, and inside his head, it was like shattering an elaborately patterned vase and then gluing it all back together wrong. First Shinra Mansion burned, then Nibelheim, and then Sephiroth went up to the reactor. Yeah, that was right. Which meant that Jenova could talk to him as far down as town, right? But was Cloud able to be affected? He ran his hand through his hair in frustration and his gaze caught on the dim silhouettes of the nearby houses. Dawn was just breaking, and the morning sun made the town look like it was on fire. He shook his head and blinked. It wasn't burning, it was just the sunrise. Cloud climbed down the ladder on limbs numb with fatigue and cold, and stumbled back to his house. He needed to get out of here. Away from Nibelheim, and away from...he sighed. Just away.
The door creaked a bit on its hinges, but he moved as quietly as he could across the floor. Would his mom be awake? Cloud had tried so hard to remember more about her last night, but she remained a barely-there presence in his memories. She appeared to still be sleeping, but light was starting to filter in through the window. The log basket was nearly empty, so he got up and stirred the banked embers, fed them the last couple sticks of wood, and headed outside again. Locating the woodpile took a moment, and by the time he filled the basket and went back inside the sun was past rising.
His mom was sitting up and combing her fingers through her hair. She blinked blearily at Cloud.
He set the container down, and smiled tentatively at her. "Morning, Mom."
"Morning Cloud," she yawned.
He looked at her and waited.
She looked at him and waited.
Cloud looked away and fidgeted. So did he inherit the whole not talking much thing from his mom along with his looks? She didn't say much at dinner either. He really had no idea how to explain what he had to do. Well, maybe not explain. There wasn't any way to make it believable. Just, say what he was going to do. He left before, he would do so again.
She had gotten dressed, hair pulled back in a slipshod braid, and was on her way to the fireplace.
"You eat yet?"
Cloud shook his head, but she was facing away, so he said, "No."
No response was forthcoming, but she started doing something with a frying pan and some foodstuffs from the cold box, so Cloud walked over to sit at the table.
After they had eaten a portion of something Cloud didn't know the name for, he straightened up and said seriously, "Mom, I'm going to go to Midgar."
She startled a bit but then smiled, "What for, Cloud?"
"To join SOLDIER." That wasn't exactly why, but it was an ostensibly good reason for him to head there.
Her eyes looked a bit more focused, as her smile became less vague and more amused. "You're too young."
"I'll tell them I'm older than I am." That had gotten him into the infantry. He didn't get in SOLDIER before and he honestly didn't remember why, but he'd make sure he'd made it this time. He'd falsify records if necessary. He wasn't trying to get into the program, he just needed access to Sephiroth.
"They'll look at your size and know you're too young." She responded, starting to look distracted again.
"I just haven't hit my last growth spurt. Once I do it'll be fine. It should be soon, too." Cloud said confidently. He had been taller than this when he met Zack, but that was after he'd been in Midgar for awhile. He probably got taller on his way last time or something. And this trip would take longer, even if all went smoothly, so no worries there.
His mom just shook her head a little and started clearing away the dishes.
Cloud walked over to the corner his bed was in. He folded up his extra clothes, and looked around for a satchel of some kind. There was one on a row of pegs on the wall, next to some drying plants and a basket. He packed it neatly. There was twenty-three gil in a box next to his bed, along with a book and a few toys that had seen better days. He gathered them up into a pile, and turned to his mom.
"Do we have any dried food, like jerky?"
She gave him a look he couldn't quite decipher, then sighed. "There's some dried things next to the cold box."
He was probably supposed to know that already. There wasn't very much, but it would have to do. He packed that also, and headed out the door and into town. There was a general store, right? He walked slowly up to the most likely-looking. The owner was a middle-aged man, familiar, but his name wasn't something Cloud had time to search for just now. Two hours Cloud spent trying to haggle twenty-three gil, a book and the toys for a fire starter, pocket knife, and two knives that looked like they'd do as weapons. Eventually he got the starter and pocketknife, more out of the man being tired of him than any bartering skill on Cloud's part. The owner wouldn't even consider the weapons, which didn't come as a surprise; they had been wishful thinking anyway.
Back to the house, and really, this was not nearly enough preparation, but he needed to get away so he could sleep, and once he was far enough away for that, he certainly wasn't going to return.
His mom was sewing in the chair by the window. She looked up after he cleared his throat.
"I'm leaving now. Goodbye."
"Where are you going?" She asked, looking at the rucksack.
"Midgar." Cloud thought maybe his reply should have been longer or contained more detail, but that was really all he could think to say.
"To join SOLDIER?" She raised an eyebrow, but still wasn't actually making eye contact.
"Yeah."
She made a huffing noise, which was a lot like the sound Cloud made when Reno cracked a joke that was almost funny enough to laugh at. "All right, then. Goodbye." And she went back to sewing.
That was it? Midgar was a long ways away, and he was too young to join SOLDIER, technically. Last time, hadn't she given him a list of things to remember or do or something? He was sure that had been his own mom, and not one of Zack's memories.
"Aren't you going to," Cloud paused, long enough someone else might have looked up or said something, but she didn't, so he continued, "give me some sage advice?"
She made that huffing noise again. "Sage advice?" She sewed a bit more, and then said, "Find someone to take care of you, Cloud. Gaia knows we Strifes need someone to."
That was it. She continued to sew, Cloud couldn't think of anything else to say, and he needed to get going. Should he hug her goodbye? Physical contact would make him more disoriented just now, and he couldn't afford an episode. But if he failed, Cloud wouldn't see her again, so he wanted to have said goodbye properly at least. He walked over and gave her a hesitant kiss on the cheek, and then darted back towards the door. Cloud glanced over his shoulder, but she was looking out the window, so he said nothing more, only kept walking.