Disclaimer: My humble self owns nothing.
AN: The idea for this story came to me because I spent a month living next to a cemetery in Key West. the house I lived in was a cute yellow house that had no back yard whatsoever, but it did in fact neighbor a cemetery, and there were kiddie pools across the street.
Chapter One:
First Home At Age Thirty One
Cloud was ecstatic over the fact that he was finally able to live in his own home.
Ever since he joined the special marine corps called SOLDIER he'd been unable to have a home of his own. During his first year as a cadet he had to live in the barracks with the regular troops. After failing his first soldier exams due to an illness that made it impossible for him to proceed to the third combat trial, he lived with a mentor. His case was a first in soldier, a rarity, his performance during the exam had impressed the strongest SOLDIER in the corps. As the highest ranking, and the scariest, soldier to exist, Sephiroth found it fairly easy to intimidate the director into letting him train Cloud instead of following protocol and forcing him to repeat his training.
When he was independent of Sephiroth as a third class soldier, he had been able only to consider the thought of his own apartment before he was deployed on a long series of strenuous missions. For six months he was busy fighting clones of a high ranking first class soldier who had deserted the corps. He'd never been able to meet the original Genesis despite the fact that he had been one of his mentor's best friends. Nevertheless, after being forced to fight the man a million times over he'd grown to loathe him.
After that the first Wutaian war began. Following the war Cloud didn't want to live alone because of the river of blood he had a part in spilling. He spent the months following that dreadful year in therapy. After recovering from his emotional scars Cloud was promoted to second class and broke the record his mentor set for spending the least amount of time as a third class. Fourteen months beat out Sephiroth's original fifteen.
A week after he became a second he felt he was ready for his own home and even hired a real estate agent to look for suitable apartments. A week later as Cloud was looking at the twenty fifth apartment that his over zealous agent found for him, the second Wutaian war began. He, along with his mentor, was immediately sent to the front lines. Thus, his real estate plans were put on hold.
As the last fight of a dying nation, the second war was brutal. Cloud graduated to first class five months after the initial battle. The ceremony was performed in a hushed camp of tired soldiers and involved a large amount of alcohol. It wasn't the way Cloud pictured becoming a first class, but his dream came true. The next day he was sent back out onto the killing field with a slight hang over. The war ended after six years of fighting. It became the first war that was fought off American soil that ended in U.S victory.
Cloud took leave as soon as he got back and visited his home town of Nibelheim. He vainly hoped that a girl who gave him the motivation to promise his life away to an endless series of battles would still be there waiting. He searched the town and eventually found her with a child and a husband. After an angry confrontation that ended in misery he never thought of Tifa, or his promise to her, again.
Half of the next few months, he spent on base, the other half he spent drunk in the streets of Midgar. After a year or so, another beautiful woman dragged him out of the rut that a broken heart and a bloody past had placed him in. He drunkenly fell off the upper plate and found himself in a field of flowers growing inside a church in the slums.
The girl he met there had helped heal his soul and he'd grown to love her in a way that he had never been able to classify. Aerith was the kindest woman he ever met but she was only ever a friend to him. This was partially because of her boyfriend, a man Cloud never met, and partially because of Cloud's inability to believe he deserved love.
When Cloud was finally able to allow himself the comforts of a normal life he was sent into the Third Wutaian War. Cloud fought during the final war as he had previously fought in the first two, but his view of the military had drastically changed. His faith in SOLDIER was destroyed and following the war he resigned from active duty. He was not the only one to be tormented by the constant war and the atrocious acts they were forced to commit.
Sephiroth, his hero, mentor, and best friend, killed himself with his own sword during the final battle of Wutaian War III. Angeal, second in command of SOLDIER, deserted and was found with a bullet in his head and a gun in hand. Reno, a member of the special ops division called the TURKS, spent a year in the bottle following his wife Cissnei's death. A countless number of Cloud's friends and comrades had similar stories to tell.
He visited Aerith's church after dragging Reno and himself through rehab only to find it abandoned. He searched for Aerith but eventually gave her up to be dead. Together he and Reno bought the church, rebuilt it, and turned it into a shelter. His friend moved on to build many other shelters while he lived among the people in the shelter and helped out as best he could.
After a while Cloud decided that he should take a shot at being normal. He knew that the enhancements his body had undergone throughout his years at soldier would prevent him from being normal. He wouldn't age, he wouldn't get sick and for all he knew he wouldn't die unless someone stabbed him in the heart, decapitated him, gutted him, or murdered him in some other unpleasant way. But these very unnormal things didn't prevent him from living normally. He could get a job. He could get his own home with a bedroom, bathroom, and a kitchen. He didn't have to share bunks with other men and women. He didn't need communal showers!
But he refused to touch the fortune he'd made as a SOLDIER. Once upon a time he'd been able to use the government's money, but he could no longer use that money without a river of blood opening up before his eyes and dead bodies haunting his dreams. So he got a job as a delivery boy. A jack of all trades as Sephiroth had put it one day when he was relating to Cloud the profession he'd had in mind as a child.
And finally after thirty three years of living in homes that weren't his own he went to the real estate agency and bought himself his own house. He bought the house without seeing it first, the biggest mistake a person could make. He had Reno visit the house and make sure that it fitted the description the realtors had given him. Reno returned saying that the house did indeed have one floor, two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room. He showed Cloud pictures of every room in the house and asked why he didn't go to the place himself. Cloud answered him with a shrug and he was forced to shove down the annoyed thoughts of murder that ensued.
As a result of Reno's inspection and his pictures the business transaction was done within a day. Cloud then hired a friend of his to buy the furniture and decorate the home as Cloud completed intercontinental deliveries and packed his things. Two weeks later on a beautiful Saturday morning Cloud found himself moved into a fully furnished home with minimal effort.
He was very much pleased with his home. It was a cute little yellow house, the furniture was sparse and suited his tastes. The second bedroom provided him with a place to store all his junk. His kitchen had a large faucet and was right next to his bathroom, which made it the perfect place for him to learn how to cook without the worry of setting his house on fire. The front yard was pretty and the scenery of the neighborhood was rather nice. After walking through the house a few times Cloud couldn't find a single problem with it. The rooms weren't situated in an awkward way, there were no bugs, nothing was cluttered, and the house was overall a perfectly normal home.
The near perfect condition of the home made Cloud wonder at the relieved look his real estate agent had worn and the fairly cheap mortgage.
It took him less than an hour to unpack his things and hook up his cable, electricity and hot water heater. After which Cloud enjoyed a nice shower before reading a book on the large sofa in his living room.
Once his book was completed Cloud decided to go onto his back deck and enjoy the fine morning of his homecoming. After relaxing on the deck he decided to walk around his yard. And once he had he realized the one fault of his new home.
At the edge of his decent sized back yard was a row of shrubbery that did a poor job of hiding an old white picket fence. Behind this white picket fence there was a wrought iron fence of a very menacing kind. Behind that fence was a well kept lawn of grass and a stone bench. Beyond that bench was a row of neatly arranged headstones. And Cloud didn't doubt at all that beneath those head stones there were rotting corpses.
As Cloud stared in dumb shock and wore an expression very similar to a startled chocobo's he wondered why his heightened senses hadn't smelled the rotting flesh sooner. After a few moments he realized the irony of his situation. A man who was escaping the image of blood and dead bodies came to live in a home that neighbored a cemetery.
He sighed and sat down on the old metal bench that sat between the trees in his back yard. He sat and focused on the details of what he was seeing. There was a small alley between his fence and the fence of the cemetery. There was a nice side walk littered with leaves between said alley and said fence. Unlike many old cemeteries the rows of gravestones were neat and orderly. He could have mistaken it for a military cemetery if it weren't for the varying types of head stones, and the clearly visible tops of mausoleums. The grass was freshly cut behind the bars and had a rich green color. He could even make out the words on a sign inside the cemetery. It read "Please do not lay or sit on the graves"
Cloud idly wondered why some one would have the urge to lay on the above ground graves and marveled at the stupidity of man kind.
After a while of staring at the cemetery across the street Cloud concluded that he could adapt to living next to dead people. The next door lawns made it seem easy with their kiddie pools and pink flamingo lawn ornaments. Besides it wasn't like he had to see it every day. The cemetery was at least behind his house instead of in front.
As Cloud stood from the old metal bench and began to walk inside his home he began muttering to himself.
Among his mutterings were the phrases "At least it's pretty" and "I hope I don't have to listen to a funeral."