Notes: This was, I confess, one of the hardest stories for me to write, and I came to a standstill 9 chapters in. I am not a big fan of Rule 63 (lol), but very recently I've been on a binge for it. To be honest, I'm more of a Trap fan...just funner that way!

Warnings: Things you'll more than likely find in this fic: threesomes, bisexuals, lesbians, gays, incest, attempted rapes, nasty shit, et cetera. Nothing too graphic, nothing parody like, but...You have been warned!

And, just something that I think is truly amusing about myself, I can read/write stories with impossible gender bending without batting a lash, but if I see Haku from Naruto written as a woman, I can't stomach it. XD

Time travel was a strange concept.

To be honest, when Aerith had first told him about it he'd been completely disbelieving. Time travel was nothing more than fantasy and fairy-tales, the type of things a person would wish for but could never achieve. When a mistake is made a person always wished to do it over; hindsight is twenty-twenty after all. Aerith had kept a serious expression on her face, however, patiently waiting for him to finish chuckling as she created a wreath of flowers, her mouth in a smile.

"…You're serious?" Cloud had raised a brow, somehow managing to calm himself. The pink clad woman nodded, her hands absently picking another flower. The two were having their yearly conversation, one that Aerith had insisted upon in order to keep him up-to-date with the dead. Somehow they had gone from reincarnation (the Lifestream was ready to spit Sephiroth back out) to time travel. Cloud would be the first to admit that he wished the past was a lot more peaceful than it was, but he didn't quite like what Aerith was implying.

"I've done it many times before," Aerith admitted with a nod, a small smile on her face.

"If that's true," Cloud began doubtfully, "then why is everything so…?" He made a vague gesture at her, his lips pulling into a frown. Aerith's hand squeezed the flower, though her smile remained.

"Every time I go back I change things," she giggled lightly, obviously recalling a few fonder moments. "I still remember when I managed to save the world and you became a 1st Class SOLDIER; Your fans affectionately dubbed you The General of the Shinra Army."

"No way…" He shook his head in disbelief, not even able to picture it in his mind. "You didn't answer the question though."

"You didn't exactly ask anything," she pointed out, putting the flowers over her mouth as he sent her a glare. With a sigh, Aerith began to explain herself, knowing that he would never forgive her if she didn't say it. "I've made the world a better place many times before," she mumbled, absently tugging up a new flower. "I've seen you married with kids, Vincent married with kids, Sephiroth and Yuffie together; no, don't ask." She still had no idea how she had managed that one. "I was a singer in one timeline, Hojo was a priest in another; but did it matter?

"You're not in those lines, Cloud. I mean, I love you in every one I've been in, but none of them are this you." The blonde repressed a smile, feeling inexplicably happy at the confession. Contemplative green eyes were turned on him as Aerith continued her wreath, her fingers steady. "Do you want to try it out, Cloud?"

"Try what?" He questioned, content eyes focusing on the white sky. A flower smacked his head.

"Time travel, silly." She giggled, voice going distant as the imagery began to fade. "Think it over, Cloud; I'll come back to talk to you soon."

That had been weeks ago, the conversation still within Cloud's mind even as he delivered packages for well paying customers. Thankfully, no one looked him over in awe anymore as those who recognized him on sight were long since gone from the world. Indeed, he was probably the only person still living who had knowledge of just what had happened to Midgar, rather, The Destroyed City and the once powerful presence of Shin-Ra.

Not that he recalled most of the memories.

No, Cloud barely looked back on those times, having decided that living for the here and now was so much better than agonizing over a past that couldn't be changed. He had decided that on Tifa's deathbed, in fact, having promised the old and yet still beautiful woman that he would try not to let life depress him any longer. But that had been almost fifty years ago and Cloud could barely remember what Tifa sounded like anymore, so how was he supposed to remember how he'd saved the world?

And if he really could go back, did he have to save it?

Aerith had told him that he didn't have to save the world, that he could join the Honey Bee Inn if it suited his fancy (for some reason he'd shuddered at the thought, but he didn't quite remember what the Honey Bee Inn was), or become a drug addict or, really, anything he wanted to do. "You'll probably choose to save the world though," she had lamented, putting a reef of flowers around his head.

"Why do you think that?" He'd wondered. She'd given a sad curl of her lips at the question, eyes losing their normal warmth.

"Because," she'd shrugged lightly, "anyone who travels back in time would want things to turn out better than before on the first time. I did it too."

Sighing, Cloud finished up his delivery, knowing that the pink clad woman was right. Given an opportunity to go back into the past and choosing to do whatever he wanted was amazing, but he wanted to change things that had gone wrong the first time. Granted, he had to remember what had happened first.

"That's not going to be a problem," Aerith mused a few days later, leaning against his shoulder in her field of flowers. "When you first go back, your life flashes before your eyes; I remembered things that I never even knew of the last time. Childhood moments, even times when I was a toddler." Her face pulled into a frown. "It was…most disconcerting to remember my life in the labs."

"Can I bring anything with me?" Cloud wondered, dragging her away from the memories. She tilted her head at him.

"Nothing materialistic, Cloud; swords, clothes, Fenrir; you'll have to leave it all behind. If it has a connection to the planet, however, then I can manage it, so your materia and a few of your accessories will be safe." He breathed a sigh of relief, then laid down and eyed the sky as he waited for her to do the honors of sending him back. Her smiling face hovered over his after a moment, her hand reaching down to ruffle his spikes. "I think I'll come back in my fifth year of life; that's when things started changing for me. If you want to come back around the same time as me, you'll have to be four."

"Are you sure?" He wondered hesitantly. "What about…?"

"My first few times through, I couldn't help but come back young enough to be with my mother," Aerith admitted softly, a little sadly. "But in the end, she never makes it; I've found it easier to simply give up on it. Now, close your eyes, Cloud." Complying, he did so, feeling her hand ghost over his eyes at once. "I'll see you in Nibelheim, Cloud; wait for me." Before he could respond, a burning feeling ran through his gut as his body lurched, then more than a hundred years worth of memories rewound past his tightly clenched eyes.

Everyday boring deals with customers, making deliveries, talks with Aerith; if he could have, Cloud would have went to sleep to avoid the memories. Then the things that he'd forgotten went through his mind, making him smile nostalgically. Faces of friends, enemies, Turks, Shinra, SOLDIER, his mom… "…Aerith, I forgot to ask you how to enter the world." Flushing, the blonde watched as the younger him prattled about his house; Gods, he'd been an angry child.

"Looks like I'll be here a few years earlier than expected." He blinked his eyes, smiling softly at the sight of his infant self screaming, then gagging as he was rewound through his own birth. He didn't need to see that. With a sigh, he felt himself being pulled into the world ahead of him, knowing that life was about to change. "I won't waste it, guys; I promise." With that, the blonde closed his eyes and waited, feeling himself compress tightly into a small ball as liquid surrounded him.

It was like being in the tubes of mako that Hojo had forced upon him, except comforting. It took him a second to realize that he was in his mother's womb and an even longer one to realize that he had no body. How far back did I go? Cloud wondered hesitantly, trying, and failing, to move. After a while, he gave up on trying to move and instead settled in to think about how he was going to help everyone. The closest people to him were Tifa, Vincent, Nanaki and Cid, though the last was probably in a flight program at Shinra at the moment and there was no telling how the other three would react to his words.

Then was Barret and Yuffie, one who wasn't even born yet and the other who didn't know that Shinra would be an awful monster in the future; hell, Marlene wasn't even born yet. And there was no telling where Reeve was or if he was even interested in joining Shin-Ra in this timeline. If he had lips, Cloud would have frowned. There were so many things to do and so few ways to do them; who would believe that a young child came from the future to make the world a better place?

And if he started to say things that he had no business of knowing, he had no doubt in his mind that he would be in Hojo's labs faster than he could blink.

And that was another thing; Hojo. Much as he hated the man, without all of his illegal tinkering, there was no way in hell would Cloud have stood a chance against Sephiroth. Or perhaps he would have; his memories did show him tossing the man into the Lifestream long before he'd become an experiment. Lucky shot, Cloud, he thought to himself. There's no way in hell Sephiroth would have allowed that to happen if he hadn't of been distracted.

Then there was Zack, who he had met on a mission to investigate the disappearance of two other 1st Class SOLDIERS and…there was just far too much on his plate to get through in one setting! How the hell was he going to convince anyone? How the hell was he going to help anyone? I'll just have to ask Aerith, he realized. Though I'm going to have to spend a few years without her help. In the meanwhile, I suppose I'll just have to get stronger. Yes, grow smart, strong, fast and agile from an early age. There was nothing else for him to do, really.

However, Cloud found that he had an extra year to do nothing but think.

Trapped in his mother's womb, he had the misfortune to feel himself form into a baby, and he often heard conversations happening on the outside world when he finally grew ears. If he could have, the blonde would have happily left his mother's womb to give his own father the what for, considering the man was a bastard. His mother had never before spoken of who his father was or why his father had left, but now he knew. The man didn't want him, denied the paternity of him, and left his mother high and dry, hardly anything left to her name and a promise to make her life miserable if she ever told a soul.

Cloud felt himself groan in dismay as he realized that this was around the time his mother moved to Nibelheim, and he couldn't help but give the poor woman a lot of harsh kicks for her stupid decisions in life. Honestly, he would have preferred growing up in the slums of Midgar, but he knew his mother chose such a far off place to avoid the shame of bumping into the married and successful man that, much to his surprise, disgust, shame and horror, bore the name of Shinra.

He'd always known that he and Rufus looked a bit too close for comfort.

As it was, when Cloud finally felt himself able to wriggle more freely, he'd wasted no time in trying to force his own birth, too happy to finally be free of the darkness to care that he was rushing into Nibelheim. He could hear the resident doctor telling his mother to push, hear his mother's panting cries as she requested morphine that the villagers refused to give, and see the light at the end of…well…Keeping his eyes shut, Cloud felt his head being squeezed tightly by his mother's walls and felt himself wail at the pain to his frail body. It had been so long since he'd experienced any sort of pain that it hurt more than he expected it should.

"Ya did good, ya did good…" The doctor was muttering, even as Cloud felt a warm rag sliding over him, removing the blood from his person. He tried to open his eyes, to see who was in the room with him, to see his mother's face, but the bright light felt like torture to his still developing retinas. "Oh, lookit 'er, innit she a beaut?"

"What'cha ya gonna name her, Rayne?" Cloud felt himself drifting off as a pair of warm arms cradled him gently, a light kiss touching his head.

"Cloud," his mother's voice, finally speaking to him instead of far off to the distance. "I'll call her Cloud." It was only as his mind finally gave into rest that he realized that everyone was calling him a her, but by then he was far past caring.

Edited: Aug. 22, 2013

Removed Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal being called Generals after refreshing memory. Fanfiction hath rotted my brain with false facts. Fun facts: Neither person were ever referred to as Generals, merely 1st Class SOLDIERS. Boom.