Cloud held the baby out to Sephiroth who stared dumbly at him.

"What am I supposed to do with it?" He asked

"Hold him, silly," Cloud chuckled. Sephiroth looked at him, uncertainty in his eyes. Cloud smiled warmly. "Here, put your hand here. Yeah, support his head, careful."

With a little guidance and slow movements, the baby was transferred to Spehiroth. The silver-haired man held the baby away from himself awkwardly. "Now what?"

"Put his head to your heart," Cloud encouraged. "He's not going to hurt you Seph."

Sephiroth did as instructed, carefully cradling the infant against his chest. The baby felt like nothing in his hands.

"There you go," Cloud murmured. "How's that feel?"

"He's warm," Sephiroth said as if he were surprised. "And so soft."

Cloud sighed contentedly and cuddled Sephiroth's arm. "He's amazing, isn't he?"

Sephiroth glanced down at his little blond.

"He's like you," Cloud said, half asleep against his lover's shoulder. "Beautiful."

Sephiroth wasn't sure he could agree with that. The infant was wrinkly and his body wasn't formed right; the head was too big and parts of the skull were soft and squishy. Cloud insisted that all newborns looked like that but Sephiroth wouldn't say it was beautiful.

The beep of a keycard alerted them to the front door sliding open. Cloud was too late to intercept the new intruders.

"Spiky! Seph!" Zack's voice was happy and loud, like it always was and the noise startled the baby awake. Sephiroth looked nearly panicked as the baby started crying in his arms.

"Puppy." It was Angeal's voice, groaning at the young man's obvious lack of sense.

"Sorry," Zack whispered, too late to fix the damage. Cloud was getting out of the bed to deal with the others when Genesis appeared in the doorway.

"The baby," Genesis began worriedly.

"He's fine," Cloud assured, taking the wailing infant from Sephiroth's arms. Genesis hurried to his side, hovering over the blond and glaring at Sephiroth.

"Don't start, Gen," Cloud warned, rocking and shushing the baby. Genesis hmphed but said nothing to Sephiroth, following Cloud out of the room.

"Let me see him, kitten, I'll calm him down." Genesis didn't wait for an answer before scooping the baby up. Cloud made a sound of protest but didn't try to take the baby back. Genesis had an uncanny ability to soothe the little one. As usual, the crying quickly faded to soft, unhappy whimpering.

"He's hungry," Cloud told Genesis before heading to the living room. Genesis made his way to the kitchen with the baby.

"Sorry," Zack said again, plopping down on the couch. Angeal shoved Zack out of the way and made himself comfortable.

"It's ok, I needed to wake him for a feeding anyway." Cloud smiled as he listened to Genesis babbling away at the baby.

"Who's have thought Genesis would have made such a good mother," Angeal teased.

"I heard that!" Genesis called from the kitchen.

"How's Seph doing today?" Zack asked, leaning into Angeal's lap to reach for the remote.

"He's better," Cloud said, perching himself in a lounge chair and curling his legs underneath him. "He didn't get any flashbacks while you were gone. He even held the baby."

"You shouldn't let him do that when we're not around," Genesis said, approaching with the baby and a bottle of formula. "It's bad enough you insist on staying with him alone."

Cloud frowned and reached out for the baby. Genesis handed him over with only a bit of reluctance. "Seph has enough control to know when an attack is coming. He's warned me before they happened."

"It's happened since you've been back?" Angeal inquired.

"Just twice, while Gen was working," Cloud replied simply, focusing on feeding his baby. Genesis leaned over the back of the chair and wrapped his arms around Cloud, snuggling his face into the blonde's neck.

Cloud felt as well as heard something thud into Genesis' back. The red-head tensed around him and all heads turned to see Sephiroth standing in the hallway, haired tied back in a loose pony tail and shirtless. A thick volume of Loveless lay on the floor where it had fallen after impact with Genesis' back.

'You left that in my room," Sephiroth said. It was another of his subtly warnings that he did not appreciate the red warrior's proximity to his lover.

Smirking, Genesis turned back to Cloud. "Kitten, he's being mean to me."

"You're a big boy," Cloud said, his attention once again absorbed with feeding the baby.

Genesis pouted. "Kitten," he whined. He released Cloud when Sephiroth's hand grabbed his shoulder.

"Don't bother him," Sephiroth said in a low voice.

Sensing sparks, Cloud stood up and sat on the other side of Zack. The Puppy yelped in surprise as Genesis and Sephiroth tackled each other to the ground.

"That happens more often than any other kind of attack," Cloud muttered. He didn't even glance at the tussle as he shifted the baby to his shoulder, placing the half empty bottle in between his legs. Zack turned the TV on to drown out the sounds of the two 1st class SOLDIERS pulling each other's hair like drunk bitches.

"He's making that face at me again," Zack said, looking closely at the baby.

"What face?" Cloud asked, glancing over his shoulder to get a glimpse.

"You know, the one where he's planning my demise," Zack insisted. "He picked that up from Seph, I know-"

He was cut off as the baby burped and spit up some of his lunch on Zack. Zack flinched back, gagging as the baby giggled at him.

"See! I told you he was gonna do something." Zack grimaced, rubbing spit up off his face with his shirt.

"The why did you stick your face so close? Angeal asked, laughing.