SORRY! I haven't been able to do as much as I have wanted recently, but my exams have finished and I'm off for three weeks! And what a great way to come back than with a shit story XD
Why
Summery: Cloud often wondered why, Just why. Foursome Saga AGZC. Rated T for mentions of stuffs. Set after Crisis core, before AC.
Cloud wondered why. Why had his life sunk this low, why did he have to lose everything he cherished? Why did the world have to fall apart? By his hands no less. Why was this world so filled with guilt and heartache? Why were the people dying?
Just... Why?
He couldn't understand the workings of the planet, not the workings of the Lifestream. He stood alone on the cliff edge stained with blood, the rusty sword marking the memories of two great heroes.
Cloud grunted a little, his chin resting on folded arms, knees pressed against his chest as he thought to himself. The rain darkened the skies, as if showing the world the heart of the Hero and what feelings he felt.
"Some hero I am..."
Things never allowed him to step forward, draw a line in the sand, memories too painful made his heart swell and tears threatening to spill. He rubbed his red eyes, sniffing slightly as he thought back to the start of all this mess.
The mission had been claimed a success, everything was supposed to be fine. Genesis was supposed to come home to them, so they could be together again. But the helicopter never came back, in fact it never left the pad on the Shinra rooftop. Cloud couldn't understand, Genesis was coming back right? They said if the mission was a success then Genesis could come home from the gruelling months spent in Wutai.
Cloud had often asked Zack and Angeal, who spent long hours in the study doing some sort of paperwork, so important Cloud couldn't look at it. He asked them everything, "When was Genesis Coming back?" "Has someone gone out to get him?" "What's going on?" But like a child, he was told lies. Genesis was coming back soon, he's just tying a few loose ends, someone will go out to get him when he's ready, Nothing is wrong.
But Cloud could see something was wrong.
Zack hadn't trained with him in a while, and Angeal didn't work with him as much. Something had brought them down, hurt them, upset them. Cloud had some feeling it was to do with Genesis.
Then he got the message.
Genesis was KIA, Killed In Action. Shinra must have been lying, someone must had been joking. His heart, however, finally pieced everything together, the helicopter not getting Genesis, him not phoning, him not coming back. Cloud finally let the first tear fall.
When Zack had come to find him, seeing him curled up on the bed, arms around his knees and blue eyes filled with tears. His golden tail curled around him, unmoving, ears flipped back at his mental anguish. He knew too.
Cloud could never understand when he was younger, why Angeal and Zack never told him the pains of the world. Why they kept those secrets and dangers locked away, and smiled when everything was wrong. But as Cloud looked back at it now, and the troubles he goes through to keep Denzel happy, he knew too.
It was to protect.
Cloud's golden ears, still present to this day, flipped back and he shivered slightly as the cold rain froze him to the bone. His tail curled closer, tucking under his legs and flicking slightly. Everything had gone downhill from there, the four became a three. It was never the same without Genesis' sex related jokes or his vast amount of knowledge on emotions. They barely spoke about him, and whenever his name was mentioned they would all go silent. They were never the same without Their shot of red.
And Things only got worse from there.
Zack and Angeal had gone away, Sephiroth too, to do a mission in Wutai to capture a fortress or something. Cloud didn't know much about it, all he knew that Lazard was looking for a new General, and Zack was one of the chosen ones.
Zack had been hesitant, for so many reasons, Cloud had understood though. He didn't want to have the responsibilities just yet, he didn't want to leave Cloud by himself when he and Angeal had to go on a mission.
He didn't want to take Genesis' place.
But Cloud had encouraged him, saying it would have been something Genesis had wanted him to do. Cloud always had friends who would help him anyway when he was away, he wasn't the defenceless baby when he first joined.
So Zack had gone, smiling at his blond kitten and promising the three of them would be back before he had a chance to miss them.
But only two came back.
Angeal had gone AWOL, according to Sephiroth, and they would have to find him and bring him back to Shinra. Cloud knew Angeal wouldn't just up and leave them, he would have had reasoning behind his disappearance. Maybe He had gone after someone behind the copies Sephiroth spoke about, whose copies they were Cloud didn't know, neither him or Zack said. Maybe Angeal had been given another mission by Lazard, and it was urgent so he couldn't tell them.
Cloud's mind raced with possible scenarios, as he and Zack laid in the bed that seemed awfully large and endless. He drifted himself off to sleep, Zack's soothing rubs and his confused state made sleep seem all that much nicer.
Cloud should have known from the start. He would beat himself every time he thought about it.
Genesis never died, he was Dying, but never dead. Angeal had found him, and he had followed him, Genesis was the one that had been deceived, and that his fragile mind had been led astray. That had caused Angeal to follow, when the two met, he too had been fed the lies Genesis had been forced to swallow.
But Why did Zack have to be the one to end them?
Cloud felt so tired, his head hurt and his ears bled and pounded in time with his thundering heart. He felt pain in his chest, his back and his legs didn't feel like could lift his body up. Zack had vanished through the door way by Tseng, who also seemed too weak to move. Cloud could hear the sound of swords clashing, and lightning crashing. But he couldn't feel his legs any more, he couldn't move, his throat dry and his head heavy as he fell onto his side. His tail protested the movement a little, and his ears moved as he felt a sharp pain from his tail through his spine.
He didn't know when his eyes had closed, or when he had opened them again. But when he did all he saw was Zack's bloodshot eyes and damp face. He could hear bits of what Zack said, something about them waiting for a helicopter to get them out. All Cloud could think about was Zack, and the sadness he felt. Zack's tail was barely moving and his spiky puppy bangs hid his equally puppy like ears.
Cloud reached up, his hand shaking lightly as he touched Zack's dirt smudged cheek and whispered softly. "Don't cry."
Zack had fallen at the last hurdle...
He cried.
Cloud knew by then, that Angeal had gone, and a few months after that Sephiroth finally lost it. Shinra had started falling apart. Reno had spent more time with Zack and him, Before the Nibelhiem incident, the pair began to bond, not enough for love and to heal the wounds, but enough to cover up the injuries of their suffering from the world.
Cloud was fragile then, and Zack had tried his hardest to keep at least them from falling apart, even after they escaped from the Shinra mansion. He had kept them going, kept Cloud safe, fed and watered. He made sure to sit with him every night, when they had found somewhere to keep them hidden, and helped him regain some of his speech and ability.
Genesis, had found the pair, from what Cloud could hear in his Mako induced state was that he needed the S gene, Sephiroth gene. Something had angered Zack, because he had ran off somewhere. Cloud felt nervous, vulnerable and alone, that's what he could remember. He could remember some sort of murmuring, and could hear someone walking behind him. He wanted to scream for Zack, tell him to come back and save him. But he couldn't talk loud enough, couldn't say Zack's name loud enough.
Someone had helped him though, he couldn't moved his head to see. Zack had come back, and seemed happy. Cloud preferred Zack to be happy, he had missed it for so long. He forced a small smile, when he felt Zack's gaze on him. It wasn't big, nor one of his best, but Zack seemed pleased with it nonetheless.
"Hey, Spike, finally coming round I see?"
Cloud sighed softly looking up at the sky as the sun began to break through, just like it had after Zack had...
He choked back a sob, tears falling like heavy weights down his cheeks. Zack had left him in the end, like the others had. He had died and was allowed to join the others in the place they time never seemed to matter. Gaia, Cloud wondered would it like to see their smiling faces again, and spend all eternity with them. Would they accept him for the man he had grown up to be? Would they still love him.
"Of course we would." Zack would say to him, Cloud knew that, but he had brought so much hardship on himself and others, he hadn't grown up to what they had wanted to him to be. A man the could always look to the future and learn from the mistakes he made.
But Cloud looked at the past, walking backwards and tripping over the mistakes he made so many times before. He often wondered Why he never learnt through past mistakes, why, even after all this time, he could never understand a single thing. Why was his life never easy, why was it he was always the one people hated?
Why would his three, dead, lovers ever forgive him?
Cloud often wondered Why.
Just why?