I wish I owned them…

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After the events of AC, Cloud finds himself waiting for something that never seems to arrive. The agitated blond begins to drive off his companions out of the built up tension with in him. However, what is he waiting for? Gift for LuckZombie.

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The day had been cold and damp, the crisp breeze carrying rain heavy clouds over the ruins of Midgar. The freezing, miserable atmosphere had intensified as the storm did. It slowly had become a gusty, thunder filled terror that drove rain drops like throwing knives to sting the skin and chill the bones. The weather crept through each crack in the walls and gap in clothes, intent on making its point absolutely clear; today was a depressing day. As the wind blew through, it rattled doors and shook timbers in the all but abandoned city. The destroyed houses and towers a testimony to what the land had witnessed just a few years before, when the nightmare walked.

Within the wreckage caused by the almost dooms-day was a church. Battered and barely standing, mostly filled with the special liquid known as the 'life-stream' it had served as a sanctuary for many long years and even now one in particular called it home.

Cloud had prepared as well as he could for the storm, but in a place that had practically no roof left it had proven rather difficult to find shelter. As it was he was curled up in a corner, a couple of pews and boxes piled to serve as a make-shift wall and roof. Even so, somehow, a silvery, wet, cold trickle ran down through his characteristic blond spikes and down his neck making him shiver. He had shifted about as much as possible and even moved his entire "shack" from one end of the church to the other but the irritating leak seemed to have somehow followed.

If he didn't know better he would have said that Aeris and Zack were behind it.

But they both were resting in peace, the most recent threat to the world having died in his arms. He still found it hard to believe that someone so vulnerable could be so dangerous. He sighed and shifted, shaking his head to try and disturb the constant drip onto his cold head. He knew he should be at the 7th Heaven with Tifa, sheltering from the storm, talking to Denzel, making preparations for his next delivery. But even in accepting all that had happened and that two of his closest friends were dead he somehow felt more restless than before. That restlessness was transferring itself into irritability. Sure he answered his phone now, but none dared to ring him. Barret had accused him of suffering PMS, the ex-leader of AVALANCHE hadn't contacted even Tifa after that day. Speaking of the busty bartender, she had dropped by earlier only to be driven off by Cloud's harsh demeanor. Even her barbed comments about the past had done nothing but fuel his anger. He was tired of everyone expecting him to jump up and become the Cloud that had left his home in search of adventure and heroism. No one could be what they once were.

Besides, he was haunted by cat-like, brilliant green eyes and rain slick silver strands.

---

Tifa sighed as she leaned back on the counter and crossed her arms, watching the rain lash at the windows with a small shiver. She hadn't meant to annoy Cloud, but she had become worried by how he had driven everyone off. It didn't make any sense, hadn't he been getting better? She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. She had hoped that they could be a family, but it looked like it'd be much longer before that would happen with the outburst she had most recently been on the receiving end of. She winced in memory of the cruel words Cloud had spat at her.

Surely he hadn't meant them.

A disturbance on the stairwell brought her from the grim musings and she turned to see the disheveled brown hair of Denzel. With a weak smile at the orphan, the bartender moved forward. "You awake now, sleepy head?"

He nodded and looked about the humble bar that made up the lower half of their home. "Isn't he back yet?"

The already brittle smile on Tifa's face faulted as she stopped and shook her head with an apology only to have the boy shake her words off. "I think it's a good thing… it means what he's waiting for isn't here yet."

The black haired woman blinked at this enigmatic announcement but before she could question it the boy had slipped past her to the next room. Left on her own in the stunned silence, only broken by the unceasing rain, she turned slowly to look in the direction of the church. "What he's waiting for?"

---

It had been several days and the rain had not yet abated. Cloud had since given up on being either dry or warm as the elements seemed hell bent on preventing such comforts. Sitting on the rubble left from the fight between Tifa and one of the remnants created by Sephiroth, Cloud tipped his head back slowly. The rain was almost like ice but with the sting more common to tiny shards of glass. Was this how the lead remnant had felt in his last moments when the life-stream fell as rain? Had it stung and bit at his skin?

Cloud sighed and shook his head. No, he would not think of him, the one called Kadaj. He had watched the light in those eyes fade after Sephiroth left the badly damaged and exhausted body of the puppet. But, somehow, he could not shake the image of his face. Joy, anger, headstrong and finally defeat turning to wonder as he was taken back to the life-stream, where he belonged.

Somehow it hurt to think of it like that, but how could you mourn someone you barely knew?

All the questions made Cloud's head spin. He did know Kadaj, he saw his younger self reflected in the not-child in the brief flashes of near sanity revealed to him. After all, as Kadaj himself had pointed out, hadn't he once been a puppet himself. So even Kadaj's insanity was disturbingly reminiscent of a time past for Cloud. But he was alive, Kadaj was not. A frustrated groan escaped his throat and he bent his head, scrunching his eyes shut tight. Gloved hands rose up and gripped at gravity-defying blond spikes. He had freed himself of Sephiroth, only to have something much worse take the nightmare's place.

But what could be worse than a nightmare haunting you? Yet another question that Cloud did not know the answer to. The restless frustration was building up again; however, this time there was no one to vent it out to. "Damn it!"

His voice was husky from disuse; so much so even he paused, not recognizing the exclamation as his own. With a grunt he threw himself from the rubble pile to pace the well worn remains of the wooden floor. He was restless, but he did not wish to be anywhere but here. He wanted to get back to his life, but snapped at the slightest misdemeanor. He knew this feeling…

He wanted to scream.

The feeling intensified as he heard what was left of the door open and the sound of sneakers splashing across the battered and beaten wood floor, the voice he least wanted to hear resounded through the remains of the old building, trembling slightly with insecurity. "Cloud, are you here?" Her persistence was annoying.

He slowly stood up into her view and moved closer with all the excitement of a man approaching the gallows. He knew the only things that would come from his mouth would be horrible, hateful words. He hated them all for not understanding that there was something he was missing. "Go home, Tifa." He saw her flinch, her face falling from the almost hopeful expression she'd adopted. He couldn't bring himself to apologize; she knew that she was unwelcome.

Yet, here she was, like she had always been, trying to help him, but she didn't understand. The only ones who could possibly understand were dead. The SOLDIERs, Sephiroth, Zack… and then the remnants, all gone through either their own driving, deadly insanity or simply being caught up in circumstances beyond them. Cloud closed his eyes and shook his head. She was still here. "Tifa, go!" The look on her face, he could imagine the pain, the incredulous expression, not wanting to believe he was driving her off but the hurt driving into her soul making it a cold reality.

"You… had been getting better, Cloud… what changed?" He shook his head and turned his back on her. How could you explain when you didn't know for yourself? "Cloud? Talk to me?" She had always been gentle, but that same gentleness was causing Cloud's fist to clench and jaw to lock. He was about to turn around and attack her vocally, drive her back through the rain to her bar where she'd be safe from his inexplicable fury and warmed from the freezing gaze he'd lock onto her. He was about to; before a splash from the pool of lifestream water stopped them both, stilling the tension. The sound was too large to be rain, and the debris had stopped falling long before this day.

Cloud slowly turned to see the pond better, before he hurried forward to drag the object from the water, a cry of protest in the form of his name following him. What he had been waiting for had arrived.