Kompression

Description: It began with a house and a dream, but by its end, there will be magic, murder, and the answers to questions long dead but never destroyed. The boy in his basement will see to that. CloudxSquall, AU.

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy 7 and 8 both belong to Square(-Enix), so don't look at me.

A/N: My deepest apologies for the delay with this chapter. I got hit with Error Type 2 and have been waiting (im)patiently for FFNet to fix it. I would still be waiting, too, if wonderful, beautiful, amazing (can you tell I'm grateful) Shadow of Hyrule hadn't told me the way to get around it. So thank you, thank you, thank you! I am deeply in your debt.

Hope you enjoy chapter two of "Kompression". Just a word of warning though: Some of my lovely reviewers have already been complaining about cliffhangers. Dearies, get used to it. You ain't seen nothing yet.

2

There was a hospital not too far from his house, but Cloud chose the hospital in his old neighborhood for the simple reason that Aerith worked there. He had known from talking to her earlier in the week that she was working that day, so when she came in for her shift, he was waiting for her, stalking the nurses' station like some jungle predator.

"They're saying only family can see him," he complained as she was attempting to sign herself in, "but no one can identify him, so no one knows who his family is. I argued that since I'm the one paying for it, I should be allowed in, but no one is listening to me." He scowled viciously at her, then at a random nurse who jumped and quickly found another place to be. Growling to himself, he continued, "This whole thing is stupid. Are family members the only people who love a person? If I were in there instead, would I not be allowed any visitors because nobody in my family is still alive? I bet Tifa would have something to say about that. They'd be the ones in need of visitors by the time she got done with them."

"All right, Cloud," Aerith sighed at him finally, shaking her head, "I'll see what I can do. Honestly, I don't think I've ever heard you say so much at one time before. And all for some boy you … what was it? Found collapsed in your yard?"

"That's right." That had been the story he had concocted since, if he told the truth, they'd put him in the hospital as well. For insanity.

"Fine." His friend quickly finished up what she had to do at the station, then turned to leave. He followed her for a few steps, not caring that he wasn't supposed to go where she was going, but she quickly spun around and confronted him with a mild frown. Raising her hand to point at the waiting area, she ordered, "Sit down and be patient. Read a magazine or something." The finger came up in front of her face like she was a schoolteacher scolding a small child. "No scaring anyone. Or else."

Cloud glared at her, but she ignored it, turned away again, and, with a bounce of braid and pink ribbon, was gone.

He had skimmed through the entire magazine selection by the time she came back. She had a couple of clipboards in her hands and was scanning one as she came up to him. Waiting for her to finish reading and give her attention to him was pure torture for Cloud, but he bit down tightly on his tongue and endured. Finally, after a seeming eternity, her pretty green eyes raised from the papers and met his.

"Did you scare anyone?" she asked him.

"No," he lied.

The expression in her eyes told him she knew the truth, but thankfully she seemed willing to let it go. "Well," she said, going back to her clipboards, "he's stable, and the doctors haven't been able to find anything specific that's wrong with him. He's unconscious, though, and no one knows for how long."

"I still want to see him."

Aerith met his gaze again, this time with a nod and a little smile. "Follow me," she said gently, turning away again.

The kid was in a private room for now, the hospital not being particularly busy. They had put him in a hospital gown and hooked him up to a few monitors and an IV, but overall he looked pretty much the same as when he had been floating in the column of light in his basement. Cloud walked straight over to the chair that stood by the head of the bed and sat down in it, leaning slightly forward with his elbows on his upper thighs. While Aerith moved about the room, quietly checking machines and charts, he let his eyes roam over the boy's face. He was certainly handsome with a striking profile and smooth skin over high cheekbones. That handsome face, however, was completely blank, making Cloud feel uneasy as he watched him. Even a sleeping person had some life in his face, some movement; this kid had nothing.

"Who are you, kid?" he murmured quietly. "What happened to you?"

"He didn't have anything on him that could be used to identify him?" Aerith asked from the other side of the room. "No wallet or phone?"

Cloud turned slightly in his seat to look at her. "Nothing," he replied. "His pockets were empty."

"Well," she sighed, turning back to whatever it was she was doing, "I talked to Vicky, the nurse in charge of him at the moment, and she said the police are currently looking through missing persons records to see if they can find anything. Other than that, there isn't much we can do until he wakes up."

Cloud made a noise of acknowledgement and turned back to the bed. A steady gray gaze waited for him. Startled, Cloud met it and, for a few heartbeats, just blinked. Then, he cleared his throat and called, "Aerith?"

"Hmm?" she replied idly, lazily lifting her head, but the moment she saw the kid, she gasped and snapped into action. In an instant, she was next to Cloud, leaning down slightly and checking the kid's vitals while she talked softly to him. "Are you feeling all right?" she asked. "Does anything hurt? Can you tell me your name? The last thing you remember?"

In spite of her gentle coaxing, the boy remained silent, his eyes unmoving from Cloud's face. Aerith tried again with some different questions, but after a few minutes, she fell silent as well and simply gazed at him thoughtfully. Carefully, she knelt down in front of the kid, temporarily obstructing Cloud's view of him. Cloud saw her moving her hands a bit, touching the boy in various places on the face and arms. Then, she rose to her feet and turned away, sighing.

"Poor thing," she said as she picked up her clipboards again and used the pencil attached to one of them to jot something down.

"What?" Cloud asked her, looking between her and that unnerving, fixed stare.

"He's catatonic," she replied sadly. She put the clipboard back down and stated, "I need to find Vicky. Will you be all right here, Cloud?"

Stunned, Cloud could only nod at her. Once she had left, he looked again at that handsome face and those blank, staring eyes and felt a lump forming in his throat. He had hoped that, once the young man had recovered, he could give Cloud some answers as to what exactly had happened the previous night. Why he had an invisible door and a fake basement and what that symbol and light had been and why it was there with the kid inside of it. But now it seemed those answers would not be coming any time soon. The kid could tell him nothing, not even his name.

Disappointed beyond words, Cloud stood from the chair and left the room without a backward glance. When he got home, he crawled into bed and slept for the remainder of the day, for the first time in weeks free from dreams.

The next day after work, Cloud planned on going straight home, but somewhere along his commute, he took a detour and ended up at the hospital instead. He didn't even really know why. He knew there was nothing he could do and that he was just wasting his time, but his body seemed to take him there on its own. Some subconscious part of him wouldn't be satisfied until he had checked up on the kid to make sure he was okay.

Earlier that morning, Aerith had sent him an email, berating him for leaving and telling him that nothing about the boy's condition had changed. Even so, a flicker of hope rose within him when he walked in to the room to find the kid sitting upright in a chair by the window, looking out at something beyond it. One look at that young face, however, extinguished that small flame before it could properly catch. The boy's expression was still nonexistent, and his eyes were still empty and dull.

Cloud wanted to just turn around and leave; instead he crossed to the window and leaned against the wall. This whole situation was hopeless and ridiculously depressing. He honestly didn't know why he had bothered to come at all. Yet for some reason, he felt like he couldn't just abandon this kid. He felt attached to him on some level, and he believed with a fair amount of conviction that if he didn't take care of the poor guy, no one would. So he would stay, at least for now.

"Oh, hello!" someone said from the doorway, interrupting his thoughts and causing him to turn his head in that direction. A pretty female nurse stood there smiling at him, her honey-brown hair pulled up into a high ponytail on the back of her head. "I'm Vicky," she told him. "Are you Cloud by any chance?" When he nodded, she smiled even more widely and stated, "Aerith told me about you. I'm so glad you came back. Johnny needs visitors if you ask me."

"Johnny?" he questioned as she began to busy herself about the room.

"You know," she answered, "John Doe. Because no one knows who he is. Except he's so young and cute that I didn't think 'John' fit him. So I thought about 'Juan' for awhile, like Don Juan, right? But that didn't fit him either, so I finally settled on 'Johnny' because I can't just call him Patient X or something like that. That would be so rude, don't you think? Of course, some people might think that giving a stranger a new name is kind of rude, but I think - oh …"

She had moved as quickly as she had talked, flitting about the room like some sort of hummingbird until Cloud wanted to grab her and tell her to sit down and shut up. As she passed close enough for him to try it, however, she suddenly stopped on her own and stared down at the young man in the chair. As relieved as he was at the sudden silence, it took Cloud a moment to follow her gaze. When he did, a pair of empty gray eyes gazed back at him.

"Oh," Vicky said again. She knelt down to be closer to the kid's eye level. "He's looking at you."

"Yeah," Cloud commented with a half-shrug. "He did that yesterday, too."

"He did?" A thoughtful look settled over the nurse's face as she considered her patient. Several quiet moments passed; then Vicky rose to her feet. "Cloud," she asked politely, "would you please step over there for a moment?" She indicated a spot a few feet away.

"Sure." He did as she had asked, thinking she needed some space to do something for her job, but instead she just stood there, watching him with a little smile on her face.

"Thank you. Now, say something to him." When Cloud just gave her a confused look, she tipped her head to the motionless figure in the chair and repeated, "Say something to him. Please."

Cloud wanted to protest or question, but in the face of that smile and that 'please', he decided to just go with it. He had learned long ago that it usually wasn't worth it to fight when it came to women. "Hey, kid," he called. "How you feeling?"

Instantly, the boy's eyes shifted to meet his own.

Cloud took a step back, shocked. Vicky just nodded and lifted her arm to point again, this time to a spot near the door. "Good. Now over there please. And when you're there, speak to him again."

Cloud did as she asked him, and this time, the kid turned his head so that he could meet Cloud's eyes. He did it a few more times, just to test it, and each time, those gray eyes would find him as soon as he spoke. They didn't follow him if he simply walked around the room, but the sound of his voice would bring them to him like guided missiles, every time without fail.

"What the hell?" Cloud demanded of the nurse after the kid had turned completely around in his seat to look at Cloud who had stood directly behind him.

"I think it's because you're the one who found him," she answered with a smile. "He must be associating your voice with safety. That's why you're the only one he responds to." Her smile suddenly widened into a grin, and she clapped her hands together happily. "I have to tell the doctor!" she announced, immediately bouncing towards the door. Just before she left, however, she turned on Cloud and ordered, "You have to come often and talk to him as much as possible. It'll help him get better."

"But I'm not really a talkative person -"

"You'll get better with practice," she cut him off. "You'll see. Okay? Bye!" And then she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her.

Cloud stared after her in shock for several seconds. Then, he looked down at the young man in the chair who was still staring up at him, his gaze a little to the left since Cloud had shifted. Something about that striking face made Cloud's heart twist within his chest. He knew he wasn't the most social of people, and although he cared deeply about his friends, he had never been the type to feel that way about strangers. Yet once again he felt some kind of connection to this mysterious, catatonic boy. It was making him want to do things that he normally would never have done for anyone he hadn't known for most of his life. It made him feel strange, off-balance.

Crossing to the other side of the room, Cloud picked up a folding chair and moved it to sit directly before the larger one the kid occupied. He settled into it, crossed his arms over his knees, and said quietly, "Hey, kid."

Immediately, the boy turned back around to face him, his empty eyes meeting his. Cloud gazed into them for a few minutes, looking in vain for any sign of emotion or thought. Eventually, he gave up and sighed lightly. "Look, kid," he told the other, "I'm not that much of a talker, and I can't promise that I'll be any good at this whatsoever. But if talking to you will make you snap out of whatever it is that has you stuck in there, I'm willing to do that. All right?"

As he expected, there was no response, but Cloud found himself smiling slightly anyway. On an impulse, he lifted a hand and brushed the boy's bangs out of his eyes a little bit.

"See you tomorrow, kid," he said warmly as he rose from his chair. "Take care of yourself till then."

For the rest of the week, Cloud followed a simple, set pattern. He went to work in the morning, stopped by the hospital on his way home to visit with the kid, then spent the rest of his evening exploring the study in his second basement. He had hoped that he would be able to find something there that would explain just what had been going on, but none of the books seemed to be very helpful. Most of them were old, thick, reference-type materials on a variety of subjects including biology, chemistry, American and European history, and horticulture. A few of the titles were so long and complicated that they made Cloud go cross-eyed. The desk drawers were equally disappointing: paper, pens, and things like paperclips and rubber bands. Nowhere was there anything like an organizer, a journal, or research notes. No matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find anything even remotely useful for figuring out this mystery.

The only concrete thing he had to go on was the symbol on the floor in the back room. Cloud knew that he wasn't about to understand it just by looking at it, but he did conduct a few experiments. All of the candles had burned out when he had moved the first one, so he replaced it and lit them all again to see if the pillar would return. It didn't. Also, whatever had kept the candles so solidly attached to the floor had been removed; he could pick them all up and move them around without trouble now. The symbol itself still reminded him of something one would see in a bad horror film about witches and pacts with the devil and such, so he took a few pictures of it and went online to see if he could find out anything. None of the sites he found had any "magic circle" examples that looked like his, but he did find a site that seemed a bit less ridiculous than the rest. On a hunch, or perhaps on an act of desperation, he created an account for himself and posted an inquiry with some of the pictures attached. That had been Thursday night.

On Friday after work, Cloud walked into the kid's hospital room to find him in the chair by the window again. He wore the gown and had an IV in his hand like usual, but something was different and it wasn't until Cloud had set his chair in its normal spot and sat down that he realized what it was.

"It was Vicky's idea," Aerith told him when she came in a few minutes later and found him examining the silver necklace that the kid held in one hand. "She thought that maybe since it was the only piece of jewelry he had, it might help him to hold it. As far as I can tell, though, it hasn't helped."

Cloud nodded but didn't say anything as he continued looking at the necklace and the hand that held it. The kid usually had his hands open and relaxed, but at some point after someone had given him the necklace, he had tightened his fist around it. It looked pretty tight, too, as if he wanted to protect it. Part of the pendant was hidden by his fingers, but Cloud could see some of it and he remembered the rest. The main part was a lion's head, caught in mid-roar, and underneath was some kind of inverted cross. It was definitely a unique piece of jewelry, something that Cloud had never seen before.

The longer he looked at it, the more Cloud began to wonder if he could discover the kid's identity using this necklace. If he could find the jeweler who made it or the one who sold it, he might be able to find out who had bought it. It was a long-shot and almost certain to end in frustration or failure, but it was something at least. The police had come up empty-handed with the missing persons reports and also hadn't found the boy's prints on file. Unless someone came along to identify and claim him - an event that was looking less and less likely by the day - they would never find out who he was or where he had come from.

His decision made, Cloud waited until Aerith had left the room again, then leaned forward and said, quietly, "Hey." When the kid's eyes turned to meet his, he reached out and placed his hand over the one that held the necklace. "Do you mind if I borrow this?" he asked. "I want to use it to see if I can find out who you are."

For a moment, neither of them moved; then, slowly, the tightly-closed fingers beneath his began to loosen. The kid's fist cracked open bit by bit until it had relaxed completely, leaving Cloud free to remove the chain.

"Thank you," he said as he pocketed the necklace. "I promise I'll bring it back to you. Now. I guess I'll tell you about my day or something." Sighing at how much he disliked this, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and began to talk.

That night, Cloud spent some amount of time online trying to find information on the lion pendant, but he didn't push himself as much as he had on other nights. It was Friday, and he had had a long week. If anyone had earned their right to some mindless TV, he reasoned, he had. So after about an hour of fruitless searching, he gave up and crashed in his recliner in front of the tube with some leftover pizza and a beer. Remote in hand, he flipped around for a bit before settling on some male-oriented reality show about guys in a weapons shop. That one was followed by a similarly high-testosterone show, and yet another came on after that. Cloud just vegged out in front of the dirt and drama, perfectly content. Eventually, his eyelids began to get heavy, but rather than go to bed, he let himself drift off in the comfort of his chair with the TV still rattling on in the background.

The dream came to him almost immediately. He wasn't running this time, just walking. Walking through a wasteland underneath a stormy gray sky. Unlike the previous dreams where he didn't always seem to be completely in control of his own actions and emotions, Cloud wandered through this one with a clear head, as alert as he would have been had he been awake. While at first he considered this to be an improvement, he soon realized just what a curse it was. There was nothing here. The ground was completely flat in all directions, nothing but dry cracked earth all the way to the distant horizon. The sky was covered by clouds; lightning threatened somewhere above the surface of them, but nothing managed to peek through their opaque cover. It was the closest thing to a void that Cloud had ever seen.

Completely at a loss as to what to do, he stopped walking, crossed his arms over his chest, and griped, "What the hell?"

"Who's there?"

The voice had come from behind him, sounding startled and rough. Immediately, Cloud whirled around on his heel. There, on the ground only a few feet away, was the kid. He was dressed the same way he had been when Cloud had pulled him from the column of light except without his necklace. Sitting in a sort of half-Indian-style, he had one leg folded to the side and the other bent at the knee with his bare foot on the ground. His head was tilted down, his hair hanging over his face.

Stunned, Cloud just stared at him for several heartbeats. He had just walked by that spot; the kid had appeared from nowhere. A moment later, however, he shook himself out of it, reminded himself that this was a dream and dreams were weird, and took a step towards the other. "Hey, kid. You okay?"

Instantly, the boy's head snapped up to look at him, but the sight of the familiar face made Cloud gasp out loud and take a step back. The gray eyes were alive with emotion and intelligence, and that face was frowning, his expression as heavy as the clouds over their heads. Seconds after their eyes met, the kid had scrambled out of his sitting position into a defensive-looking crouch as if ready to attack or run as needed. The empty shell that Cloud had become used to had come to amazing, vibrant life.

"Who are you?" the kid demanded, and his voice was scratchy like it hadn't been used in a long time. "Why are you here?"

"I … I …" Cloud stammered, too shocked to be able to speak properly. However, he pulled himself together quickly and, swallowing once to get his voice back, replied. "Cloud. My name is Cloud Strife. What's - ?"

"Why did you come here?" the other interrupted, not letting him ask the return question. "What do you want?"

Cloud shut his mouth and considered. He knew what he wanted. He wanted the boy's name and contact information for his family. He wanted to know what he had been doing in his basement, how long he had been there, and what the symbol and the light meant. He wanted to know why the kid was currently in his dream, perfectly fine, while in the real world he was little more than a vegetable. He wanted to know just what the hell was going on and what he could do to fix it and make everything normal again. That's what he wanted.

But those stormy eyes were narrowed with suspicion and more than a hint of fear, and that young body was coiled up like a spring, ready to bolt. Cloud knew he had to tread lightly, at least for a while.

"I don't want anything in particular," he told the boy in front of him. "As for why I'm here …" Assuming a casual stance, he turned his head one way, then the other, looking out over the barren landscape. "Where is 'here' exactly?" he asked, returning his attention forward again.

It seemed to be the right thing to say, for the boy straightened up from his crouch and stood. His suspicious gaze eased a bit as he looked Cloud over again from top to bottom. "I see," he said quietly after a moment. "You're trapped, too."

"Trapped?" Cloud echoed, surprised. "You're … I mean, we're trapped here?"

The boy nodded and looked away, finally at ease enough with the other to let up on his scrutiny. "When I first got here," he revealed in tired, half-dead tones, "I walked for ages, looking for a way out. I walked until I collapsed from exhaustion. Then, when I recovered, I walked again. I never found it. There is no way out."

"How long have you been here?"

Strands of brown bangs fell into his eyes as the boy shook his head. "Time has no meaning here," he replied to Cloud's question. "I have no idea."

In the ensuing silence, Cloud just breathed, inhaling and exhaling slowly as he thought about what to say next. Before he could decide, the kid turned his head back towards him, something like a sad smile flickering over his lips.

"So," he asked, "how did you get in here? Did she put you in?"

Cloud started to ask who 'she' was, but then he remembered. His nightmare. The woman at the stove. "Kind of tall and slender?" he asked. "Really long, really dark hair?"

The kid nodded. "That's her." He sighed slightly and glanced up at the sky. "It's been so long that I don't really remember, but I think I offered her a ride. But then when we got to her house, she -" His voice cut off suddenly as his eyes lowered and caught sight of something. "What's that?"

"What?" Cloud asked, more than a little disappointed that the explanation had stopped.

"That," the kid replied, lifting an arm to point. "In your pocket." His voice had taken on a hard edge, and his eyes had narrowed into suspicious slits once more.

Confused, Cloud stuck his hand in the pocket indicated and pulled out the silver chain and pendant that he had taken from the kid's catatonic counterpart that afternoon. He had completely forgotten that he had put it there. Considering that he didn't have his wallet, his keys, or his phone in any of his other pockets, it seemed odd that this would have made the journey into the dream world with him, but he didn't realize the significance of it until a low hissing drew his attention back to the boy in front of him.

He was clutching at the space around his neck, as if he had just realized that there was nothing there. "How did you get that?" he demanded. When Cloud opened his mouth to try to form an answer, he shook his head and cut him off, saying, "Never mind. Just give it back."

"But I -"

"I said give it back!"

The fear had returned to those gray eyes, and a large amount of anger as well. All of the softer, sadder emotions that had been there moments before had disappeared. As much as Cloud didn't want to return the necklace - he had asked permission to borrow it after all - he knew there was no point in keeping it. The kid wouldn't finish his story without it. Besides, no matter how realistic this dream was, it was still a dream. The real pendant was still in his pocket back with his sleeping body.

The kid had his hand out, so Cloud took a reluctant step forward and lifted his arm. Yet just before the necklace was within grabbing distance, he stopped. That strange part of him that he didn't understand and which usually was filling him with weird emotions was acting up again, and this time it was telling him not to let go of that pendant until he had gotten one more piece of information.

"Your name," he heard himself saying. "If I give this to you, I want something in return." The kid's eyes flashed dangerously, but Cloud met that gaze, unafraid. More clearly and with more strength, he insisted, "Tell me your name."

Tension sparked in the air between them as they stared each other down, yet it wasn't long before the boy relented. He looked down briefly, inhaled once, then snapped his gaze back up as he declared, "Squall. My name is Squall Leonhart."

His hand shot out to grab the pendant, and Cloud let it go.

Immediately, the dream dissolved. Moments later, Cloud was sitting up in his recliner, clutching his head with one hand and trying to sort out his jumbled thoughts and memories. It took him a while, but eventually he leaned back in the chair with a large sigh and stared up at the ceiling. Of all the dreams he had had so far, that one had been the weirdest. The wasteland, the kid, it had all been so bizarre, and it had ended the moment he gave up the necklace, just like that confusing part within him had known it would. Only half-conscious of the fact he was doing it, Cloud slipped his hand into his pocket to retrieve the piece of jewelry in question.

Two minutes later, he had laid everything in his pockets out on the coffee table, taken the cushions off of the recliner to check underneath them, and was crawling around on the floor, looking beneath things with a flashlight. The pendant and chain were nowhere to be found.