Leon leans his arms on the window ledge beside Yuffie.

"It's so much bigger than I remember," she says, swinging her feet out over empty air.

He hums in agreement, gaze sweeping the open landscape. It does seem bigger, but that's because only a third of the world is truly left. It'll be a long time before it's back to the way it was. He worries it'll be too long.

"I found him," Aerith calls, her voice airy and bright despite how the tendons in her wrist visibly strain where they haul Cloud behind her.

Leon almost laughs, but bites it back at Cloud's sullen expression.

Aerith's kept him close ever since Sora left the world in their hands. It's for his benefit (Aerith won't let him forget it), but the effort isn't needed. There's something that tugs at him ever since they met, something that feels like its tied on one end to his wrist and the other to his heart. It's maddening.

"So!" Yuffie punctuates the start by turning on the ledge, folding one leg beneath her and leaving the other to dangle. "Where do we start? Do we just… pick up a broom and clean up miles of rubble? Or, like, fix up the town and work our way out?"

"I need to find the original blueprint to the town, first," Leon says. "Cid's working on getting the town's computer up and running. Blueprints should be there, if I can't find the hard copies."

Aerith claps her hands together. "I'll start on the outside of the castle then, take inventory of what's left and what we'll need. Cloud can help you."

"He will?" Leon asks, just as Cloud says, "Why?"

Yuffie jumps off the ledge and pats Cloud's chest. "Two sets of hands are better than one, dummy."

Leon raises an eyebrow at her. "And where are you off to?"

"Merlin!" She spins slowly as she walks away to face them without stopping. "Talking shop about heartless numbers and all that important junk. Don't worry your pretty head about it."

Aerith hurries off in the opposite direction. And then stops at the bottom of the bailey, wagging a finger at them as she calls back, "I better see you both at lunch time!"

"Unbelievable," Leon mutters. He shoots a glance at Cloud, only to find him already looking back. Instead of saying anything he sighs and jerks his head towards the castle. He's halfway down the stairs when Cloud falls into step not quite even with him, his footsteps quieter.

The castle is a mess, but better than outside. Leon ducks under pipes that have come down through the ceiling, brushing aside a tangle of wire and holding them for Cloud without thinking.

"Blueprints should be in one of three places," Leon says aloud, only partly for Cloud's benefit. "Library, Ansem's Lab, or his personal computer."

"Which you have yet to find," Cloud says. He steps gingerly over a pile of caved in wall.

Leon doesn't flinch, exactly, but he's surprised enough that he forgets what he was going to say next. He glances over his shoulder, nodding. "Wasn't sure if you were listening yesterday.

Cloud shrugs one shoulder and looks away, studying the twisting hallways. "Computer's a waste of time right now. Hard copies should still be around. Somewhere."

"Yuffie never used to pass up a glorified treasure hunt," Cloud says. He thumbs through old letters and books that fall apart even though he tries to handle them as gently as possible. He doesn't look up from Ansem's desk. "Wonder why she didn't tag along."

"I wonder," Leon echoes, with much more feeling than necessary. Of course he's frustrated, but Cloud's not sure of the cause anymore. It seems like everything frustrates him these days.

"Are these it?" Cloud calls.

Leon leans around the doorframe. "Did you find them?"

Cloud gives him a bland look and waves a questioning hand over a stack of oversized papers. "That's why I'm asking."

They've been at it for hours now and Leon's done with this whole mess. He strides across the room and around the desk, already leaning over them for a better look. He drags his finger along familiar roads and landmarks sketched out in faint blue and red pencil; flips the large pages carefully so as to not tear them. There's more than a dozen at least.

"Are they the right ones?" Cloud asks again, impatiently.

"What? Yeah—" He turns his head and Cloud's already there, much too close. They're nearly nose to nose and Cloud just blinks at him. Cloud's gaze skitters down and bounces back up just as quickly. Leon blinks back. He opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes. Instead he takes a step back and turns his full attention to the plans.

He clears his throat and explains, unnecessarily, "These are the plans for the town, and the underground. Plus the castle and what looks like an integrated defense system." Adds belatedly, "Thanks, for the help," as he stacks them up and rolls them into a tight tube. He's hardly finished before Cloud steps into his space again and takes the papers from him. "Hey—"

"It's not a big deal," Cloud says, too quickly, a little awkwardly as he averts his gaze. He sounds like he's trying to answer two questions at once. "Which way out of here?"

Leon watches him for a moment—fights the urge to rub the mark on his wrist. It thrums against his skin, demanding, but he doesn't. Doesn't look at it. Doesn't uncover it. Just balls his fists at his sides and says, clipped, "This way. Aerith's waiting."

Cloud means to leave as soon as they bring the blueprints to Merlin's house. But even after he slips Aerith's watch, he still finds himself hovering just outside the borough. Restless. Not exactly waiting, but not sure what he should be seeking otherwise. It's an uncomfortable sort of limbo that sets him on edge. One he's not used to.

The next day he returns to Merlin's house on his own. He tries not to think about it.

Leon shucks his jacket off and throws it over a bolder, grimacing in the hot sun. He stoops to pick up another chunk of broken stone, heaving it into a pile with the others.

"Can't we trick the heartless into moving all this rubble?" Yuffie whines. She flops bonelessly over a metal pipe bigger than her. "My nimble fingers weren't made for this kind of work."

"We all have to pitch in, or it won't get done," he says back.

"So quit yer bellyachin', girlie," Cid shouts from across the bailey. Yuffie scrunches up her face in a rude expression, and Cid waves a dismissive hand at her, already back to work.

Leon straightens and rotates his arm, loosening a tight muscle in his shoulder as he surveys their work. It's slow progress, and hard to see where they've even made a small dent.

Aerith's further up the path into the restoration site, sweeping debris off their makeshift path; and Cloud farther up still. He's bracing a section of wire grate, but is watching Leon with an unreadable expression.

Leon jumps down onto the path and makes his way over, hands outstretched to help before he's close enough. "Here, let me—"

Cloud shifts and lets him shoulder some of the weight, and they prop it up against the cliff side. "Thanks," Cloud says, "but I didn't need…" He furrows his eyebrows, jaw clenched. Leon follows his gaze to his own arms and is quick to check the belt around his wrist. Then adjusts it anyways.

He looks up to ask what's wrong, but instead pauses as he really looks at Cloud. He blurts, "You have freckles." Then immediately wants to kick himself because that's not what he intended to say, not to mention stupid.

Cloud lifts a hand to his face, confused, and touches the sun-flushed skin over his nose and cheeks. Over the light dusting of faint gold freckles that match his hair. He nods after a moment. "Sometimes." His forehead wrinkles, like he's embarrassed.

"Right," Leon says and turns around to head back to the others. He can feel Cloud's stare on his back and feels oddly vulnerable. He picks his way over the rocky ground and retrieves his jacket. It's too hot, but he pulls it back on anyways.

The world is too large. Too open. Too empty. It echoes with its own silence at times.

And yet Leon makes it feel uncomfortably close. Like he's being watched.

Cloud's not sure if he likes it. He's been on his own for so long that he's forgotten how to be around people. Leon's worst of all and he doesn't know why. Maybe it's because when they're together it almost feels as if everyone's holding their breath.

Sometimes he feels like he is, too.

Leon hopes the girls don't think they were being very clever, getting them all out to work on the outside of the castle, only to disappear early on with feeble and vague excuses on when they'd be back. They're not exactly subtle. Even Aerith shows her glee over the whole thing too easily. It's a miracle Cloud hasn't figured out their aim. That would make everything a lot easier.

Or... maybe he already had? Maybe he knew and was choosing to ignore it. He curses under his breath.

"What?" Cloud says dryly, "Can't fix some pipes without the girls' help?"

Leon looks up in surprise, then frowns. But with just the two of them it lacks any real heat. "That's not... no," he says. Cloud's mouth twitches into a small smile, more of a smirk if he's ever seen one, and he narrows his eyes.

Cloud puts down the sledgehammer he's been using to break down rubble and wipes his hands on his pants. He steps up beside him. "Then what do you want me to do?"

A dozen answers flit through Leon's mind and none of them have to do with the wreckage around them. He feels lightheaded. He looks down and clears his throat. "Hold this up. I need to get underneath it."

They work late into the afternoon, until the temperature begins to drop with the dying light. Leon drags an arm around across his forehead and surveys the site. It's getting there. He's pushed through his own doubt for the sake of the town and everyone who's returned, but for the first time he really believes they can fix it all.

"We did good today," he says. He sits on an upturned block and cranes his neck back to look up at the castle. "It'll be better than before. I remember how—" He turns his gaze to Cloud, losing his train of thought. Cloud's looking up at the castle, too, his head tilted back. His face has gone soft. The sunset behind him is red and gold in its final moments. Cloud looks part of it, somehow. "Beautiful," he finishes, quietly. Fumbles to add, "it was. Before."

Cloud looks over at him and, after a moment, smiles. "Yeah."

It might not be so bad, Leon thinks, having a soulmate.

Cloud looks up when Sora skids to a stop in front of him.

"Where's Leon?"

"I don't know." Sora looks at him so expectantly that he can't help but ask, "Should I know?"

Sora links his hands behind his head and gives him a bemused grin. "I mean, if I knew where my soulmates were after all this time, I don't think I'd ever leave them alone." He laughs.

Cloud feels all the air escape his lungs; feels like the ground has fallen out from under his feet.

Leon waits for ten minutes more before he gets to work. Cloud didn't say he'd help out today, but he'd shown up every afternoon for the last week and Leon had gotten used to the routine. Routines were dangerous, though.

He starts at one end of Ansem's study and slowly works his way around, cleaning and returning misplaced items to where he assumes they had belonged. He searches furniture and the walls for any kind of secret switch. The castle was full of them and yet they still hadn't found the computer. And he doesn't think about the silence; the absence beside him where he's become comfortable with Cloud being.

He trips over another pile of books and swears, glaring at the mess around the room. He's not getting anywhere. And he probably won't, not today.

It's overwhelming, to have lived his whole life looking for someone only to find out that you've known them; that they've been hiding in plain sight. To realize that Leon's known all this time and hasn't said anything.

He spends countless days alone, examining this new information from every angle. He can't quite wrap his head around it. Can't imagine what they're supposed to be to each other now. How their tentative friendship is supposed to shift and adapt to this.

Except he can.

And that's the worst part.

Cloud disappears all the time. In fact, he's gone more often than he's around. Leon's not sure why or where he goes, and only Aerith seems to have any real clue what he's thinking, but it's not a big deal. It really isn't. Sometimes Cloud disappears and usually he comes back relatively quickly.

But Leon works steadily in the castle every afternoon for a week before he sighs harshly and throws down the box of papers in his hands and goes looking for him. He could be dying in a ditch somewhere, for all they know.

Well, could, but isn't. Leon would know if something bad had happened. But the mark has been relatively calm—if a little heavy—and while that should've been reassuring it only makes him more confused on where the hell Cloud is.

He doesn't bother searching any of the usual places; if Cloud was there he would've seen him around. He circles the perimeter of the town, glad for the distraction the heartless provide. They're growing in numbers each day. It's good in its own way. The light is returning to Hollow Bastion.

He does find him, eventually. He wonders if he'll always find Cloud, if their bond sends out faint homing signals, drawing them together if they want it bad enough. He wants.

Cloud sits on the edge of the cliff beyond the Great Maw. He doesn't look surprised to see him. Curious and a little angry, but not surprised.

"Find the computer yet?" he asks.

Leon stands beside him and shakes his head. "There's more junk in the study than I expected." And then pointedly, "It's slow working alone."

Cloud just hums. Leon waits for him to say something, but he doesn't. The silence stretches between them, grows heavy enough that Leon starts to fidget. It almost feels like Cloud is waiting too. "Where've you been?"

Cloud shrugs, raising an eyebrow up at Leon like he's crossing a boundary by even asking.

Leon clenches his jaw against an aggravated sigh. He doesn't know what he's done wrong, but there's obviously something. "Fine, it's none of my business. I came to see if you wanted to spar. The heartless are getting stronger. It'd be smart to be ready."

"No thanks," Cloud says sharply, and looks back out over the canyon. It's a clear dismissal. Leon feels something sharp wedge between his ribs. "It's hard to get stronger when you always hold back. Your heart never seems in it, anyways."

Before Cloud knew, sometimes it seemed like Leon wanted more from him. The way he looked at him; the way he softened and seemed uncomfortable for it. But unwilling to ask, burdened by an aura of shame that Cloud thought he could understand.

He'd never been sure what that more entailed, but he'd wanted it too. The thought had made his mark warm and that should've been his first clue.

Now he's not sure if he can give Leon more, when he kept something this big from him.

Whatever his reasons.

Aerith storms out of Merlin's house as soon as she coaxes what happened out of Leon. She flies into the Dark Depths, hands fisted tightly and glaring. She inhales to start yelling—to make it all right because this is getting absolutely ridiculous—when Cloud looks up at her with a tired frown.

"Why didn't he tell me?" he asks. "There were so many times, I just… how did I miss it?"

All the rage leaves her in an instant, her shoulders dropping. Only then does she notice the dark smudges under his eyes. She knows him too well—he must've been thinking himself sick these past days.

"Oh," she breathes, and sits down next to him. She links an arm through his and leans her head against his shoulder. "So you know? Good." A weight's been lifted from her shoulders. She feels as tired as Cloud looks. She hadn't realized how heavy the secret had become.

"Yeah. Sora let it slip."

She nods against him. "I hoped he would." She looks out over the canyon with him; knows this conversation is easier without her eyes on him. She's missed this. This ease together. "You didn't tell him. That you knew."

Cloud lets out a heavy sigh. "No. I wanted to… to see if I could see it."

"Could you?"

"Now that I know what to look for." He shrugs. "Why didn't he… at the coliseum. You said he was searching for… for me. Why didn't he tell me then?"

She doesn't answer right away, not quite sure herself. "I think he felt—" and then stops. She makes a thoughtful sound in the back of her throat, considering her words carefully. "I can't speak for him, because he never told us any more than he had to. He kept it hidden, you know, after the world fell. As if he was in mourning. But once we found out the truth I got the feeling he wasn't mourning you, but himself."

"He blames himself," Cloud says, in surprise, as if he doesn't know where the thought comes from but believes it wholeheartedly anyways. "For everything that happened."

"He always has."

They sit together for a while more. Aerith gets her thoughts in order—knows what she wants to say, but not sure how. Finally, voice low to hide how it cracks, she says, "So do you."

He nods.

Cloud steers clear of Leon as much as possible. He wouldn't know what to say to him, and Leon would only ask the wrong things. He can't just keep going on as they were before. Whatever it was they were doing before.

He was left in the dark all this time, and that's what stings the most.

Yuffie stops Leon with both hands on his shoulders and stands on her tiptoes to peer at his face. "You're panicking," she says, eyes widening. "Stoic Leon who shows no weakness is actually panicking."

"Been wearing trenches in the floor, too," Cid calls from across the room.

Yuffie plants her fists on her hips and imitates Aerith's scolding tone. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know! I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't," Leon answers automatically. Then realizes what he's doing and glares at her. He can hear Cid snorting and muttering something about irony, but ignores him.

"You told him!" She lights up and grabs his hands, jumping up and down.

He yanks away. "No. I just asked where he's been."

"Oh, bummer." Her shoulders drop. She shuffles, looking decidedly guilty, but that could mean anything and he doesn't have the energy to deal with it. "So, uh… he's been avoiding you too, huh?"

"What?"

"Yeah, haven't seen him around lately. Took ages for Aerith to admit she'd talk to him, but wouldn't tell me anything else. She seemed…" she trails off, frowning. "Sad."

If Cloud's avoiding everyone, it's either not a big deal, or a very big deal. He's not sure which one worries him more.

He doesn't want to go back to being alone. Cloud knows that much. Maybe he can't forgive Leon just yet, for keeping the truth (or maybe he only wants Leon to ask, he isn't sure), but he liked it better with people around to make him forget about the darkness lurking in the hidden corners of his heart.

He needs to find his light. Leon deserves that much. After everything that's happened, Leon deserves a soulmate unburdened by darkness.

Leon cuts off mid sentence, the blueprints falling out of his suddenly limp hands to the table.

"Leon?" Aerith asks.

The mark on his wrist, quiet ever since they arrived, prickles. It seems to hum and tremble, reverberating up his arm in a way it hasn't since… since he thought his soulmate was dying. A ghost of a warning he's never forgotten.

"Is everything okay?" she asks, putting a hand on his arm.

"I don't know," he says. He strides out the door without saying any more, even though the girls call after him. It'd take too much time explaining. This doesn't involve them anyways.

Panic kicks in when he hits the end of the borough, and he bolts. His heart nearly stops when he skids out of the Crystal Fissure and Cloud's nowhere to be seen. The mark aches and stings; his elbow almost numb with it.

He might already be too late.

Heartless grow out of the ground and shadows around him, but he doesn't stop to fight them. Sora can handle it. The world can survive without him for a little while.

He backtracks as thoroughly as he can bear, all the way back to the market, and nearly trips over Cloud. Cloud sits on the stairs calmly, and Leon searches for a wound, for some sign he isn't okay. It doesn't add up.

Cloud looks up at him, eyebrows raising for a moment before they furrow tightly. "Did Aerith tell you to come find me?" he spits

Leon shakes his head. It takes a moment to catch his breath—to find his voice. Proximity helps the pain in his wrist, but it still pulses insistently. He doesn't know what it's supposed to mean. "Are you okay?" he asks.

Cloud looks him over, face twisting in confusion. "That's what you ran all this way for?"

"No, I—I just had to see… you." He notices the bag at Cloud's feet for the first time. "Is that—are you leaving?" He can't keep the desperation out of his voice, but he doesn't care anymore.

"That was the plan. I have something I need to find."

"You can't leave." It escapes him before he can stop it. It sounds feeble even to him and he winces. "We're—you're—" Leon groans and wants to tug at his hair, but refrains. Barely. He's been trying to figure out how to say this since he left Traverse Town that first time, but nothing's ever felt right. No combination of phrases explains it properly. "My name's Squall," he admits, hating how strained it sounds. It's a terrible way to confess, but it's not like he's been the mode soulmate from the start.

Cloud merely looks at him, the aggravation fading away. Tilts his head a bit as a quiet sigh escapes his lips. He does't say anything for a long time. Then he stands and reaches out slowly to wrap a had around Leon's wrist, lifting it palm up. His fingers tremble slightly as he fiddles the clasp on the belt, unwrapping it with such a look of concentration that Leon can't stop him despite his heart beating so fast it hurts.

There's a distinct tan line bracketing the mark—Cloud's name written out in his own spider handwriting—and Cloud stares at it while Leon stars at him, trying to read any emotion in his expression.

Cloud nods to himself. Leon frowns; it's too decisive, too easy.

"You already knew," he realizes, and it comes out quieter than he intends.

Cloud carefully rubs his thumb over Leon's wrist, tracing the loops of his name and moving onto Leon's veins and the indentation between his tendons. He inhales to reply, but then just nods again. He doesn't let go of Leon, doesn't look up at him just yet. Entrances by his name on Leon's wrist. "Only recently," he admits. "Dunno how I missed it all this time."

It's a nice feeling, not that Leon would admit it aloud. Each gentle pass of Cloud's calloused thumb lessens the urgent sting the mark had been sending up his arm, until it settles into silence. "It's not exactly obvious," he says says. Cloud hums, thoughtful, but elects not to share his thoughts. So Leon swallows his pride and says, "I'm sorry." There's no point not to now. It's out.

"You should've told me. Back when we first met."

"I know. And for… everything else, I guess. I should've tried harder. Before. To find you."

Cloud considers it for a moment, then shrugs, looking away. "I don't think I wanted to be found at first. I was…" but then doesn't finish, frowning in what looks like shame. He takes a step back, Leon's hand dropping from his grasp.

Without thinking Leon reaches after him and clamps a hand around Cloud's wrist. "Don't leave."

"I have to. My light…"

The reluctance in Cloud's tone makes him more relieved that anything. Maybe they can do this, after all. "Not without me." The 'not again' hangs silently between them.

Cloud looks up at him like he hears it anyways. "Okay."

Once, Megara had said he wouldn't find any light down in the underworld. But he's starting to think, with Leon steadily fighting beside him through Hades' tournaments, maybe she was wrong.

He lost his light here.

Leon found him here.

It's rather fitting, he thinks, that he's finding that light here, too.