CHANGE

Their lives had changed radically since the last battle they fought. Cloud had been nurtured back to health with the purpose to be killed in a fair fight, but the life force wanted it differently. A legacy from the living energy source inside the planet, which kept all life united in a circle, had been reawakened through a thorn of passion neither Sephiroth nor Cloud had expected to find within such evil as that inside of the dark lord. It had changed Sephiroth into a complex-faceted creature with a unique connection to both worlds, and although he was trying to keep the balance between them, he was sometimes tormented by the nightmares that ripped the sleep from his eyes for days. He would wake up screaming, bathing in sweat and shivering with the cold that harboured inside his soul. And Cloud had with time realized that there were different kinds of evil. The one Sephiroth had been as a dark warlord, but also the pain and anguish that was now chasing the peace out of his heart and slowly turning him into the monster he used to be. Sephiroth was fighting a battle, which drained him of energy and the passion he sometimes charmed every person he came in contact with.

Indeed, the day they arrived, people hardly dared to come out of their apartments and Tifa was extremely suspicious about letting Sephiroth into her bar. It really was fun for both Cloud and Sephiroth to watch everyone's faces when they arrived to the city Nibelheim; especially those of the close brother's and sister's in arms. Although Sephiroth was tolerated, he was not easily accepted, something Cloud has been fighting against to overcome. He wanted to prove that everyone could change; even a fallen angel.

It had been fairly late at night when the two returned to Nibelheim and thus no one had been very observant of the unusual travel partner of Cloud. The Bar had been packed with former friends and current foes and thus Sephiroth was asked to wait outside. The music was playing pleasantly in the background when Cloud entered. Peolpe greeted him with overwhelming happiness, rushing up to the young lad and showering him with millions of question. Everyone wanted to know what had happend to him these past weeks, for no search party could locate his whereabouts after his fight with Sephiroth. However, since the darkness dissipated and the disease resided they were sure that no matter what had happened, Cloud had defeated the Dark Angel.

"Not entirely correct," Cloud responded in an enigmatic way, but the awkward silence that emerged in a flicker of a second was brushed off by Zack's cheerful laughter, offering Cloud a glass of beer to keep him and Vincent company whilst finishing a nice game of Chess. Cloud, however, declined with a nervous smile and Tifa, who knew the young man enough to be able to read his features, asked across the room; "What's wrong, honey?"

Cloud managde to stutter through his frozen expression; "I have something to tell you guys."

"Well, c'mon then," Vincent encouraged the little blond with a carefree chuckle as he placed his feet on the table and sending a toast across the air.

"I brought a friend with me," Cloud laughed nervously with a deathly pale complexion.

"Where is she, you little devil?" Zack sniggered and walked up to Cloud to ruffle his frizzy hair even more.

"You didn't leave her outside, did you?" Aeris asked and shook her head. "Cloud, where are your manners?"

"He has none," Tifa threw in and both girls laughted at the healthy blush coloring Cloud's cheeks.

"Well, let her in, you little dawg," Tifa added with emphasis on the last word, but it made Cloud even more embarassed. Finally, Cloud came clean with his troubles.

"It's not a girl... it's... it's a boy."

Silence...

Silence...

Vincent shrugged; "Well, some of us are players for both teams and there's nothing wrong with that... more to choose from so to say. Don't tell me you guys haven't tried."

Silence... eyes oscillating between Cloud and Vincent, then stopping on Cloud again.

"It's someone you guys know very well," the young blond added and with that he unleashed an intensive guessing game where everyone was howling with enjoyment. All the names they ever knew were bouncing off the walls. Someone found it humorous to even bring up the names 'Shin-Ra' and 'Hojo' at which Cloud exclaimed; "Not too far from that, actually."

Silence...

Cloud backed slowly towards the door and opened it. He stretched out his arms in the predominating darkness outside and pulled the most horrific creature into the light. The smile on everyone's lips died and faces froze with surprize.

The silence was only broken when Vincent smacked onto the floor with a loud thud as his chair crumpled.

"Cloud!" Zack yelled and pulled out his sword. "What the hell is going on?"

"No! No, please, no!"

Cloud held his arms out, clearly demonstrating he was protecting Sephiroth; the dark Angel in turn threw Masamune on the floor in the middle of the room, showing sincere intentions not to fight. But it wasn't convinceing enough for everyone knew he was just as lethal unarmed as with Masamune in his hands.

"Get him out of here!" Tifa shouted but the sadness over this reception was reflecting off Cloud's face and so the girl gave in - allowing herself to be persuaded to let Sephiroth stay. "No! No, no and no... how could you? What were you thinking? No... well... alright, Cloud... just stop looking at me like that. But his sword stays behind the counter!"

Sephiroth shrugged and removed his coat, seating himself at the bar next to Cloud. Slowly, the tension eased and people got back to their previous activities but with their weapons close at hand.

"So, what will you have?" Tifa snorted at Sephiroth as she leaned over the bar.

The Angel buried his cyan gaze in the exposed cleavage and suggested; "Milk?"

"Keep dreaming," the raven haired girl cut in with a relentless attitude, but felt increasingly uncomfortable hearing his cocksure response; "I already have... numerous times... but then you had less attitude. You were sort of more compliant and..."

"Shut up," Tifa huffed.

Cloud started giggling.

Fighting hard to hold on to her anger was but a futile battle. Finally, Tifa released a faint smile and placed a pint of beer in front of Sephiroth saying; "If you can behave for the remainder of the evening, then this is on the house."

And life started changing...

Barret was too scarred by the sadness of life to let Sephiroth close, but his step-daughter Marlene was different. She feared Sephiroth at first, but with the open heart of a child, she was the first after Cloud to let him in. To her stepfather's great discontent, she was spending more and more time with "uncle Seph", than with her friends. Marlene had been collecting Sephiroth's feathers for a large fan she was going to make for Aeris to accessorize her evening gown. In exchange for a white rose, she got to climb up on his bed in the mornings and pick up the feathers lost between the sheets. By the time Sephiroth had a large bouquet of roses in his bedroom, Aeris was presented with a beautiful fan; each angelic feather seperately bound into a perfect symmetry. It carried Sephiroth's scent, which Aeris secretly admitted was not at all unpleasant.

Another one charmed by Sephiroth's new façade was Vincent. It was an impossible match at first, but after a fierce challenge to the death, at which Sephiroth refused to defend himself against Vincent, talking had solved many thoughts of hatred and conflict. Vincent hated Shin-Ra and wanted revenge and at least THAT was something they had in common. And of course they were very good in fighting and that was a big plus they admired within each other.

Hatred was far more evolved within Sephiroth and although he wanted to live through eons, he knew being next to Cloud was the only way to live and to feel. Through those years he have imbibed the essence of life, he had felt more dead than those humans who he now shared dinner with or talked to during the closing hours of Tifa's bar. They lived more under those hours, than Sephiroth would in a lifetime. Vincent had once placed his hands on Sephiroth's shoulders saying; "It's easy to kill, my friend, it's the living part that's hard."

In that split second, they bonded and their discussions were sometimes even more deep than those Sephiroth shared with his beloved Cloud. It wasn't something he chose to do, but it was just another process by which a small gathering of close friends tried to understand the fallen angel, Jenova's last son.

Jenova's lost head had been found and through taming the energy of her dormant essence, Sephiroth was reborn into a fragile world. Therefore, Aeris had great difficulties to tolerate Sephiroth's presence. As a gesture of respect, he kept his distance until Aeris felt she could allow him closer. Sephiroth and Aeris shared a common path through their ancestors, for it was her race that stopped Jenova's plans to destroy all life. Convinced that Sephiroth was not capable of all Cloud tried to show, she refused to see the good in him. But that all changed when her orchid tree from her dead planet, started to fade from a ravaging illness. It was her only treasure from her ancestors and the planet that was slowly drifting into oblivion.

She had the power to heal, but far from enough to save the tree for with the fading plant, her powers seemed to abandon her as well. She had announced proudly that she would hold on to life as long as the last leaf remained, and when a single dry leaf was trembling on a bare branch, the surrounding friends were shattered with worry. It was then, when Sephiroth had slashed his arms to feed the tree with his own blood and the orchids started budding three days later. Aeris knew it took the life force from someone extremely powerful to change the course of Nature; to revert the powers of Death and turn them into life. There were only two people capable of that; Aeris and Sephiroth, but it could only be used for unselfish purposes. Following that event there had been a mental union between Sephiroth and Aeris.

"Seph, you dog," Cloud smiled and shook his head, when his lover returned home late at night after "helping" Aeris in her garden. "I bet you planted a whole bunch of seeds in her garden, didn't you sweetheart?"

Sephiroth the one winged angel was often referred to by Cloud as his lovebird, but the young warrior knew that the warlord was not the kind of bird that could be compared to an Albatross in terms of partnership. He was not a monogamous little dove, for he had an insatiable longing for affections. However, Cloud's suspicion of a more intimate relationship between the two was never confirmed. The only thing that troubled Cloud when it came to Sephiroth's involvement with Aeris, was the fact that his nightmares had become more and more severe. Although sometimes jealous, Cloud felt that there was a certain "meaning" to that odd relationship that had developed between Aeris and his angel, and a few months into Sephiroth's darkest hell, that reason had become evident.

Before his time with Sephiroth, Cloud had been in a relationship with both Tifa and Aeris and that had not been a secret on anyone's part. Tifa's heart, however, was secretly split and belonged someplace else. She never spoke of it, but Cloud knew that she was seeing someone else's face when she closed her eyes in his bed. Sephiroth was the one to find out the identity of that lover. He was at Tifa's bar, relaxing after an exhaustive training session with Vincent and Squall. He had left the two peers at the training grounds, whereas he headed to the bar for a drink, hoping to catch Cloud there before going home. The warlord and the black haired young lady were engaged in talking about life in general when Sephiroth asked for another drink and as Tifa bent over the counter to hand it over, she lost herself in his complexion. She froze.

"What?" Sephiroth asked and leaned close to the girl. It was obvious she saw something she hadn't noticed before.

She brushed her black hair aside and got completely silent. The warlord reached over the counter to brush her cheeks as he asked again. After a short while, she began speaking.

"You know whom I miss the most? It's someone, I guess no one would have ever thought…it would be impossible but…I don't know. I miss him. We had fun fighting and we sometimes even had fun…you know," she wiped a tear from her eyes as she exhaled a sad smile. "It was so odd. We never thought it would lead down that path…we hated each other at first…like you and Cloud, I guess. But he was so much fun and…" she went silent as she drowned in Sephiroth's pretty face and said dreamingly. "He looked a little like you."

She did not want to reveal the name of her lost friend and occasional lover, until Sephiroth touched her hand and the images shot through him.

"Kadaj…"

Tifa backed away with sadness, but admitted with a nod. After that night, Sephiroth was missing. The entire group of friends were scouting for the silver haired warrior, but there had been no traces of him. By the fourth day, Cloud was beginning to feel the panic of loss. It was an alien feeling and a ravaging emotion that was breaking him down, but he had to accept that all traces after Sephiroth were lost and as a last resort to seek help, Cloud turned to Aeris.

"I know you can feel him," he said nervously. "You know where he is, don't you?"

She braided her hair and sighed as she looked through the window.

"Yes," she said with a meek voice. "Being with him was like getting a taste of that ancient energy that was flowing through my people and also what created Jenova…his mother. He gave a part of himself to me and now he will give it all up."

Cloud shook his head asking; "What are you talking about?"

Aeris sighed. "Cloud, Sephiroth and I were not lovers although I know you suspected that. We just had so much to discover together. If you had those powers you'd understand, but I cannot explain it in easier terms to you."

She got silent for a short while, and then continued with her usual kindness and calm manner.

"He told me not to tell you anything, but the nightmares have grown terrible. Each night was taking him closer to what he used to be and he told me he feared he would once again fall into the darkness. He couldn't face you with his fears, but he spent many nights talking to me about it," she added softly, walking up to Cloud and caressing his cheeks. "All this time with him gave me a chance to see inside his mind…and it's a very frightening place. Having to see those images every night, having feel all that dread can turn anyone into a monster. He has to shed that skin. You see, my sweet Cloud, in order for Sephiroth to live…he has to die."

"He is sacrificing himself?!" Cloud flew up from his chair with worry and freeing himself from Aeris touch. "For what?"

Aeris silence was confirmation enough and thus he continued. Sephiroth was sacrificing himself for the only person that matters to him; Cloud. "Where is he? You have to tell me!"

It took them two days and one night to reach the Forgotten City and the deep catacombs buried deep beneath it, but by following the trail of light seemingly spattered on the stone walls, the crew of Vincent, Squall and Cloud finally reached a vast opening in the cave from where heat and light was radiating. They could hardly see anything due to the sharp brightness, which cut through them like thousands of knives, but following a fierce battle against the ravaging heat, they found two bodies in a sea of light. The three friends were all shocked by the discovery of the two lifeless men hovering about in the heat like feathers, but were determined to collect the bodies even if it was already too late to save any of them.

Aeris was gazing down on Sephiroth's motionless body. He had a deep bleeding wound on his left scapula and there were bruises and burn marks all over his body. They had attended to his wounds, but it would take time to heal and his condition was not yet stable. Next to Aeris was Tifa. However, her eyes were not even noticing Sephiroth, but rather focused on the young man lying in a bed next to the warlord. She was completely lost in the pale complexion of Kadaj and the slow, superficial breaths his body was producing. He had no obvious damage to his body, but he was robbed of all his strength.

"How could he do this?" Tifa asked as she reached out to caress the silver locks over Kadaj's face. As in concordance with Tifa's question Cloud demanded answers to what he had witnessed. Why was Sephiroth in this state? What had happened?

"Energy cannot be destroyed just be converted from one form to another," Aeris muttered softly. "That's why he could bring Kadaj back. But what happened…are you sure you want to know Cloud?"

Aeris knew that the only way for her to find out what really happened was by using her channel to the dark lord and touch his body in order to see through his past. She was reluctant to walk inside his dark mind, but it was the only way. She took hold of Cloud's hand and then touched the pale forehead of the warlord. What Cloud saw, brought him to his knees.

Frightening images shot through their soul. They saw Sephiroth confronting the very essence of the planet. He was standing face to face with the life force he once wanted to destroy, but now he had been in its mercy. The deep cracks under the Forgotten City served as an opening to the force of the planet. It seeped through the wounded ground like fiery snakes, coiling around Sephiroth's body in an attempt to destroy the intruding darkness he was made up of. Indeed, Sephiroth was an abomination of Nature and without Jenova, he was an easy target and destined to be annihilated; but he made a bargain. The darkness in exchange of life. The snakes coiled around his body, dragging him into that lava of heat. His black wing extended in an attempt to shield the body, but it was ripped from the root, twisted out of his body, making him scream with agony and regret. The pain he inflicted on his enemies were eating their way through his body like worms dig through a rotting corpse, and the shame of heritage ravaged his mind like a parasite; implanting fearsome thoughts of his unworthiness next to Cloud. He saw what eyes cannot bear and the terror he harboured in his memories were gouging his grey eyes from within. Wherever the snakes touched him they left a mark of burnt flesh, slithering towards his terrified face and forcing into his mouth. Light was pouring into his body, suffocating him from within by killing off the legacy from the demigoddess inside each cell. From that burst of tremendous power leaving his tortured body, a new life was born through a cocoon of dust and essence.

Aeris could no longer endure what she saw and let go of Sephiroth. Cloud had come to understand that in order for Sephiroth to be free, he had to stop dreaming. Nightmares off all those he had killed haunted him at night and Sephiroth knew if the nightmares were to continue, fear would turn him back into what he once was. When he had given a part of himself to the orchid tree, the nightmares had stopped; even if only for a short while. Finally, he had to choose; to be with Cloud or to be Sephiroth. The choice was obvious.

It has been a week since the return of the new lord. Cloud sat down next to Sephiroth and held his hand. Kadaj was in much better shape and he had already been on his feet, whilst Sephiroth was still bound to the bed. However, it was a good sign that he was waking up now and then, being able to take a shower on his own and his appetite was increasing. The young blond smiled with a sigh as Sephiroth opened his eyes for the first time that day.

"Hi lovebird," Cloud whispered.

"Not anymore, Cloud. I'm as wing clipped as they come," Sephiroth murmured in return, weary and exhausted with the pain.

"How could you do this, you fool?" Cloud asked and brushed the cheeks of the lord, but Sephiroth forced a smile on his lips and responded in a way Cloud had once done; "I don't feel like telling you."

The flaxen youngster nodded and snorted, but he wasn't angry; "Aeris said you gave a part of yourself to bring Kadaj back. She said you will never be the same again."

Sephiroth slowly lifted his arm that felt extremely heavy and caressed Cloud's face.

"I am still the son of Jenova and I can still bust your firm little ass if I want to."

"Ha!" Cloud protested in a huff. "You couldn't do that with my arms tied behind my back."

"Is that a challenge?" Sephiroth asked and pulled Cloud closer until their lips brushed. "Maybe we should see what you can do with your arms tied behind your back. Let's see whose ass will be grabbed."

Cloud bit his lower lip and smiled at the thought, which sent a flash of heat to his groins. He was amazed how easily Sephiroth could touch the deepest current of passion within him. They kissed a long time and the young blond relished at the sensation he had missed for a long time.

Suddenly, their privacy was interrupted by repeated knocking on the door.

"Just a second! I'd better answer," Cloud muttered into Sephiroth's mouth, reluctant to abandon the lips he was craving for.

"You do that," the silver haired lover agreed and then added. "I'll step into the shower."

As Sephiroth disappeared into the bathroom, Cloud opened the front door and cocked his head with surprise to find Kadaj standing outside. He greeted this newcomer with an insecure "Hey…um…come in."

Sephiroth stepped out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist and hands busy undoing the tangles in his long, beautiful hair. He was feeling refreshed and it was obvious he was in a cheerful disposition, although he was taken aback seeing the young Kadaj in the room and displayed a careful enthusiasm. It was so strange to see him alive. Sephiroth had once used that young body as a vessel, one that Cloud destroyed in order to kill Sephiroth. However, death only affected poor Kadaj and his soul was taken back to the circle of that life-giving essence of the planet. Now, he was back.

"Seph," Cloud began, stepping closer to his lover, but stopped half way. "Kadaj passed by for he wanted to say something to you."

"Oh?" Sephiroth raised an eyebrow and sat down on his bed with his gaze focused on Kadaj.

The young silver haired lad across the room slowly walked up behind Cloud where he stopped. He was being insecure, but gathered strength and spoke with a trembling voice.

"I just wanted to…to…thank you…for bringing me back."

Cloud watched Kadaj from aside and smiled slightly at the childish complexion radiating off the face of the other warrior. Without even a thought, the curious gaze of the young blond was travelling down the profile of the slim body beside him and inadvertently Cloud licked his lips. There was an odd tension in the air and Sephiroth could feel it in every part of his body whilst his eyes were flickering between Kadaj and Cloud. What were those youngsters up to?

"What's going on?" the lord asked with his face turning more serious.

After exchanging a swift glance with Cloud, Kadaj snorted a smile and approached Sephiroth with swaying hips and a voice saturated with something seductive. He stepped up to the lord and stopped only when their knees brushed. Cloud followed shortly thereafter.

"What do you want, Kadaj?" Sephiroth asked, whilst watching the two boys in front of him standing unusually close to each other.

"Like I said," the young man voiced ever so sweetly whilst undoing the zipper on Cloud's bodysuit and exposing the fine features of the young, muscular torso. With the last statement, "I want to thank you", Kadaj released Sephiroth with his gaze and began a journey over Cloud's lips; kissing the mouth and sucking gently on a fleshy tongue that eagerly offered itself to this endearing abuse.