Disclaimer: I don't own any of them. Not making any money from this. Love the thought of Sephiroth and Cloud, they'd be so good for each other. Please leave me a review if you like the story.

Chapter 4: Awake

I would stay awake just to hear you breathing
Watch you smile while you are sleeping
While you're far away and dreaming
I would spend my life in this sweet surrender
I would stay lost in this moment forever
Every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure

- "Don't Wanna Miss A Thing", Aerosmith

The moonlight was a pale gauzy sheet fluttering across the window-sill, across the floor and onto the bed where the pale blonde lay unconscious, a waxen statue in a semblance of death save for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Tifa paused in the doorway, unable to look away from the sight, before slowly making her way to her friend's side and kneeling down to brush his bangs back from his forehead. Cid and Vincent were spending the night on the ship, Barrett was bunking down with the kids so as to spend time with his daughter, Yuffie was currently sleeping off the effects of the alcohol in Tifa's bed, and the latter was making the rounds before turning in herself. That course of action had naturally led her to the sickbed of the man who had just saved the planet. Again. But at what cost?

"Oh Cloud. Always the hero," Tifa whispered softly, studying the heart-shaped face that seemed almost too delicate for the strength of spirit it shielded. Cloud was curiously immobile, the stillness a stark reminder that this was not the sleep of the weary, but of the wounded. "But you've done it now. It's safe again – you found that strength within to face Sephiroth. Why won't you wake up and enjoy the world you've helped to create? Is it really so awful?"

Silence.

"We all miss you, you know." Her legs folded under her unconsciously as she sank down by the headboard, rumpling the rug by the bed. "Life is for the living, not the dead. Your mother used to say that whenever people asked her what it was like to go on without your father, remember? When we were children…you were always quiet, even then. That's why when we met again, and you seemed to be a brash ex-SOLDIER, I thought you'd achieved all you'd set out to do when you left Nibelheim. I thought maybe you were finally over…whatever issues it was you were struggling with and we had a chance." She tilted her head and reached up slowly to lace her fingers into his lax grip, noting absently the calluses from a sword grip that roughened his palm. A gentle, hopeful squeeze.

Nothing.

"And then we fought him. And I helped you find yourself again. And then you retreated back into that quiet shell that I helped you rebuild." Tifa's voice was surprisingly even, although she couldn't quite keep the thread of hurt from quivering. "Two years, Cloud. You hid yourself away from your friends, the people who cared about you – but why am I surprised?" She laughed softly, blinking back tears that pride would not let fall. "That was what the old Cloud would have done. At first I thought it was because you didn't care…but then I realized, maybe…maybe it was because you cared too much and it was just easier to hide from the hurt. The way you did as a child. I just never went far enough trying to figure out what exactly it was you cared about. Or who."

Stillness.

"You know me, I run headlong into fights. That's Tifa Lockheart's style. I guess where I messed up was when I tried to make you do the same. I fight on instinct – it's how I deal with the world. You fight only when you have something to protect, and even then you hurt for it. I'm sorry if I was a part of that hurt before by not understanding that." She ran a thumb gently over his unresisting hand. "Yeah, never thought you'd hear that from me, did you? Guess some part of what Vincent said made it through my thick skull. I just have a hard time with the thought that you could hurt for a man who caused you…us…everyone…so much pain. But then again, look at me. I'm sitting here holding your hand, hurting for a man who doesn't love me back. And worse still…cares for me. Just not the way I want you to. So I guess when you look at it that way, we're actually the same. And I'm no hypocrite. Gods, Vincent was right. Who knows why we love who we love?"

Was that a faint frown on his face? She sat up a little straighter, but as minutes went by without any other movement, she decided she must have imagined it. Cloud's hand was still limp in hers, and she reached up and placed it gently by his side.

"Please wake up, Cloud. I won't say I don't wish you would love me back, but I swear I'll understand. Or at least, I'll try harder to. And I'll even try to listen, and you know how hard that can be for me!" Her dark eyes glistened even as she forced a wry smile onto her face, though there were no eyes to see her valiant effort. "I just…I just want to be around you, that's all. You're my friend. I'll treasure whatever time I can get with you. I'll watch you sleep if that's all I can have, but if you can hear me…wake up. Please. The planet's safe again…there's a future, however imperfect it may be. Wake up."

The only answer was the soft rustle of the curtains shimmering in the moonlight.

Gods above, his head hurt so badly, his shoulder felt like it had been shattered into a million pieces – and quite possibly had been - and his stomach felt as though it were trying to turn itself inside out. The darkness was warm and welcoming, and he reached for it gratefully, wanting to rub his face in its velvet nap and let it take the pain away, but something – someone? – wouldn't let him go. He gritted his teeth against the wave of nausea that washed over him and buried his head against the warmth by his side, wanting to let go and drift away into oblivion.

"Strife, you must stay awake – you have sustained a head injury. Keep still. Can you look at me?"

"Medics are on the way. They said specifically not to use a Cure Materia on him; he's too weak for that right now, not that we have one on us anyways."

"I am well aware of that, Zachary. As I recall, I was the one who taught you to use it," came the sharp retort. "Strife, stay with me, damn it!"

"Calm down, Seph, I was just sayin'. How do you know the kid anyways?"

There was a palpable hesitation, an uncharacteristic indecision in the deep voice, a hint of...obsfucation? "He was…he was one of the SOLDIERs who guarded the laboratory when I was a child."

An indeterminate sound. "Seph, that's not possible. Look at him! He's gotta be all of what, twenty-two? If he were the same man, he'd have'ta be in his forties by now."

"I am well aware of that. Nonetheless, he is the spitting image of the man I knew. And he did seem to respond to his name immediately prior to becoming temporarily unconscious."

"But-"

"Zack, keep it down!" Aeris hissed. "The noise probably isn't helping!"

"But-"

"Zachary, be silent. That is an order."

"Fine, fine…."

Cloud agreed silently with the two long-haired members of the trio as he attempted to obey the command not to pass out again. The fading daylight still seemed too harsh for his eyes, and he turned instinctively away from it, his breath rattling in his chest as he struggled for air, breathing in the scent of supple leather and oil and musk and…oh dear. He felt his body summon up the reserves to blush faintly as he realized that he was currently being cradled against Sephiroth as the taller man attempted to stave off the chill of shock with his own body heat. And that he was nuzzling the man's arm, and that the shimmering warm blanket he felt brushing his bare arm was a curtain of silken platinum strands. Despite the pain he was in, he felt oddly comforted, and safe, and in a strange moment of lucidity, wondered if the blow to his head had suppressed that part of his consciousness that screamed that lying in the arms of someone who had been attempting to kill you not a day earlier was generally a bad thing, because right now all he wanted to do was stay lost in this moment forever, acutely aware of the feel and smell of the man, every bit as intoxicating as he had imagined.

"Strife? Can you hear me?" The urgency in the husky voice dragged him out of the peaceful darkness he had been slipping into, and he grimaced, curling in on himself as the wound in his shoulder decided to make itself known again. He swallowed and tried to speak. His eyes widened in alarm when no sound came forth despite his best efforts.

Aeris's face swam into view as she put a gentle hand on his forehead. "Shh, calm down. It may only be a temporary loss," and despite the fog in his head, Cloud did not miss the meaningful look sliding his way. "Here, take my hand," and her cool fingers slipped into his grasp. At least she had the presence of mind to pick the good arm. "Squeeze once for yes and twice for no. Do you understand?"

He squeezed once.

"Can you speak at all?"

Another attempt, and then two squeezes, his panic evident in the desperate strength of his grip. He thought he saw a satisfied look flit across her face for an instant, but it was gone before he could be certain.

"Are you in pain?"

He rolled his eyes as best he could, wincing and blinking as stars exploded in his vision. One squeeze.

"Zachary, where are those medics?"

"They said ETA was ten minutes, sir," the dark-haired man responded reflexively to the tone in his superior's voice.

"Do you know what your name is?"

He squeezed once.

"He says he doesn't know it. Amnesia, possibly," Aeris informed the two men, blithely ignoring the bone-crushing repeated squeezes a very confused Cloud was delivering. "Shush, calm down…Zack and the General are going to take care of you at their base. Everything's going to be fine." Keen grey eyes looked down intently into Cloud's face. "Trust me. The General will make sure you're taken care off, won't you, sir?" and the childishly pleading note in Aeris's voice seemed curiously at odds with the knowing light in her eyes that only Cloud saw.

"Of course, Miss Gainsborough." Sephiroth's voice was calm and even, the mere sound of it so reassuring that he could have been reading off a dinner menu with likely the same effect, Cloud thought dazedly. The voice of a leader. "It would appear I owe him my life now after all."

"Medics are here," Zack interjected, sounding relieved. "C'mon babe, stand aside and let 'em work."

Cloud sensed a flurry of activity around him, and gentle but impersonal hands lifting him up and onto a stretcher. A pad of some kind was slapped against his shoulder as unfamiliar faces swarmed into view, their mouths moving but their voices indistinct, blurring into one another. He shivered convulsively, his body instinctively reaching out towards the source of warmth that had slipped away, his hand grasping on empty air as he opened his mouth, remembering only belatedly that he seemed to be unable to say very much of anything. Make that anything at all. The panic that had been held at bay swept back in and dark spots swam before his eyes, the lead weight of his eyelids dragging them shut despite the cries in his ears. It would be so easy to let go here. But he'd made a choice….

The field around the two men shimmered for a moment, hazing over in shades of milky white, and then regained its coherence. Cloud glanced around sharply. "What was that?"

"That's your friend, that one from Nibelheim. Tifa. She's trying to get ya to wake up, kid. You've got some loyal friends back there, y'know." Zack's gaze was penetrating. "Your body's healing up just fine, and there's no reason for you to remain here much longer. Guess you'll have'ta make your choice pretty soon."

"Choice?"

"Sure. Well, maybe it's choices. First one is whether you're gonna stay here in the Lifestream with Aeris and me, or go back to life. If ya choose the latter, then…well, you gotta decide if you wanna wake up like Tifa wants, or…you're willing to take up the Cetra on their proposition. 'Course, if you do that and succeed, you'll erase all the events starting from Nibelheim across all the worlds. Don't ask me how that works, but it does, apparently. One hell of a way to get a girl off your back and save the planet in the process."

"I don't understand, Zack. Why me? Why not you? You were his friend, he trusts you, you'd be a great candidate." The blonde wasn't meeting his friend's gaze, choosing to focus instead on the patch of grass by his feet as he yanked idly at the nearest stems. Zack debated whether or not to warn the kid – so what if he was now technically the same age as Zack? Years spent floating about in the LIfestream counted too! – that Aeris didn't take kindly to people rooting up her garden, then shrugged. Cloud was a big boy now. He could take care of himself against an enraged Cetra.

Or so he told himself as he evaded the direct question by answering with another. "What do you remember about your life as a cadet, Cloud?"

A minute shrug. "Bits and pieces. You know how messed up I was after we escaped. I remember being miserable a lot of the time," and glowing blue eyes met Zack's for a moment, self-deprecating humour shining through. "I wasn't exactly top-flight SOLDIER material."

"Looks like you did well enough in the end, kid."

Cloud gave him a half-hearted glare. "Yeah, after five years of tinkering by that bastard Hojo."

"But what else do you remember?" his friend persisted, reaching out to lift his chin so that he could no longer avoid that unnervingly direct gaze.

"I don't know. I told you, bits and pieces. I remember Reno was in my class for a while, although we didn't really get along. Still don't. But he's a good person to have with you in a fight, if it's in his best interests. I remember you putting me in a headlock in the cafeteria once for calling you a hedgehog – but you know, you called me 'chocobo-head' first," Cloud pointed out testily. "I remember flunking ignominiously out of the SOLDIER exams, and being so incredibly humiliated and the way the others were looking at me with pity in their eyes and wanting to strangle them for looking at me that way. And I remember the way he…." Cloud's low tenor faltered, and from the look in his eyes, Zack knew exactly who 'he' was. He smiled crookedly.

"Go on."

The blonde shook his head stubbornly. "Nothing. It's a blank. I remember Nibelheim, and then everything goes fractured again."

"Spikey…"

"Zack." The uncharacteristically harsh tone in Cloud's voice made his friend pause. Ah. Okay. They'd gotten to the touchy part again.

"Cloud. I'm not trying to snoop around in your personal business. But I gotta know…the Cetra have 'ta know that you understand why it has to be you. Could only be you."

"There must be an entire universe of little cadets who worshipped Sephiroth, Zack!" and the hostility in Cloud's voice was coming through loud and clear. "Why me?"

Zack shoved his face into Cloud's and snarled back with equal viciousness, "Because, Cloud, none of 'em ever stood up to him and won - except for you." The kid wanted to play it rough, fine. The gloves were coming off now. "Because none of 'em ever cared enough about him enough to try and stop the madness from taking the man he had been, except for you Because…because…" he sighed heavily, "because…for whatever reason…something about you gets through to him enough every time that he drops his guard for you and lets you kill him." Way to go, Zack. Guilt trip the kid, why don't ya, he thought glumly to himself. Aeris so owed him for this.

Cloud closed his eyes as if to ward off some painful vision, a faint furrow appearing on his brow. "Is that all I am, Zack? A weapon? A tool for the Cetra to meddle in the fate of the Planet – of all the Planets?"

Again a question for a question. "Does it matter if it's what you want to do anyway?" Zack asked soberly.

His friend's snort was muffled by the fact that Cloud had buried his head in his arms. "Minor point, but it would be better for my ego to think that I might matter because of who I am, and not what I am. And how do you know what I want to do anyway?"

"Now you know how Seph felt."

Glowing blue eyes snapped up and fixed Zack with a glare. "You sure you aren't part-Cetra somewhere way back in that family tree?"

Zack snickered. "Nah. I'm from Gongaga, remember? No self-respecting Cetra would be caught dead there. Hell, I hightailed it out of there soon as I could, didn't I?"

The long-suffering look Cloud bestowed upon him slid right off his grinning joker's exterior. The blonde opened his mouth to deliver a riposte, but shut it with an audible click as the landscape around them rippled again and the sky above them began to darken ever so slightly, matching the expression on Zack's face. "Ah, hell. Sorry kid, we're running out of time. You're gonna have to choose now. Wake up for your friends, or for him. Your pick. I told Aeris I'd stay out of it once you had all the information you needed to decide."

"What if I fail, Zack?"

"Then you'll just have to stop him again," Zack shrugged optimistically. "Easy-peasy. Ain't no different than what you'd have to do anyhow. But at least this way, there's a chance that you won't have to. And that's better than the certainty of having to kill him again, ain't it?"

"Will you be there?"

The wistful note in Cloud's voice almost undid the dark-haired SOLDIER. "Sure. I mean, I won't remember nothing, and you'll be older than I will, but I'll be there. You'll just have'ta work for the pleasure of my friendship again is all. Aeris will remember though. It's that Cetra thing, and they need someone to fix things on the ground anyway. Heh," he chuckled reminiscently, "that used to be my job when we were doin' recon. Seph was terrible at that sort of thing – for one thing, that head of hair was pretty distinctive."

"Like yours isn't," Cloud retorted tartly. "Hedgehog."

"Chocobo-head."

"Spinifex."

"Spikey." That last in warm tones of affection as he put the blonde in a headlock that had them laughing and squirming about in the grass. A shadow fell over the pair and they broke apart hurriedly. Aeris looked down on the two young men, lips twitching, belying the stern look on her sweet face.

"All settled then? Because if so we should get moving."

Cloud looked steadily at her. "I'm ready," and the settled certainty in his voice made Zack smile. The kid had grown up all right. All right.

Aeris returned that regard with sparkling, wise eyes. "Then close your eyes and think of who it is you wish to see."

And he obeyed, surrendering to the darkness. And thought of cat-like green eyes set in a sere face that tried but failed to hide the fires that burned beneath that lonely mask. And of a warm smile for a frightened young cadet. And of a voice like black velvet, by turns commanding and kindly. And of awakening to its call.

"He's slipping away! Move it, move it!"

"I've got an IV going, his pulse is steady but weakening, let's go!"

A voice, clearer than all the rest, commanding, demanding, almost…pleading…and he reached out for it, forcing his eyes to open and meet a brilliant flash of emerald green.

"Strife! Damn it, wake up! You stay awake, you hear me? That's an order, soldier."

The stunned surprise in Sephiroth's eyes as Cloud summoned up the wherewithal to give him a very, very small smile of assent was worth the effort. Staying awake was a pain, in this case, quite literally. But for him, Cloud would try. He'd made a choice, after all. And he'd see that choice through.

Although Aeris was going to have a lot of explaining to do.