Cloud was distant all day, and Tifa worried. Especially when he bought a bottle of whiskey from her bar. She asked, but Cloud didn't know how to tell her that he couldn't get the taste of blood out of his mouth. That he'd thought maybe he could replace it with some other too-strong flavor, but now he just tasted whiskey and blood. So he settled for a shrug.

Tifa sighed, but it was more worry than disappointment. And as usual, she didn't pry. She did take his whiskey away eventually, when he'd drained almost all of it. But it was gently, as she told him to get some sleep.

Cloud watched as she left the room with his whiskey bottle in hand. He snorted in amusement as she cast him one final look and took a swig of the amber liquid for herself. Then he was alone again.

Cloud turned to the desk, running his finger over his lips. He pulled it away to inspect it, rubbing his thumb and pointer finger together. He could still taste it, like it was wet on his teeth—the heat of it on his tongue, the splatter over brown and gold and red leaves, the tension of straining muscle and sinew under his teeth.

Cloud put his head in his hands, letting out a heavy breath. He felt guilty. For attacking Sephiroth. In a dream. This was a new low for his guilt complex. Of all the people in the world to feel bad for. He'd have sooner regretted punching Rufus in the teeth. But there was something about the events that felt all wrong. The familiar dark-haired man. Zack's voice. And Aerith's too.

The way Sephiroth had tossed his head in rejection at Cloud's attacks. Had run, and run, and run.

How simple it should have been for him to stop Cloud's killing move.

The way his body had fallen and rolled, boneless and broken.

"Damn it," Cloud whispered, running his tongue over his teeth, searching for the source of the taste in his mouth.

He didn't dare wish it had just been a dream.

The noise from downstairs was its usual dull roar as 7th Heaven opened for the night. He supposed he could probably get a workout in without anyone noticing too much. It might have been a good way to distract himself a while. He wasn't ready for bed. Not in the slightest. He planned to avoid sleeping for as long as he could.

He didn't stand up though. He didn't move at all. He kept his head in his hands, just sitting there, running his tongue over his teeth, over and over.

He didn't sleep that night, or the night after. He stayed awake, waiting for the next shoe to drop, restless and sleepless. Until days later he finally slept again.

Nightmares came and went in their natural flow of horror. Memories relived. Fears re-awakened. Would his body ever be his own? Would he ever be certain the things his hands did were his thoughts and actions? Would he ever be free of memories?

The taste of blood faded slowly. He tried to wash it away with work, and the taste of dust on his lips after a long ride—With long evenings with friends, drinking, remembering, planning, and laughing—With the kids, listening to their stories and helping them build new toy swords (Blue paint for Denzel's, he wanted it to match Cloud's fighting aura. Gunmetal silver for Marlene, she wanted it to match her father's arm.)

It didn't always seem to help, but he breathed a little easier. And eventually, the taste of blood had almost faded. And with it the unsettling memory and guilt that had suffused him after that awful night.

He dreamed of the labs again, and no one came to interrupt the nightmare before he woke, gasping, from the almost-memory.

He dreamed of the crater, and he betrayed his friends, and the heartless Sephiroth smiled at him. The chaos did not abate into calm deep woods.

Some part of Cloud was disappointed. More than that, some part of him was hurt. Hurt by the lack of support. If the dead could come to him, why was it never the dead he'd want... He would never complain. He trusted his friends' choices, alive or dead, with him or not. But it did hurt a little that Sephiroth had been the one to give him the first relief from his nightmares he'd had in years.

He still hadn't figured out why.

When he fell asleep to find himself amid flames, he heard laughter tear from his throat. Desperate, helpless, miserable laughter. The fire swallowed it. It swallowed everything. His home, his mother, his life, his future. Nibelheim, where his life had ended. Everything he was, everything he knew, devoured in flame.

He saw Sephiroth in the fire. Standing, untouched, unmoved. His hair whipped in a frenzy, his coat billowing. His shining eyes were fixed on Cloud with an unspoken, unbearable hunger. The fire raged around them, singeing Cloud, suffocatingly hot. Sephiroth stood inhuman amid it, and a slow smile warmed his frozen features.

"I can't," Cloud whispered, staring at Sephiroth's smile. The flames burned. The reek of bodies. His mother was in that house, he would walk in, he would see her again, collapsed, burned, murdered, gone.

"I can't." He repeated, his eyes locked on Sephiroth's form as it seemed to grow. Till Sephrioth seemed to be all there was but the fire. His blazing eyes fixated on Cloud with intensity, and purpose, and cruel satisfaction.

"Please," Cloud whispered, his hands twitching up to his head, feeling himself splintering all over, all the pieces he'd fractured into after this day, still inside him, waiting to fall apart again. "I can't!"

A cold wind touched his back. A fleck of snow blew past him towards the impossible figure of Sephiroth before him. It's a trick, screamed part of Cloud's brain. Run, screamed everything inside of him.

He turned, and sprinted into the snow. Flames licked at his heels, until there was nothing but snow, and dark trees, and silence.

Cloud kept running. He ran until his smoke-charred lungs couldn't anymore. Why was he always so human in his dreams? So helpless? While awake, nothing could touch him, but in his dreams he wheezed and coughed and gagged softly on the lingering smell of smoke.

He crumbled, fumbling for snow, scrubbing it over his face to try ridding himself of the scent of smoke. He shoved handfuls of it through his hair, sopping and shivering and wishing to all the gods that he believed there was anything in the worlds that would clean him of that sorrow and fear.

There was a soft sound behind him, and Cloud jumped to his feet, whirling, stumbling backwards.

A black and white buck stood in the snow, watching, distant, silent.

"Don't." Cloud grated, his voice harsh with smoke.

The deer was still a moment. Then it shifted, lifting and placing its foreleg carefully. And then it was not a deer there at all, as if it never had been. A figure in a dark cape slowly drew a mask from its face, and Sephiroth looked out at Cloud from below a dark cowl, his silver hair spilling around his face.

He lowered the mask slowly, revealing that same impassive face, but with new marks. Little pinpoints of scars at the corners of his temples, where Cloud's fangs had sunken in past the mask he'd shattered.

"I broke that." Cloud said coldly, nodding to the mask, his hands itching for his sword.

Sephiroth only nodded, and tossed the mask forward to land between them, face up, its curving silver antlers arching up from a gentle, carved face and dark, empty eyes.

His neck was scarred too, Cloud noted. The hint of skin at the part of the hood before it clasped over his shoulders was pink, puckered and twisted in the shadow of Cloud's bite. It was the first time he'd ever left a mark on Sephiroth.

"What are you trying to do?" Cloud asked sharply.

"Nothing." Sephiroth replied, his voice so low, so smooth, just like Cloud remembered. It made his whole body shiver to hear him speak again.

"Bullshit." Cloud accused, his fingers clenching into fists.

Sephiroth only blinked slowly, then lifted his hands to grip the sides of his cowl. He pulled it back, baring his face and head completely where he stood across from Cloud. Then he unfastened the cape at the silver leaf-shaped pin holding it closed and let it drop to the ground. He was clothed in black beneath, his vest leather tooled into the shapes of curving trees. But he wore no armor, and carried no sword.

"No harm," Sephiroth amended. "You called. I answered."

"I didn't call you." Cloud hissed.

"You called, though." Sephiroth gestured with one hand—gloved in black, elegant, perfect. "It echoed through the trees. Would you rather I had left you?"

"I would rather you stopped existing," Cloud snarled. "I'd rather I never had to see your face again."

"I know." Sephrioth said, nodding to the mask on the ground between them.

Cloud glanced down to it, staring at the carefully carved swirls and tufts of fur on the mask.

"Why a deer?" He blurted.

"I was aiming for unimposing."

"Bad news." Cloud glanced up at Sephiroth's strangely chagrined expression. "You're a scary fucking deer."

"I can change how I seem," Sephiroth shook his head slowly, his bangs swaying around his face. "Not what I am."

"And what are you?" Cloud took a half-step forward, but Sephiroth stayed unmoving. Not advancing, not running. He was as still as the trees that surrounded them.

But his eyes were alive with motion. With thought. With confusion. Cloud felt doubt coil within himself.

"Dead." Sephiroth finally said with a shrug.

"But not gone."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Zack, mostly." Sephiroth's eyes had settled again, gazing just to the right of Cloud, not making eye contact, but not looking away. "And Angeal, and Aerith."

Angeal. The name buzzed in Cloud's head. Zack's mentor, he thought. The man from before.

"Why would they save you?"

"You would have to ask them."

"Would if I could." Cloud muttered. "Where are they? What have you done with them?"

"Nothing." Sephiroth said again, though this time he frowned deeply. He pointed to his right. "Zack is there." He pointed behind Cloud, ahead of himself. "And Aerith." His finger traveled to the left. "Angeal. All as well as they can be, and as dead as I am."

"Thanks to you."

"Yes," Sephiroth agreed grimly.

Cloud felt hollowed out. Felt gutted and impotent, facing Sephiroth with the taste of Nibelheim still in his mouth. With no sword in his hands, and no battle for him to hide in. Even hatred felt dull and weak in the face of his powerlessness, and Sephiroth's unmoving form.

"Why didn't they come for me?" Cloud asked softly. "Why you?"

"They do not hear you." Sephiroth said. "And if they did, I do not think they would interfere. They say you have enough ghosts."

"You disagree?"

"No."

"Then why?"

Sephiroth was silent, but the forest yawned around them. Cloud glanced to the woods, suddenly feeling them deeper than before. Whispers seemed to thread through the darkness as the trees creaked. They were undefinable, wordless, but deeply present. Cloud looked back to Sephiroth, ready to fight, but found the man looking into the woods as well, with a pensive expression.

He lifted a hand to the forest, palm out, and held it there a moment. Cloud caught a breath as the pressure around them slowly lifted, and the dark, looming forest returned to calm and peaceful.

"Your nightmares are my responsibility," He said, his voice low. "I am your torment, and have been for years."

"Actively for a lot of it."

"I do not seek forgiveness." Sephiroth's eyes met Cloud's again, and held them. "You called, and through whatever connection remains between us, I heard. I offered respite, and you took it."

"And I realized who you were, and tore your throat out." Cloud growled.

"Yes." Sephiroth agreed.

"Could I do it again?"

"I will not fight you."

"Then that's a yes."

"Perhaps."

Silence for a moment. Snowflakes fell around them, clumped and thick. The sort of snow that would stick.

"But this time," Sephiroth said, each word carefully chosen and spoken. "You knew it was me. You still came. Why?"

Cloud clenched his teeth.

"You were there anyway." he growled. "Might as well be the real you. Might as well be something I can change."

"Then tell me," Sephiroth said. "Which do you prefer?"

"Prefer?"

"I can sit here and listen to your screams. I can leave you to the demons I gave you, if you would like. Or I can open the door for you, and let you walk through."

"And what. Talk to you?"

Sephiroth didn't flinch, but Cloud's sharp voice echoed in the forest, too loud in the silence.

"I need not be here." Sephiroth said after the echo had faded. "But I cannot leave the winter completely. Where I go it follows."

Cloud didn't answer. Didn't say yes, didn't say no. He looked down at the mask lying between them—at it's soft silver curls, tooled into the leather. At the arching antlers that rose from it. At the elegant dark outlines of the eyes, mirroring the feathered length of Sephiroth's eyelashes.

Sephiroth was silent a long while. Then Cloud heard the snow crunch as he moved. He jerked his head up, ready to fight. But Sephiroth was not approaching. He was turning away.

"When you're ready, you can wake up." He said, his head tilted over his shoulder as he spoke. "Just as you did before."

He moved away, leaving behind his cloak and his mask behind. Cloud stood in the snow, still dripping from where he'd scrubbed at the soot of Nibelheim that clung to him.

He considered chasing. Catching. Killing.

Then he turned and started walking with determination, directly behind himself. He walked with purpose. With speed. Snow crunched under his boots, but the forest was easy to navigate. Not dense and brambled as it had been before, but stately and calm. He came to an abrupt stop, looking down at the ground.

Through the snow, a pale yellow flower was blooming.

He lifted his eyes, looking out over a field of flowers that stretched on as far as he could see. The wind smelled like springtime, and it warmed Cloud's cheeks as it brushed by.

Her presence was unmistakable. He reached out, a hand held against the wind as if he could catch hold of it. Then he turned and started walking in the next direction.

He stayed in winter, on the border of Aerith's spring, and walked. He searched for what he remembered. What he hoped had been real.

And yes. There it was. The flowers evening out into a grassy field, the two seasons melding into each other, friendly and affectionate as lovers. Spring and summertime. Both so at odds with Winter. Cloud saw the cabin he'd ended up at, saw the flowers that blossomed around its doors, a sign of Aerith's frequent visits. And he wondered if he walked over to it if he would see Zack again. He could feel him too, the same way he'd felt Aerith. A familiarity. A twinge in his heart.

They were here. Dead, but not gone. Here, so close to Sephiroth. And yet...

"Seph!" Zack's voice had called, full of such fear.

"What happened?" Aerith's voice, that worried intensity, that question she'd always called halfway through casting a cure.

Both of them had run towards Sephiroth after Cloud attacked him. They had not seemed afraid. Brainwashing? Cloud thought. But no, he didn't believe that. Zack and Aerith… They weren't like him. He was sure. There was no one in the world who could control those two.

So what option did that leave him?

He stood on the border a moment longer, aching. Then he turned back and walked into winter. Without a destination in mind, the forest closed behind him, leaving him lost in his own personal forest. But not really his, he knew. Sephiroth's. Or maybe it WAS Sephiroth, in the way that Aerith was springtime. That Zack was the summer.

It suited him, Cloud thought bitterly. The season of death.

It suited him, he thought, with less anger this time, for the woods to feel so lonely.

He stopped in place, staring down at the snow. Before him was a set of tracks. The marks of chase between a deer and a wolf. He stared at the image of them for a moment, then closed his eyes.

"Wake up." He told himself.

A wind rustled the empty branches, and for a moment, Cloud felt watched. Then he was opening his eyes in bed slowly, letting out a quiet breath as he stared up at the ceiling.

Some nights, Cloud Strife had nightmares. Terrible, tearing, aching, awful nightmares, that crawled out of the deepest wounds in his heart and mind.

He faced them. Met them head on. Struggled to understand what they told him about himself, his past, his healing.

Until the night in the dream of mako sickness and helplessness, when he felt that familiar gasp of fresh, cold air. It was bracing against the burning of the mako. Clarifying, in that he recognized the dream now.

Cloud thought of Aerith and Zack. He thought of pain, and mako, and being used. And he thought of the one person who shared his nightmares.

He walked through the gateway into winter, and sought out the one who had opened it for him. He found him easily, standing tall and silent in the snow, waiting. Cloud watched a long moment, then took a slow breath.

"I have questions."

Sephiroth turned, meeting Cloud's eyes. No mask, no disguises. Just pale lips, dark eyelashes, cold features. He nodded his agreement with gravitas and respect in the incline of his head. But Cloud thought, for a moment, that he saw a sliver of a relieved smile.