~ * * * * * * ~
It was a weird feeling, walking in front of Sephiroth for once, not walking three steps behind or frantically chasing after him. He was tempted to start running just to see if he would be followed. It was an amusing thought, watching Sephiroth chase after him, yet it was something he doubted he'd ever see. He looked back at Sephiroth who was currently trying to brush his hair out of his face. It was all the same length, not surprising. It was doubtful that cloning would also copy the haircut. It wasn't very well in the genetic code. Cloud sighed. It seemed to be a given he'd be sighing every three minutes. He rooted through his stuff until he found what he was looking for.
"Here" he said, offering the ribbon to Sephiroth. Sephiroth gave it a look, then looked up at Cloud.
"It's pink" He stated. Cloud shrugged, still holding it out. Sephiroth didn't even move to take it.
"Well fuck." Cloud said annoyed "Screw me for trying to be even the least bit helpful." He went to turn around and keep walking, dropping his hand. Sephiroth caught him before he turned around more than halfway. Cloud sucked in a painful breath at the unexpected hand contact. The touch slid away as the ribbon was pulled out of his hand.
"I'll take it" Sephiroth said, sounding more than a little annoyed. He reached around his back gathering his loosely. He tied it right above his shoulders, and some of it still fell forward a bit, but it wasn't anywhere near falling in front of his eyes. He looked at Cloud suspiciously as if daring him to laugh. Cloud didn't say a word, turning around to continue walking.
He still felt a little guilty at whatever the sadistic impulse was that had driven him to hand Sephiroth his only memento of the woman the white-haired companion had killed. He was kind of relieved that it hadn't produced any flash of recognition. It was doubtless insincere reasoning handing it over, him remembering. That and perhaps a little in the way of a sick ironic revenge. He'd never really gotten over Aerith's death. She had been the only one to see through all his masks even before he ever remembered they were there. The closest thing to a friend since Zack.
"I guess it's all the more reason for her to have been killed too" He mumbled to himself out-loud without noticing. Sephiroth looked at him curiously, which he couldn't see because his back was facing the man. Cloud fell deeper into bitter contemplation. Something he'd done a lot over the past decade or so.
They'd both died protecting him, in a way. Zack, because he'd been mako poisoned and a burden, Aerith because of his failure to be able to do anything to save the world. His fault he'd been so easily controlled and handed over the black materia. Cloud popped the dead materia in question out of a slot in his belt. Staring at it as it sat silently in his hand.
"Where are we going" Sephiroth asked from behind. Startling him out of his reverie. Cloud fisted his hand tightly around meteor tightly until his muscles went white.
"A town called Nebelheim." He said a little tightly. He'd almost forgotten he wasn't alone. Something he might've thought impossible, considering the company. "The name strike a bell?" he asked waving a hand offhandedly. He could almost feel the negative head shake in response.
"Not really" Sephiroth said, sounding a little bored. Cloud turned around and looked at him, putting the materia back.
"Do you always have to act so distant from everything?" He demanded, getting frustrated with the whole feeling of being around someone once again. He'd become quite a loner, if he hadn't been one already.
"I don't know" Sephiroth replied softly. Cloud's shoulder's relaxed a bit, the tension dying from the comment. He'd almost forgotten what it meant not to know your own mind. Sephiroth was probably holding a lot back, which was nothing new in that man's case. Maybe he did it to protect himself.
"Does it really matter?" Sephiroth continued mockingly. Cloud tensed again. 'God quit with the sensitive guy/asshole bit, make up your mind and stick with it. You're as human as I am, if not more' He glared at the SOLDIER, who had frozen. Cloud almost groaned as he realized he must have spoken aloud. He turned around and started walking even more quickly. They spent the rest of the trip in silence. Sephiroth seemed to be in a state of heavy contemplation. Cloud could feel by way of the way of the heaviness in the air surrounding them. It was uncomfortable, but safer not to respond to.
~ * * * * * * ~
It may have been a good thing Vincent happened to be out of Nebelheim at the moment, considering who was about to show up. It probably would have made a messy scene.
No, Vincent at the moment was flying high above the eastern continent in the Highwind. He'd been in Nebelheim up until about a month ago. The mystery of what was and wasn't happening had really gotten to him.
"I just couldn't stand doing as Cloud suggested and leaving it alone for now" He said to Cid, for the tenth time since he'd hitched a ride, in the way of explanation. " I think there's more to this, more we can do. I just have to find it" He always started on this whenever they failed to find much more than a dead end.
"Shit Vin" Cid said, cigarette clutched between his lips. "I keep telling you, don't worry about it, dip-shit." he crossed his arms and put his feet up on the pilot console. "I don't really got much to do anyway. It's not like anyone feel's like including the best damn pilot in the world in any of their plans. I've been resorting to petty delivery and messenger jobs just for an excuse to fly the fuck 'somewhere.'" He looked up, blowing out a puff of smoke.
"'Side's, I agree with you on this. Cloud's never been exactly the most forthcoming. That kid needs more help than he'll ever ask for. There's something real fishy about all of this too." He looked over at Vincent, who just gave one quick nod in affirmation.
"I worry about him being alone so much" Vincent said in his quiet voice.
"Well fuck.... ah... as for more clues, the more we look and fail, hell, the more we narrow our searching ground. Don't worry Vin-Vin, kiddo, we'll get this fixed." Cid grinned, ashing his cigarette at the pale man, who gave a weak smile in return.
Vincent supposed that Cid was the only man alive now that would ever call him kiddo knowing everything there was to know about Vincent's age. It was true though. In a lot of ways, though he had quite a few vices, Cid was the more responsible one in his own way. Vincent smiled at the 'older' man. It had been long since anyone treated him so casually.
"Should we tell the other's?" Cid asked suddenly in the silence. Vincent shook his head slowly.
"Not just yet," he replied " I don't want to betray Cloud's trust more than I have to...." He sighed "No, more than I already have."
~ * * * * * * ~
"This the place?" Sephiroth asked as they approached the gates of Nebelheim. He stared up at the sign stretching over the road and then through the town beyond. "It's small" he said. Cloud had been noticing that he often liked to state the obvious.
"It's my hometown, of sorts"
"I wouldn't know" Sephiroth replied. Cloud flinched. He'd said that before, standing in that very same spot, some other sometime. That was before everything. Cloud could almost smell the burning of wood. He breathed out slowly.
"No you wouldn't, would you" He said softly.
"Would I?" Sephiroth asked sincerely. Cloud shook his head in response. These mood changes Sephiroth had were going to be troublesome. They made him drop his guard. And although he wasn't sure why that would be a bad thing, he just knew it would be. The worst part of it was that Sephiroth slid so easily from one kind of role to another without even so much as a skipped beat in between. What kind of life had the man led, to learn that kind of skill until it was ingrained that deep in his personality? He looked over at Sephiroth. He had never really known all too much about him, even then.
He wished he could just ask but even the man himself didn't remember, so Cloud led them on through the town. There was not even one look of recognition his way. No these were all people Shinra had paid to move here and live their lives as if it had been forever to cover up the burning. After all, any mess caused by their 'Experiment' was their responsibility. Cloud glared at anyone who dared to meet his eyes hostilely. Didn't they have any self respect? What about the memory of all those people who had died here...
It wasn't really fair to glare at them. Now it was mostly their parents who had been at fault. Shinra's lie had become truth, fifteen years later. As much truth as anything else really. He settled on ignoring them.
"Did you know that your expression has changed every few seconds we've been in this town?" Sephiroth asked from beside him. "I feel sorry for those poor people that smiled at you." He said amused. Cloud looked over at him, putting on the same affected look of boredom that he often saw Sephiroth use when he wanted to be anywhere but there.
"I see you feel real bad about it." Sephiroth smiled at him, drawing the sentence out exaggeratedly. "Real bad." He continued, going to a grin. Cloud smiled fake brightly at him, dropping into a scowl after he got the point across. Cloud looked forward and refused to be prodded when Sephiroth's infectious laughter followed behind him. His step lightened though, at for once hearing true laughter from the man. He'd never heard it firsthand. And only once from far away. When Zack had been talking to him.
He supposed he should be glad Sephiroth was being so open with him. Had he known everything he was supposed to know, he likely would have treated Cloud with his usual 'holier than thou' act that had kept him so distant from anyone. As far as he could tell, Zack had been his only close companion. Cloud could only have wished for even a kind non-dismissive word from the soldier commander back when he'd joined Shinra.
When they got towards the other side of town, Cloud decided to try the reactor first. It would be bad news if Vincent noticed them coming into the mansion he resided. There was no way the lack of bangs and different clothes would keep the Ex-Turk from knowing exactly who was with him. He'd check the mansion that evening when he left Sephiroth to sleep at the Inn. He never really needed much sleep anyway. Not since his body endurance caught up with the havoc that hat been wreaked on him in those experiments.
They got to the base of the mountains without Sephiroth saying another word, though the amusement had seemed to linger for quite some time. The mountains were as barren as they had always been, which made Cloud think it hadn't been because of the reactor that life had been drained from them. Maybe they had been that way forever.
He took the long way around, because Sephiroth had never seen the shorter path just across the bridge. When they passed under the bridge, Sephiroth looked up.
"Is it too unstable to walk across?" He asked, referring to the bridge. Cloud shook his head and Sephiroth remained silent. Not pursuing further answers at all. There was something about the lack of question from Sephiroth that seemed almost humble, but Cloud shook of the thought before it began. After all wasn't Sephiroth an Egomaniac? True he had never thought so before the incident but....
But that had been just hero worship, right?
Cloud found it a little odd, when they reached the natural mako fall in the mountain cavern, that he ended up explaining the phenomena to Sephiroth, the same way it had once been explained to him. Cloud felt a little detached as he did it. Sephiroth did nothing more than pay attention quietly and nod when Cloud paused to see if anything hadn't been understood.
He didn't even want to imagine how humbling it would be to have someone who had once served under you as a grunt explaining elementary things to you. He felt a pain in his chest as he felt oddly gratified that Sephiroth also didn't remember who he was, and his exalted place among 'mortals.' He didn't think his ego would have survived it. Well maybe he just never wanted the super-human image of the man who had once been his very goal in life to be shattered. Cloud didn't want to explore his reasoning much further. It was bound to be painful.
They finally reached the reactor. The only one that had been left intact. It was so out of the way no one would likely ever bother to re- activate it. It had been decided that come a few years from now, it would be converted into a museum of those final days, being the place where everything started. They really didn't know the half of it. Nor had any of them been a part of it. How could they possibly think to put such a reminder of pain in a town that had known so much grief. They didn't even know the truth. Only bits and pieces of the whole story had been filtered out and glorified.
He had seen a special on it three years back and it looked like events out of a comic book. Sure a lot of miraculous things had happened but most of them had been done by the ones trying to destroy everything. None of the 'heros' they portrayed had any weaknesses and it was all very superficial. It made fun of all the hardships he'd gone through. None of the people he had gone so far to save would ever understand.
Not that his motive had really been to save the world. It had been a lot more complicated than that.
He led Sephiroth through the reactor to the room Jenova had been, The name tag was still there, as was the wires that had been snapped as she'd been pulled out of the wall. Not a thing had changed, except the lack of mako running through the reactor and the whirring of the mechanics.
"Remember anything?" Cloud asked after a moment of nostalgia. Sephiroth shook his head.
"Not really"
"Take your time, maybe if you look around." Cloud said with a motion of his hand. He crossed his arms and walked over to the wall to lean against it. Sephiroth wandered off gracefully. Now that Cloud thought about it, he always had seemed to almost float, yet there was something altogether dark about the way he walked. Cloud exhaled and looked up to the high ceiling. There was a real lack of cobwebs for a place that had been abandoned so long. Small details that were mostly unnoticeable when they were around, but so obvious when they were absent. Nothing lived here, and Cloud suspected nothing ever would. Now outside was a different matter.
Sephiroth came back twenty minutes later, observing Cloud for almost five minutes before the short blond noticed him, snapping out of daydreams. Sephiroth had caught on rather easily that his companion, Cloud Strife, often became lost in though. Heavy thoughts they seemed, weighing down the atmosphere around him. He looked far too young to be so depressing. But Sephiroth had a feeling there was more to this man than the way he looked. He also had a feeling that there had been times he'd misjudged people for similar reasons.
"Well?" Strife asked. Sephiroth looked at him contemplatively for a few moments before answering, pausing to rest an elbow on a hand, and his hand under his chin.
"Nothing" Sephiroth answered "And likely to continue that way no mater how closely I examine things here" he said truthfully. Strife just nodded. Sephiroth waited for the boy to pass him before following behind half a step. Nothing was as it seemed, and he couldn't even judge what 'seemed' because his memory was the equivalent of nothing. Nothing but pure reactions and feelings. He wasn't sure about skills because he didn't even know what he should and shouldn't be able to do.
He had a feeling that he usually never would have agreed so easily to anything, much less following someone for who knows how long, but he really couldn't give himself any reason why not. He did know that when he remembered, he wouldn't have changed the situation if it had happened all over again. Though he didn't know why he knew.
He wanted to demand more answers, as if he had absolute right to know anything he wanted to about any given thing, yet something in his pride resisted. He couldn't stand to come of as less than completely capable. Not that he was even sure what was bad about asking things he had once known before. But he really couldn't do any less than trust his instincts. He didn't have anything else.
~ * * * * * * ~
Cloud signed them into the hotel, and waited until he was absolutely sure that Sephiroth was asleep before sneaking out to the mansion. Sephiroth had been oddly quiet on the way back. Somehow Cloud suspected he'd remembered something but didn't want to say anything for one reason or another. He crept through the mansion until one of the floorboards creaked and he felt silly doing it. There was no reason Vincent shouldn't see him, not just his companion who had been a psychopath bent on planet-wide genocide. He walked calmly to the secret door and then down the stairs, feeling the opposite of how he was acting. He felt like a kid who had been caught stealing from his parent's coin-purse.
He opened the door to Vincent's coffin-room, and sighed in relief as he realized he likely wasn't here. Which made him wonder where he actually was, but he was too busy being grateful to worry about that just yet. He was about to check the library just in case when something sneezed behind him. He almost jumped straight out of his skin.
"A little jumpy?" Sephiroth observed. Cloud gave him a glare. Sephiroth was far from unused to it. "Why would one wait till I was asleep then go sneaking off in the night? Were you planing on ditching me?" He said. Cloud looked at him a little wide eyed. "I see now that you probably never even thought of it which raises a few more questions about your unwilling attitude." He waved a hand as if it was unimportant, in order to specify that the first question was still in effect.
"There's someone who lives here that might not be the happiest person to see you floating around with me" He answered a little grudgingly. Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at the word 'float.'
"I take it this was our next destination then?" Cloud nodded. Sephiroth walked past him through the open door of the library. "Nothing rang a bell in the upper portion of the house. Clever trick wall though." he said lightheartedly. It was a little strange coming from Sephiroth, but the situation was weird also. There were bound to be oddities.
Cloud stared at Sephiroth as he wandered around the room. The books still hadn't been re-shelved from the break in. He started to pick up a book when Cloud's voice stopped him.
"I recommend not reading those" He said a little darkly, but not quite much more than a light warning. Sephiroth looked at him, surprised, but he put the book down calmly. He strolled around the room staring at everything with a slight tilt of his head, hand supporting his chin again with his elbow resting on the other hand. He paused abruptly when he stood before the large glass containers of dull greenish fluid. His head tilted down so that his hand rested on his forehead. He slid his head up slightly so he was looking at it through the space between his fingers. His expression was intense.
"Something about those really bothers me" He mumbled "It strikes a discordant note but I can't even begin to put my finger on it." He turned away abruptly, resting his fingers over his mouth as if he couldn't bear to look at them but didn't want to drop the possible remembrance of something... anything.
He didn't even look up as Cloud walked over to a bookshelf and toyed with something there. He did though, look up abruptly with the click sound that followed. A part of the ceiling had opened up it to what seemed like another room. Cloud hopped up, easily catching the ledge and pulling himself out of sight. Sephiroth walked over and looked up from right underneath it. After a while Cloud's head popped into view.
"You coming or not?" He asked. Sephiroth hopped up, grabbed the ledge with one hand, and flipped easily into the room in one smooth motion.
"Show off," he got from Cloud, who seemed like he was trying a little too hard to speak lightly.
"I didn't really think about it" Sephiroth murmured. He hadn't even been sure if he could get up there. The ceiling was pretty high. He stood and walked into the dusty machine filled room, took one look at the table before his face contorted with pain and he slowly dropped to one knee, his hand clutching his head as he closed his eyes to the room.
"What..." he started, then paused for what seemed like an eternity "What is this room..." he finally forced out. Cloud was silent for a long moment. Sephiroth shuddered, and then he finally replied.
"I was always pretty worthless." Cloud started, looking out across the room. "But at the same time I was too useless to even fail well, my body just refused to give out completely, even after I had." Sephiroth looked up at him in pure confusion, temporarily forgetting his overwhelmed feeling.
"This was my hell," He said dully "My hell where I became close, through trauma, to what became my best and only friend in the world." Cloud looked down at Sephiroth who was staring up at him blankly, his hand hovering lost, a few inches from his head. "He was already a good friend to me, to most everyone he thought really deserved it. You were one of those deserving, had been far longer than I had even known him. I don't know what about me he found worthwhile."
"It was what happened here in this room that began what took away everything I had up to that point in life and gave me everything I'd ever wanted, but only when all my reasons for wanting it were gone." He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
"It's a scientific lab, Sephiroth, for doing horrendous experiment's on humans. In essence, for turning humans into little more than monsters." Sephiroth looked at Cloud, his expression horrified as Cloud stared back at him, his expression stark and utterly open. For a brief moment, Sephiroth saw straight into the boy's soul and it was overwhelming. Such pure pain and self loathing.
Cloud turned around and jumped down out of the room. Sephiroth heard his footsteps running and then up the stairs. It wasn't until a few minutes later when a drop of water fell on his hand, that he noticed the tears running down his cheeks. Had that force of emotion he felt been Cloud's? The sensation had been so strong, yet the small quivering wail that he felt to the depths of his body wasn't his. Sephiroth dropped his face into his hands, staring through the at the ground as he tried to take slow breaths.
It wasn't until almost an hour later that he followed after Cloud.
~ * * * * * * ~
Cloud reached the hotel, his lungs almost bursting as he finally remembered to breathe when he got there. How had he forgotten himself so much? Showed such a vulnerable moment to Sephiroth. He hadn't been fully prepared to go into the mansion with the tall dark clothed man yet anyway. He sucked in a deep breath holding it for a moment before letting it out in one quick exhale. He tried to contemplate the next course of action, while he knew in the back of his mind he was trying to run away from a problem that just wouldn't disappear on it's own.
"Louis said to find the 'right beginning'... What did he mean by that" Cloud mumbled to himself as he collapsed sitting on the bed. He looked down at the ground between his feet, trying to come to a hard decision. It wasn't that he didn't know where to go, he just really didn't want to go back there. His shoulders collapsed inward finally, in defeat.
"Midgar it is," He sighed, falling into the bed. He was dead asleep of mental exhaustion long before Sephiroth returned.