Come Home

Description: Inspired by the Ashika Sakura story of the same name. A single night's mistake separated them for six years. When chance throws them back together, it will take more than love to heal the wounds and bring them home. Cleon, Soriku, AkuRoku, Zemyx, and Yuffietine.

Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts belongs to Square-Enix. This should be nothing new to anyone.

A/N: Blast, I wanted to get this done before I went on vacation, but that didn't happen. Luckily the B&B has internet access. Yay! I wrote most of the last section on the train going up to Vermont. Interestingly enough, my computer was the only thing that didn't make me motion-sick.

BTW, I think this is general enough that it doesn't need an M rating, but if anyone disagrees, let me know. Enjoy!


7. Cloud

He is hovering on the edge of unconsciousness when he first hears it. A soft, repetitive sound from a few feet away. At first, he tries to ignore it and slip back into sleep, but it does not stop, slowly burrowing itself into his mind and making it impossible to do anything but wake.

Groaning quietly, he tries to lift his head but finds it surprisingly heavy with the thick fog of exhaustion and the mixed drinks that Tifa kept serving him all night. Thoughts of his good friend spark his memories. Sitting around the kitchen table, holding one female against him while the other speaks quietly, offering support and advice. His hands threading through long brown hair while green eyes stare dully at nothing, the spark of life in them dead and gone. His own eyes meeting sad brown ones from across the table and sharing their mutual helplessness, neither knowing what to do to ease their friend's pain.

As he struggles into a sitting position, he wonders groggily why people have to break each other's hearts like this.

It takes him a moment to get his bearings and realize he has been lying on the carpeted floor. Then, his eyes search for the sound. Sure enough, she is curled up nearby, crying. He looks about for Tifa, hoping that the other woman will save him from this duty, but there is a lump on the couch across the room, a waterfall of black hair spilling from one end to the floor, and it looks too far away for him to reach in his current state. Sighing, he drags himself over.

"Aerith," he whispers in a cracked voice. His hand reaches for her, and when it makes contact, she immediately turns and buries her head in his neck. Too tired to remain sitting, he pulls her down to the floor with him, slides his hands up her back, and rests his head against hers. "Talk to me," he says gently, but she shakes her head and cries even harder.

With her warm weight against his chest, he feels the fog begin to return to his mind. He suspects he is still a bit drunk, and from the hiccupping sounds that Aerith is making, he would not be surprised if she is as well. Not knowing what else to do, he just holds her and lets her cry.

He is almost asleep again when she whispers, "I'm so cold."

Her voice jolts him awake, and he needs a moment to process her words. Finally, he asks, "Want me to get you a blanket?"

She shakes her head and repeats, "So cold. Like I'll never be warm again." She shifts in his arms. "Cloud, will you make me warm again?"

He does not understand and opens his mouth to tell her so, but then her lips are on his and she is kissing him desperately.

"Aerith!" he protests. "Stop!"

But she does not hear him. Tears fall freely from her eyes as she kisses and touches him. "Just once," she pleads. "Just one more time. I want to be warm again."

His hands grip her around the upper arms -- gently since he does not want to hurt her -- but then she touches him and a sensation he has never experienced shoots through him. His grip slackens and his head tips back in shock. Gasping for breath, he tries to find his voice, his control, but no one has ever touched him there before. Not even …

"Squall," he whispers, and the name snaps him out of his trance and into action. "Aerith," he says, reaching for her arms again, "I can't. I'm seeing someone and I … I …" He falters as his hands close around empty air. Confused, he blinks for a moment, fuzzily wondering where she has gone.

When he finds out, the feeling sends him crashing back into the floor, his body arching clear off of the ground. Stop! his mind screams, but all his throat can produce is a hoarse cry. His brain is melting; he can feel it filling with the steam that the heat in his body is producing. And all he can do is cry over and over inside his head, I can't … I can't … I can't …

When she finally stops, he is so out of control that he is shaking. Tears leak from his eyes as he whispers, "Please …" Although what he is begging for, he cannot decide. His mind wants one thing, his body another.

Her face appears before him, her eyes unfocused and wet. She can no longer see him. "Please," she echoes as she positions her body above him. "Please don't leave me." She tucks her face into his neck. "Please, Zack …"

He grasps at the name, desperately clawing through the haze in his mind to find some sort of clarity. "No, Aerith. Wake up. I'm not … I can't …"

She moves.

The haze engulfs him.

It is only after it is all over that he realizes just what he has done. And when he does, he turns his back on her, shoves his fists into his mouth, and screams.

xXx

"Hey, Dad?"

Cloud paused in cutting his chicken to look up at Sora across the table. Both of his sons had barely touched their hamburgers -- Roxas's with mushrooms, Sora's without -- and they had been giving each other looks and handsigns for the past five minutes. That plus the fact that the two were visibly squirming in their seats alerted Cloud to something amiss. Considering that it was Sora who had finally spoken, he had a terrible feeling that he was not going to be happy about the impending question.

"What?" he asked, resigning himself to his doom.

"Why did you marry Mom?"

He exhaled sharply through his nose. He had been right. It was a dangerous question but, thankfully, one easily avoided. Looking back down at his dinner, he answered evenly, "The standard reason why people get married: love."

While he hoped that would be the end of it, he also knew his boys. Sure enough, Roxas argued, "But you didn't love her." When Cloud shot him a look, he amended, "At least not in a husband and wife way. You know, not sexually."

On his way to becoming seriously irritated, Cloud set his utensils on the table and glared at the younger blond. "Roxas, we are in a public place eating dinner. I do not want to talk about sex right now, especially not me and sex. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Dad," Roxas answered with an appropriate look of apology. Sora, however, would not let it go.

"We don't want to talk about you and sex either," he stated, making a face to show how unpleasant a subject that would be. "We want to talk about you and love. Specifically you and who you love."

"Your mother," Cloud responded automatically, picking up his fork again.

"No," Sora shot back. "Squall."

Cloud's knife skidded across his plate, sending a small fountain of baby peas spilling over onto the tablecloth. However, his surprise, violent as it had been, quickly turned to barely suppressed rage. He set his utensils down again, this time with a crash, and aimed a fierce glower at his boys.

"Look," he said sternly, "I don't know what you two are up to, but it ends right now. Whatever feelings I may or may not have had for Squall Leonhart or anyone else, they are my business, not yours. And more importantly, they are over and in the past. I have no intention of discussing them with you, ever. So unless you want to be grounded for the next year, I suggest you drop this subject immediately."

Sora shrank back in his seat and nodded obediently, but Roxas tipped his head and asked, "What about Mom?"

"What about Mom?" Cloud hissed.

"Will you tell us who she loved?" When Cloud opened his mouth to snap at him, he interrupted with, "And don't say you because we know she didn't. At least, not in the way that we're not supposed to talk about while eating dinner in a public place." He risked a cocky little smirk.

Cloud sat back in his chair, stunned by how stubborn and just plain ballsy the twins were acting at the moment. Roxas's show of bravery had reanimated Sora, and now both of them were leaning forward, their eyes locked on him in anticipation. They were not about to back down until they had their answers. The expressions on their faces showed that clearly enough.

The air around him began to thin as Cloud sat there and stared. Why were they doing this to him? With Aerith gone, the twins were the only thing he had left to live for. They were the light in the darkness of his life. Their smiles gave him the strength to plow through his days. What would happen to those smiles when they found out about his sins? About Aerith's sins? About the lie they had perpetuated and lived as if it were truth? Would those smiles disappear and take with them Cloud's ability to progress from one day to the next?

Sora's voice, softer now and gentle, cut through his thoughts. "Dad, please," the brunet boy said. "We want to know. We love you and we love Mom, and because we love you, we want to know you and understand you."

"Whatever you end up telling us, it's not going to change how we feel about you," Roxas added in a similar tone. "We're not going to judge you for anything. We just want to know. We want to know why the two of you were never happy."

"We're old enough now that we think we can bear some of your pain for you."

"Yeah, so let us take some. If you share it with us, maybe it'll be easier for you to bear."

"Since Mom died, you've taken both of your shares onto your own shoulders. We can tell. You don't need to do that, Dad. At least share her portion with us."

"Mom can't carry her own pain anymore, so we'll do it. It's okay. We don't mind."

Cloud covered the lower half of his face with one hand and closed his eyes, desperately trying not to break down in the middle of the restaurant. How was it possible that he had been allowed the care of these two angels? He didn't deserve them. Someone somewhere had made a mistake. He had destroyed three lives with one bad decision and five minutes of lost self-control; how could anyone in their right mind have trusted him with such kind, loving children as these?

"Dad?"

A soft touch on his free hand brought Cloud out of his spiral of guilt and misery. He looked down to see that Sora had taken hold of his hand and that Roxas had reached across the table as well to rest his hand on his father's other side. Swallowing carefully and taking a few calming breaths, Cloud wiped away the single tear that hovered on his lashes and then scooped up Roxas's hand so that he held a set of smaller fingers in each of his own.

"His name was Zack," he began. "He and your mom were the golden couple of our high school. They were always happy. Everyone knew that one day they'd get married, have bucketloads of kids, and live out their days like a perfect 50's couple. All the girls in our school wanted a relationship like theirs, and all the guys halfway resented them because of the pressure to live up to them."

The memories from those days brought a small smile to his face, but it quickly slipped away as he continued, "Aerith was a year behind me as you know. Zack was my year. We were actually pretty good friends before he started dating Aer. Zack, Aerith, Tifa, and I were all really close by the time Zack and I graduated. I went to a college around here; Zack went to one closer to home. I stayed in touch with him and the girls for a while, but gradually the letters and calls from him stopped coming." He paused, flushed slightly as he admitted, "I didn't notice at the time since I was busy with my own … relationship."

"Squall, right?" Sora asked.

Cloud nodded, said, "Zack changed that first year in college. It happens. A lot, actually. I really don't know how or why things happened, but he decided he didn't like being tied down to the expectations of that perfect little family life. So he broke up with Aer." He shook his head gently at the memory. "She was crushed. Utterly. When he told her he needed to talk to her, she thought she was finally getting a ring. Instead, she got the 'let's be friends' speech. It destroyed her."

"Didn't he love her?"

"We thought he did," he answered Sora. "I guess we were wrong."

Roxas questioned quietly, "Why did you marry her?"

Cloud closed his eyes. Simply, he stated, "She needed me."

With his eyes closed, he couldn't see their reactions, but he felt their fingers tighten around his. After a moment of silence, Roxas asked, "What happened to this Zack guy?"

He shrugged. Opening his eyes, he explained, "He cut ties with all of us. No one knows where he is now. After Aerith died, Tifa said she was going to track him down, but so far she hasn't succeeded. Not that I blame him. If Tifa were hunting me, I'd go into hiding, too."

"Yeah," Sora agreed with a grin. "Aunt Tifa's scary when she's angry."

Cloud smiled a little and made to comment when his phone rang. Surprised, he dug into his pocket to retrieve it. "Sorry," he said to the boys. "I thought I had turned this off. I'll do it now."

"No wait!" Sora cried, reaching for him. "Answer it, Dad!"

"What?" He lifted his gaze to their suddenly serious faces. "But we're at dinner. It's rude."

"We don't care!" Roxas insisted heatedly. "Don't turn it off. Answer it!"

The little device rang twice more while Cloud stared at his sons in shock, but then he opened it and lifted it to his ear. "Hello?"

For about five seconds, no one spoke. Then, a deep voice asked, "Is this Cloud?"

His breath caught in his throat. In an instant, he had flashbacked to the airport. The shock, the disbelief, the terrible pain. "Squall?" he whispered, not noticing the enormous grins on Sora's and Roxas's faces.

"My name is Leon now," the reply came, cold and formal.

"Ah, yes. I'm sorry. W-what … ?"

"We should talk," the other interrupted. "Come to my apartment this evening. It's right above the bookstore."

"Okay," he agreed automatically, but then his brain kicked in. He had only been to the bookstore once, and that had been many years ago. "Where is it again? I don't remember."

The cold voice seemed to freeze even further. "Ask your sons," he ordered, and then the connection ended with a click.

Slowly, Cloud closed his phone and lowered it to the table. Sora and Roxas were watching him, still grinning, very nearly wriggling in their seats again. But when Cloud raised hard eyes to them, they froze and the smiles vanished.

"What," Cloud asked slowly and deliberately, "did you two do this afternoon?"

"Um," Sora squirmed, "nothing?"

"You went to Lionhearted Books, didn't you?"

"Aheh-heh," Roxas laughed. "Maybe?"

"Why?"

They exchanged guilty glances. "We thought maybe if we went, we could convince Leon to get back together with you," Roxas explained.

Holding on to every ounce of calm he could obtain, Cloud rubbed his forehead and said, "Sora, Roxas, pay attention. Squall and I are not going to get back together. It doesn't matter what feelings I had for him in the past or what I feel for him now. Our relationship is over. I destroyed it myself. It's over."

"No, Dad. It's not."

His head shot up at Sora's quiet words. His boys were looking at him again with those twin gazes of sympathy and understanding. A lump of emotion welled up in his throat at the sight of those blue eyes. The maturity within them. How easy it was for him to forget how much they had suffered themselves while still so young.

"It's not over, Dad," Sora repeated, "because if it was, you wouldn't have cried."

Cloud choked. They had been awake? They had heard?

"And if it was," Roxas was continuing, "Leon wouldn't have acted like a baby and run away."

"So go talk to him," Sora finished with a smile. "Talk to him and either start working on putting it back together or end it for good this time. You've carried your broken past around with you for too long. Either fix it or get rid of it. We'll love you either way."

Roxas nodded, and the two of them picked up their cold burgers and began to eat, politely ignoring the tears in their father's eyes.

xXx

When Cloud first caught a glimpse of the proud silhouette in the window of the bookstore, he knew that Sora and Roxas had been right. It wasn't over. Not if the pounding of his heart was anything to go by. He loved Squall -- or Leon or whatever the man decided to call himself -- and he wanted him as much now as he did six years ago.

But the thing that his boys did not understand was that it didn't matter how much Cloud wanted Leon. If Leon did not want him, then there was nothing he could do. And after what Cloud had done, there was very little chance that Leon would ever want Cloud again.

He stepped up to the door and knocked, making the "Sorry, We're Closed" sign sway a bit. Leon looked up, gray eyes as wild and beautiful as ever, and closed the catalog he had been perusing. A few long strides brought him to the door where he unlocked it and opened it for Cloud. Once the blond had stepped through, he relocked the door and turned his back on him.

"Follow me," he said and walked away. Cloud obeyed in silence, concentrating on keeping his steps steady and his breathing even. Without turning around once to see if Cloud was coming, Leon walked into the back room, up a flight of stairs, and through a door into a spacious living room. Once there, he threw up a hand to tell Cloud to wait and paced down a short hallway to another closed door. If Cloud tried hard enough, he could just hear the sound of music coming from the room beyond.

"Demyx!" Leon yelled, pounding on the door. "I thought I told you to get your ass over to Axel's tonight!"

"I'm not going!" another voice replied. It sounded strained and frightened. "I told you, I'm not leaving until tomorrow!"

Growling slightly, Leon pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fine," he said. "But stay in there until I say you can leave. Got it?"

"Yes, boss," the other voice replied. The volume of the music increased slightly.

Leon rolled his eyes and wandered back to Cloud. "Come on," he said, motioning to the kitchen. Once inside, he pulled open the fridge and asked, "Do you want something to drink? Coffee? Water? Beer?"

"I'll have a beer if that's all right," Cloud replied, feeling a bit uncertain. Squall had never been an easy person to read, but right now he had no idea what was going on in the other man's head and it unnerved him.

A beer bottle pressed into his hands, so he took it. A moment later, Leon shut the refrigerator door, a bottle in his own hand, and walked back to the living room, twisting off the top and tossing it in the trash on his way past.

"Sit," he ordered, pointing to the couch with his free hand. Cloud did so, holding the unopened bottle between his knees. Leon sat down next to him, threw an arm along the back, and brought one leg up to rest the ankle against the other knee. He looked perfectly casual and at ease, but his eyes stayed firmly away from Cloud's as he sipped at his drink.

"So," he said after a long, tense moment, "your sons want us to become friends."

Cloud sat up a little straighter, surprised. "They do?" he asked. "That's not what they told me. They told me they want us to get back together."

"Well, they want that, too," Leon conceded, still not looking at him, "but since that's impossible, they'd like us to become friends at least."

"Ah," Cloud breathed in understanding. "But it's also not possible for us to be friends. Is it?"

Finally, Leon looked at him, and Cloud saw the storms. Storms that he knew were present in his own eyes and that only grew stronger the longer he sat next to this man.

"No," Leon said and averted his gaze again.

"No," Cloud echoed quietly, at last twisting off the top of his beer and taking a drink. No, we cannot be just friends. Not when I want to kiss you so badly that it physically hurts not to.

"How long have you had them?"

The question took Cloud off-guard, and he jumped slightly in surprise and confusion. "What?"

"Your sons," the other explained in that flat tone he had used all night. "How long have you had them?"

"Oh. Three years."

"What happened to the baby?"

A gentle melancholy overtook him in an instant. His heart still hurt for that dead child, even if it had been a mistake. Turning his eyes to the ground, he replied simply, "Miscarriage."

"Hn." The non-committal sound still managed to stab him. "Even so, you stayed with her."

Leon's tone had not held an accusation, but Cloud felt it anyway. "Of course I did," he replied bitterly. "You have no idea how terrible a miscarriage is for a woman. I couldn't just leave her."

"Not right away," Leon countered, his voice cold. "But that was six years ago. How many times did you try before you decided to adopt?"

Cloud flinched. "Three," he eventually admitted.

"Hn."

An uneasy silence descended on them, holding them firmly in its grasp. Desperate to escape it, Cloud rose from the couch and wandered over to one of the large windows to gaze at the night sky. For some reason, looking at the stars had always calmed him, even when he was young.

"I know what you're thinking," he said quietly. "I shouldn't have stayed with her. I should have come back to you. But I always thought that you had moved on. I thought that you had gotten over me, found someone else, forgotten me."

Behind him, Leon laughed once and said quietly, "You don't exactly move on from someone like you."

Surprised, Cloud turned. The brunet had put aside his drink and was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. "Sq-- … Leon?" he asked, catching himself. "What do you … ?"

But Leon plowed on, ignoring him. "You don't just forget the love of your life."

The bottle in his slackened grip very nearly fell to the ground, but Cloud caught it and put it aside before he could drop it. Trying very hard not to allow his voice to shake, he said, "You … loved me? You never said."

"What about you?" Leon shot back, lifting his head to glare at him. "Did you love me?"

"Yes."

"Well, you never said either. It just wasn't like either of us to say it. And really, would it have made a difference if I had said it?"

Cloud paused and considered. "I don't know," he admitted finally. "Maybe. Maybe I wouldn't have tried to cut ties with you so completely. Maybe I would have come back after the first miscarriage. I don't know. But it wouldn't have stopped me from going in the first place." He lowered his head and allowed his gaze to slip out of focus as he said, "I made the decision to take responsibility for my actions. Even knowing that you loved me wouldn't have changed that."

"How about the fact that you cheated on me?" Leon demanded, his voice dripping with pain and scorn. "Would it have changed that?"

Cloud blinked. Suddenly, there were voices in his head. Voices that he had pulled out and listened to so many times over the years that they were permanently engraved into his memory.

I cheated on him!

You did no such thing. Listen to me, Cloud. To cheat on him, you had to have wanted it. Did you want it?

No!

I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!

Hush, Aer. We know how guilty you feel, and it's not helping right now. Look at me, Cloud. Cloud Strife, you look at me right now. Good. Now, repeat after me: I did not cheat.

"I did not cheat."

"What?"

Good. Again: I was not unfaithful.

"I was not unfaithful."

"Oh really? Then care to explain how you got her pregnant?"

Cloud blinked again, and the room came back into focus. Leon was glaring at him, his expression livid. He quickly realized what had happened and that he had spoken out loud. Years of mental training courtesy of Tifa came to his defense. "In order to have cheated on you," he stated, "I had to have wanted to have sex with her. I didn't. She forced me."

"Forced you?" Leon echoed, still white-hot with rage. "What did she do? Put a gun to your head?"

"I know it sounds unbelievable, but it's true. I was half-asleep and mildly drunk. So was she, and she was out of her mind with grief. She didn't even remember doing it."

"That still doesn't change the fact that you could have stopped her and you didn't!"

Cloud sighed and turned back to the window. "You don't understand," he said softly. "You can't. You weren't there."

"No, I wasn't," Leon insisted, rising to his feet and taking a threatening half-step towards him. "That's why it's called cheating, Cloud!"

"Enough!" Cloud cried with a force that surprised even himself. More calmly, he continued, "I was incredibly stupid and I made a mistake that destroyed my life before it had even really begun. The only reason why I'm able to live with myself is because I took responsibility for that mistake instead of running from it and pretending it didn't happen. I don't know if knowing that you loved me would have made me stronger in saying no to her. I don't know if it would have brought me back to you after the first child died. But I know one thing, Squall Leonhart." He turned on his heel and leveled a calm but heavy gaze on the man he loved. "I may have lost myself for five minutes at four in the morning and gotten Aerith pregnant because of it, and I may have had sex with her a grand total of seven times afterwards in order to try to give her the baby she wanted, but not once in these past six years has my heart been unfaithful to you. I loved you then, I love you now, and thanks to tonight, I now know that I'm going to love you for the rest of my fucking life. If you want a stronger fidelity than that, by all means, go look for it. I won't stop you. But don't you ever accuse me of cheating again."

Leon stared. He did not speak, did not move. For several long, motionless minutes, Cloud watched him. Watched the blank face and the unfocused eyes. But eventually, his patience ran out. He retrieved the beer bottle, took one last swig for the road, and then put it back down with a thump and began crossing the room to the door. He did not bother to say anything since he doubted Leon would have heard him anyway.

And yet, as he passed the brunet, a hand shot out and grabbed him around the upper arm.

"Wait," Leon said.

Cloud waited, but when Leon said nothing else, he ordered, "Let go. If you don't, I'm either going to kick your ass or rape you. Either way, you'll end up on the floor."

A tiny smirk flitted across Leon's face, but it disappeared quickly. His fingers uncurled from Cloud's arm, and he let his hand drop back to his side. "Don't go," he said quietly.

"Why?" Cloud asked, his tone just as quiet and guarded as the other man's. "Don't tell me you want to be friends?"

"No. I love you too much to be friends, and I hate you too much to be lovers."

"Sounds about right."

"You hate me?"

"No. Me. It's a bad habit I picked up a few years back. My friends keep trying to break me of it, but so far they haven't succeeded."

The smirk returned, and this time it stayed a few seconds before disappearing again. When Leon spoke again, he seemed less tense than before. "Yuffie said you were going to look at houses this weekend. Did you find any?"

"A couple," Cloud answered. "I need to talk it over with the boys, but I think we'll put a bid on one of them."

"So, you'll be moving here then?"

"Yeah, in about two months."

"I see." He ran his hand through his hair and sighed gently. Hesitantly, he said, "Maybe in two months, we can … start over."

Cloud shook his head at him. "Only amnesiacs can start over. The best we can do is move forward, Leon."

At the sound of his new name, the other man finally smiled. He lifted his head and locked gazes with the blond next to him.

"Well said, Cloud."

A little over five minutes later when the door to Lionhearted Books closed behind him, Cloud thought of his sons and smiled. They would attack him the minute he set foot in their hotel room and bombard him with questions. What would he say? The broken pieces of his soul that he had carried within him all these years, they were not gone and they were not fixed. But they had changed. Shifted. And considering how stagnant they had been, how their jagged edges had cut him over and over again in the same places, to have them move, even the slightest bit, was a relief. It felt good.

He lifted his head to the night air and began to walk, the smile lingering on his face.

It felt really good.