Redemption

A Final Fantasy 7/ Lord of the Rings crossover

By: Lazeralk

Standard disclaimers apply.

Lasthas and Orolon are mine. I made them up.

Once again, ("blah") denotes things said in Sindarin. 'Blah' is the Advents and Cloud sharing thoughts.

So, I'm going to hide behind Sephiroth here and hope you're all too scared of him to risk throwing the tomatoes…

0o0o0

Cloud paused, and then sent a hesitant 'Thank you' back at the voice. After all, it wasn't so very different from speaking to Aerith. Amusement sparkled along the edge of his awareness and he shook his head, walking calmly along side his brothers.

The trees were filled with structures and elves, all glancing down at them curiously. Several large groups of elves paused to look at them and comment to each other in their own language, studying the four mortals in their midst. Cloud shifted uncomfortably, his shoulders loosening, as he bore being the center of attention with his usual stoicism. Kadaj did not attempt to touch him this time, but he did send a cautious inquiry through his head.

'You ok, Ni-san?'

'Aa. You know how it is.' Replied the blonde, dutifully sending a strained smile at the younger.

'Hmm? What are you talking about Ni-san?' asked Kadaj, head cocking to the side in confusion.

'Sephiroth didn't like being stared at either.' Returned Cloud, face closing down as he strode away, leaving Kadaj to frown behind him.

"Well?" he asked, coming to stand beside Elrohir, who had been talking with a new elf he didn't recognize.

"Hm?" said Elrohir, turning to regard him.

"Are the people we're chasing here or have they moved on already?" asked Cloud, he voice sounding more terse than he'd intended. Still, the itching feeling between his shoulder blades, that told him he was being watched, was growing more and more aggravating for him and he refused to correct himself.

"They left two days ago, by boat. Word has it that the fellowship would be taking the path through Amon Hen and then onwards to Mordor. However, the March Warden's scouts have reported a very large army moving towards Rohan. We knew this of course, but we'd only guessed that the Fellowship would be in the Mark by then. My father and grandmother have some power of foresight and it seems more than likely now that it will be so."

"Then we aren't headed for Mordor?" asked Cloud, focusing on Elrohir's face intently in an effort to block out the uncomfortable sensation of being stared at.

"No, we'll make for Rohan tomorrow morning. We've made exceptional time, all things considered."

"I see…I'll…I'll be around…" he said, not looking at anyone as he strode away into the trees to try and find some peace. The heavy stares of all those strangers were too much for him. He hated being the center of attention even back home where all the people knew what had happened and what he'd done. It wasn't as bad here, because these people didn't know about the all people whose lives he'd taken, they didn't know about all the homes and families he'd destroyed. They didn't know how weak he was, how stupid. They didn't know about Sephiroth. They didn't know, but it still felt like they were judging him.

Cloud wandered quickly but aimlessly through the ancient forest, his heightened senses picking out the elves that followed him at a distance. He just walked until he couldn't hear them anymore and picked a tree. He sat at its base, elbows slung around his knees as he stared up at the fading sunlight coming through the tree tops. Slowly he began to calm down, the familiar itching weight began to lift from his shoulders and the tension slowly eased out of his body. He reveled in the quiet, in the sheer peace of being totally alone. He sucked in a deep breath and relaxed, his nose catching the faintest hint of Aerith's flowers. He sat there for a long time before he drifted off to sleep.

The darkness was softly lit, as if the moon were somehow enclosed with him beneath the trees, gently blanketing everything with silvery shadows. A woman in white, much too tall to be Aerith, walked steadily towards him through the fog. Her long gauzy dress and flowing golden hair floated around her as she moved, never seeming to become tangled or caught on the branches she passed.

Cloud watched her calmly, some sort of quite waiting filling him up and making his mind hazy. He stayed where he was, propped against his tree, totally relaxed and watched her come.

'Hello young one.' She whispered in his mind, the fog rolling around them like a soothing dream.

'Who are you?' he asked in return, his voice soft and curious. He was sure that he was dreaming; that none of this was real. And yet, it didn't quite feel right, but he couldn't muster up the energy to care.

'I am called Galadriel, Lady of the Golden Wood. Your heart bleeds dear one.' She answered, coming to a stop a few feet away from him, a shining White Lady.

'It's always bleeding.' He said, his eyes drooping shut.

'Only because you do nothing to staunch the flow little one.'

'You think I want to hurt all the time?' he asked, only mildly irritated.

'You want to be forgiven.'

'I know.' He said, thinking back to conversation he'd had with Aerith a few weeks ago. Was it really only a few weeks ago?

'You will forgive when you are ready child. When it is finished.'

'You mean the Advents? I don't know what I'm doing there. How do I help them be a family?'

'By first being a part of that family. The stars cannot tell the moon where to sit, stand aside and then say that the night sky is complete without them. The three of them are already a family together. It is you that must join them, and they who must join you.'

'But I…'

'Think on it, Cloud Strife. What does it mean to be a family, not your family, but any family? What does it need?'

'I don't know.' He whispered back, the hazy dreamlike feeling lifting from his mind.

"I don't know." He mumbled aloud, his eyes opening to find the forest dark with night. The silver glow of the moon was gone, along with the fog and the lady in white.

Cloud glanced around him to be sure she wasn't there, his eyebrows knit in confusion when he found nothing. Had it all been a dream?

'Aerith?' he called, rising slowly to his feet and wincing slightly at the kinks in his back.

'I'm here Cloud.' She whispered, and he was suddenly in her garden. He could feel her at his back, the bow in her hair ghosting along the skin of his exposed shoulder.

'Did that really happen?'

'It did. She's an interesting one, the Lady of the Golden Wood. You should listen to what she tells you. Now you better get going Cloud. Dawn is almost here.'

'I slept that long?'

'You did. They're worried about you.'

All at once he was alone in the forest again, and he sighed, squaring his shoulders and shifting the weight of his swords across his back. He reached out with his mind to touch Kadaj's and found him packing up new food supplies into his bags, Elrohir at his side. The younger looked up when he felt Cloud's mind brush against his awareness, as if by looking he could see him.

'Ni-san?'

'I'm ok, I'm coming back now. Just needed a direction to start walking in.' he explained, already moving towards them at a steady clip.

'Are you really ok? You just…left. Elrohir and Elladan were worried for you.' Pushed Kadaj, a wave of irritation and confused hurt rolling softly off of him. It was as if he were feeling the lingering echoes of Kadaj's emotions. Cloud concentrated on it, trying to make the feelings grow stronger, but they faded from him like mist. He continued walking, silent as he stewed in his own head. The words of the White Lady chased each other around his skull, refusing him any peace. What does it mean to be a family? What does it need? What does it mean? What does it need? Cloud didn't know. His own experiences with family had been limited to his mother. His father had abandoned them both soon after he'd been born and his mother was a sweet if distant figure of his past. He remembered that she'd loved him, but also that she'd done nothing to stop the other children from teasing and then later beating him as he grew up in Nibelheim.

He'd been different as a child, and the other kids had been ruthless. He was the only one who didn't have a father, the smallest for his age, the weakest of the boys. He'd been scorned and belittled from the beginning. His mother hadn't done anything. As a child he'd blamed her for it, held it against her in fits of uncomprehending childish rage. Looking back though, he could see that she'd been just as bullied as he had, he knew now that she'd understood, and that, in her own way, she'd been trying to let him be strong. She'd known that the other kids would have been worse to him if she'd come to his rescue. He'd hated her for it then, now he respected her for it.

She'd never know it. He'd never get to tell her that he didn't mean all the angry things he'd said to her as a teenager, that he understood why she'd done it. He wouldn't get to tell her that he loved her, or that he'd missed her, or anything really. Sephiroth had killed her. Her and everyone he'd ever know growing up.

Anger bubbled in him as he though of all the things he'd never get to say to her. Anger and helplessness and a sense of regret so sharp he raised a hand to his chest and rubbed at the center where it was tight with a pain that had nothing to do with the body and everything to do with the heart. He rubbed at that spot and the White Lady's words came back to him. What does it mean to be a family? What does it need?

'I don't like crowds. I hate being stared at.' He said to Kadaj, and lightly, hesitantly, to Yazoo and Loz.

He paused and he could feel them tense. He couldn't exactly see them, but the knowledge was there, a feeling of them. They'd stopped what they were doing, all three of them and stood in silence, ignoring those around them who had turned to them in confusion, asking what was wrong. They stood tense and still, waiting, just as they'd done when Sephiroth had addressed them.

'I've never liked a lot of people around me, even when I was a kid. I got beat up a lot when I was little. I was the outcast of Nibelheim. The kid without a dad, the scrawny girly-looking one. Lots of people around usually meant I was about to get hurt. I joined SOLDIER to get away from it, to stop being all the things they called me. It was hundred times worse in the army. But I had friends for the first time in my life. I had people who would look out for me and teach me to actually be something. Zack was like a miracle to me. He was everything to me. Him and Sephiroth. They didn't judge me on my looks or my height. They just handed me a sword and said 'This is how you stand when you block this strike.' It was amazing. And then. Well, you know what happened. Then everyone was staring at me for other reasons. Some of them hated me, blamed me, and scorned me. That wasn't any different from what I was use to, but some of them... They looked at me like I was Sephiroth. They looked at me like I'd done something great, like I'd do something great again, if they just watched for it. In a way, that was worse than being hated. I wasn't anyone great. I was just some fucked up experiment that had been dragged out of Hojo's lab one night. I never even made it to SOLDIER 3rd. All my skills with a blade came from Zack. It's not mine. Not any of it. But they all stared at me like I was worthy of it, and I'm not. I'm really not.'

Cloud fell silent as his feet took him down paths set gently into the ground. He was in the city now, coldly ignoring any of the curious elves he passed along his way. Kadaj was just a few yards away from him, watching him with sane eyes. Yazoo drifted out of the trees to his left and there was something different about him. The elves had pulled thin locks of hair away from his face at his temples and put them in the same looping braids they were fond of. Cloud absently noted that it looked good on him, made his face stand out. Loz came up behind his brother and the three of them began to walk towards him. He'd scold himself later for his inattention, but in that moment, he only had eyes for those three young men, his family, striding towards him.

"Ni-san." Said Kadaj, as gently as he'd ever heard him, and he slowly raised a hand in his direction. Cloud gave the slightest of nods and Kadaj was suddenly in his arms holding him tight and trembling with a fierce joy that Cloud felt down to his very bones. Loz wrapped himself around them both and laughed out loud, tears streaming down his face. Only Yazoo stood apart from it all, his face solemn. He waited until the other two had disentangled themselves and backed a step away before he placed his hand firmly on Cloud's shoulder. The look on his face just then wasn't joy or even real acceptance, but it wasn't hostile anymore and it was a beginning. Cloud returned that look with something close to a smile, not on his face, but in his eyes.

'This will be hard. For all of us I mean. Maybe it won't even work out, but it might. And I'm willing to try, to really truly try. I can only ask the same of you.' Said Cloud. He said it to all of them, but he held Yazoo's eyes and Yazoo quirked his lips in a pale imitation of a smile and tightened his hold on Cloud's shoulder.

A small, shy smile slowly tugged at his lips until Kadaj and Loz were both beaming at them and the wind that blew past them carried the scent of Aerith's flowers and her joyous tinkling laughter.

End part 11

Sorry about the delay in update guys. I just hit a brick wall with this story and then all the sudden I dreamed about it one night and this is what happened.