Cloud knew he was overreacting. Dr. Vaughn hadn't done anything but remark on Sephiroth's admittedly interesting genetic signature, and Cloud had drawn on her like she was some kind of villain determined to destroy the world.
Cloud might have learned to accept Rufus and his Turks as, if not friends, frenemies at the very least. But Shinra scientists were something else.
He was too unsettled to want to deal with Rufus, so he left Sephiroth to do that and went outside. They'd repaired the Meteorfall monument, and there were additions for the Geostigma and the battle his friends had fought against Bahamut SIN.
The battle when Cloud had been on the roof, alone, with Sephiroth.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the monument. Around him, the rush of traffic and the press of pedestrians flowed like water. A prickle of awareness tickled at the back of his neck, and he glanced sideways as he saw a shadow fall next to his.
For just a moment, Cloud tried to work that into some appropriately heavy-handed metaphor. In the end, he just said, "Hey," because he was, once again, startled by the sight of Sephiroth in unexpected clothing.
This time it was civilian clothes, jeans and a plain black shirt. Cloud had liked the SOLDIER First Class uniform, because that was the Sephiroth he'd come to know in Healin. The coat and the thigh-high boots were the Sephiroth he came to know at the end of a blade.
This one, dressed like anyone else in a crowd, would take some getting used to. "Where'd you get that outfit?"
"Rufus. He apparently doesn't want me out in public dressed like a soldier. It doesn't quite fit the image of his new, kindler Shinra."
Cloud's eyes went to Sephiroth's back, where his blade was missing. He squinted, and while he couldn't necessarily see the magic concealing it, the edges of it were there, shimmering like a caught sunbeam. A conceal spell.
"Is that Rufus wanted to talk to you about? How you dressed to go outside?"
Sephiroth stared up at the sky for a moment. Cloud wondered if he was taken aback at the ability to see the sky. "Among other things. He also wanted me to inform you that I'm your problem now. If I cause a ruckus and you fail to stop me, you'll be his convenient scapegoat while he finds someone who can."
"Sounds like Rufus," Cloud agreed. "Did he really say ruckus?"
Sephiroth nodded. "Yes. And he wanted me to tell you that he's paid you quite a bit of money for your time."
"He better," Cloud muttered, raking a hand through his hair. He squinted in the bright sunlight. There'd been more trees in Healin, diffusing the light better than the reflective surfaces of the buildings and the flat concrete streets. "On a scale of one to ten, ten being meteor and one being you telling Zack he couldn't make a jacket out that dragon skin back in Nibelheim, how badly did you threaten him?"
Sephiroth thought about it. "I'm not sure I'm the best one to rate that."
"Sephiroth."
Sephiroth sighed, glancing at him. The sun shone off his silver hair, still in a ponytail and framing his face. His lashes were thick and dark, his skin preternaturally pale. Even in clothes a regular man would wear, he was nothing of the sort.
He was beautiful. He was deadly. And he was aimless, which meant he was dangerous.
"I told him not to interfere where he wasn't wanted."
"Hmm." Cloud waited. "And your metaphor?"
Sephiroth's mouth tightened. Nothing made him look human more than irritation, which Cloud figured was probably a good thing. "I said my blade remembered his family's blood, and if he didn't stay away, his could join his father's."
"Oh," Cloud said. He thought about that. "That one wasn't bad."
Sephiroth gave him a very formal, elegant and slow bow. Complete with a sweeping arm gesture. "I am pleased beyond words that you approve, Cloud."
Cloud smiled despite himself. "Yeah, great. Glad to hear it. What did you think of that information about your father…fathers?" He still wasn't quite sure about that.
"I'm still convinced that Hojo fathered me, and my mother – for some reason – made certain I was carrying Vincent's DNA as well."
"Yeah, but why?"
Sephiroth stared up at the sky. If the light bothered him, he didn't show it. "I have no idea. I suppose the only one who can answer that is Lucrecia."
Cloud nodded, stepping neatly to the side when a small child nearly barreled into him. "Are you gonna tell Vincent?"
"I will tell him what I found out, yes," Sephiroth said. "It doesn't matter, though, does it? Hojo was married to Lucrecia. I have Hojo's DNA and he raised me from childhood, so I suppose technically that makes him my father."
Cloud was just about to ask another question when he saw a dark-haired blur heading right toward them – and unlike the small child, there'd be no side-stepping. Cloud barely had a chance to shout something in warning before said dark-haired blur went hurtling into Sephiroth, fists flying and aiming for kidneys and other delicate areas.
"Tifa! No, hey – Tifa, it's fine, stop!"
He had a sudden and horrible image of his best friend lying dead, slain by his boyfriend's seven-foot sword on a monument dedicated to said boyfriend's defeat. But Sephiroth didn't go for his sword, he simply defended himself while Cloud rushed to pull her off.
Cloud got an arm wrapped around her waist…and then he got a fist to the gut.
"Don't think you're not next, Strife." Tifa snapped, dark eyes narrowed.
"Tifa," he grit out, in between clenched teeth, "Can we do this somewhere else?"
"Sure. Let's see how long it takes to get to the Northern Crater, hmm? Or, Sector Seven? Or, hey, I know! Let's go to Nibelheim! Oh, but we can't, can we? Because it's not there! This fucking monster burned it down." Tifa whirled in a rage, facing Sephiroth.
Well, there was the whole thing where Shinra rebuilt it and staffed it with actors, but Cloud didn't remind her of that. He had a feeling she wasn't in the mood to be corrected.
"Go somewhere," Cloud said, and tossed Sephiroth the keys to Fenrir. "Don't wreck my motorcycle."
"Die in a fire, you piece of shit asshole," Tifa snarled.
"Ms. Lockheart," said Sephiroth, nodding politely, as if this were a normal introduction. He glanced at Cloud. "Are you sure you're all right?"
Cloud just gave a brief nod in response, because what was he supposed to say? Of course he wasn't all right.
Tifa whirled toward him, hands on her hips. Her eyes were very wide.
"What?"
"Seventh Heaven. Both of you. Now." She pointed at Sephiroth. "Fancy sword or not, you monster, I will end you six ways to Sunday if you don't behave."
"Duly noted," Sephiroth said. He held up the keys and, without a word, tossed them back to Cloud.
"Tifa –"
"I need – a little while to myself. I'll meet you back at the bar. Eventually." She didn't even look back as she took off. Cloud knew how much it cost her to walk away.
Cloud used his keys to open the door to the bar, since they'd gotten back before Tifa. He was trying not to think about the ride there, with Sephiroth behind him, arms around his waist as they'd traversed the streets of Edge.
At this point it was stupid to try and admit he didn't like how it felt to be close to Sephiroth in moments when they weren't trying to kill each other. The guilt he felt was sharper than usual, and he knew it was because of Tifa's reaction. Was it worth losing everyone he cared about, everyone who'd fought beside him, just to keep him?
Tifa must have been in the middle of getting ready to open when she saw the report about Sephiroth. The television was on, and while the sound was muted, Cloud could see news scrolling across the bottom of the news program.
Former SOLDIER First Class Sephiroth Found Alive, Lost Memories After Reactor Explosion, Says Shinra….
Sephiroth appeared completely disinterested in the sight of himself on television – along with the footage from the press conference, they were showing old propaganda films of him as a SOLDIER during the Wutai War.
Cloud remembered watching that footage as a kid in Nibelheim, wanting to grow up and be a SOLDIER like Sephiroth so that the townspeople would accept him.
"She's mad." It was probably a gross understatement, but Cloud wasn't exactly the most articulate when it came to feelings – his own, or other people's.
"Hmm." Sephiroth sat on a barstool, studying him. He hadn't gone for his sword or even fought back when Tifa attacked him, and he didn't look like he was suffering a resurgence of his dark tides or whatever he called it. He looked completely foreign in the civilian clothes, but also surprisingly…normal. Benign, almost.
Which was a lie, and a potentially dangerous one, at that. "You know the second you hurt someone, we have a problem. You know that, right."
Sephiroth tilted his head. "She did attack me first."
"You started it back in Nibelheim," Cloud reminded him. He went behind the bar and started washing glasses to recover his equilibrium. There were always glasses to wash at a bar, even if it wasn't open yet, and having something to do helped him think.
To his surprise, Sephiroth joined him and started drying the freshly-washed glasses. It reminded Cloud just a little of their time in Healin, and he breathed out, slowly, before speaking. "Tifa probably went to see Aerith. To Aerith's church, I mean. She does that when she's mad."
Sephiroth placed the glass he'd dried on the shelf with the others. Cloud watched him neatly align all the glasses so they were straight on the shelf as if he couldn't quite help himself. Probably the thing that would lead to their final epic battle would be how completely at odds their housekeeping styles were.
Tifa walked in and took in the sight of the two of them, working behind her bar. Her mouth tightened, but she took a seat at one of the stools. "I'm supposed to listen," she said grimly. "So talk."
"I don't know what you want me to say." Cloud looked down at the glass in his hand. Somehow the idea of apologizing for falling inlove with Sephiroth – with Sephiroth standing right there - seemed insulting, but what else could he do?
"The truth, maybe?"
Footage from the day's press conference was playing on the television. He saw Sephiroth standing next to Rufus in his former uniform, and was momentarily dizzy at the idea of how many Sephiroths there were, and how many were in this room – physically or metaphorically – right now. Tifa knew the monster, the world knew the SOLDIER, and Cloud knew both of those better than anyone else. But he also knew the man in jeans who was surreptitiously arranging all the glassware by type.
"We're…working on it."
Tifa rolled her eyes at Cloud's admittedly terrible explanation. "The only reason I didn't beat his head in out by the monument is that he actually seemed like he cared if you were okay. Elena has told me a thousand times that he wasn't lying when he first showed up and that he didn't remember who he was or what he'd done, but then somehow he did and I'm just not sure why he's standing in my bar because I can't –" she broke off, looking mad again.
"You can ask him," Cloud said. "He is right here."
Tifa shifted her attention and studied Sephiroth for a long time. "You look – it's weird to see you like that. Like you're a normal person who isn't a crazy monster."
"The uniform didn't make me crazy," said Sephiroth.
At the sound of his voice, Tifa's whole body went tense. Images of broken glass and overturned tables danced in his head, but what could he do?
"So you admit you're crazy."
"I think it would be entirely pointless to pretend the things I did were sane," Sephiroth said calmly.
"Hojo implanted a trigger in his brain to destroy Nibelheim," Cloud pointed out, aware he sounded like he was making excuses for Sephiroth but he figured Tifa deserved to know why their town was destroyed. He gave a quick explanation, to which Tifa listened without a change in expression.
Until he got to the part about how Hojo wanted to use Sephiroth's DNA and Jenova's cells to impregnate Aerith.
"That son of a bitch," she swore softly. "Poor Aerith." Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Sephiroth again. "Of course you really didn't have to kill her. Though I guess you'll get out of that one by saying you were just doing Jenova's will or whatever, right?"
"I was doing Jenova's will, but I'm not trying to get out of anything," Sephiroth said. "I'm not entirely sure what you want from me, Ms. Lockheart, but it's not my intention to make you like me. I'm here because of Cloud, and I think we both know that."
"I don't think you can ever give me what I want," Tifa said. "Unless you can go back and change the past." She narrowed her eyes at him, fingers drumming on the bar. "Would you? If you could?"
Sephiroth regarded her thoughtfully. "I find questions like this difficult to answer. Hypothetical ones, that is."
"But you didn't find it difficult to believe your mom was an alien and you were a god?"
Sephiroth did wince a bit at that. "I was admittedly unbalanced, but that doesn't change the fact I saw it as a future possibility and acted accordingly to what I believe to be true."
"Even though it was nuts," Tifa said bluntly.
"Apparently," said Sephiroth.
"Aerith…I went to her church. And I railed and ranted, but her answer about what I should do was pretty clear. I was supposed to listen, she said. I was supposed to trust Cloud." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm doing the first one, but I can't promise the second. You are literally sleeping with the enemy."
"So are you," Cloud snapped, before he could think better of it.
Predictably, that made her angry. She hopped up off the barstool and pointed a finger at him, eyes narrowing and face flushed. "Don't you dare. Yeah, Elena's a Turk, but she didn't try and end the world. She didn't kill my friend, she didn't kill my family and burn down my town."
"But Shinra almost did end the world, in their own way," Cloud pointed out. "You're giving Rufus Shinra the benefit of the doubt and trusting this new Shinra Power Company isn't the old one. Shinra did more damage than Sephiroth."
"Cloud, you can't honestly think it's the same thing."
"No, because I don't trust Shinra at all." Cloud put his hands on the counter, slick with water, and was disappointed they'd washed all the glasses. He was half tempted to just start pulling others off the shelf just for something to do.
"And you trust him?" she demanded, jutting her chin over at Sephiroth.
"Yeah." Cloud shrugged. "I know it doesn't make sense to you, but I do."
Her eyes flickered to Sephiroth again. "Can you give us a minute, or will you try and destroy the world if you're on your own for more than an hour without Cloud to stop you?"
Sephiroth's mouth tightened, his brows drawing down for a moment. "I assure you, Midgar is safe enough from me."
"Edge," Cloud corrected, absently. "You want the keys to the bike?"
"No. As it happens, I have somewhere to go." Sephiroth moved from behind the bar and paused in front of Tifa. "I have no interest in ruling the world or destroying the planet. I'm not entirely without the destructive urges I felt before, but the idea of being anyone's puppet, vessel or weapon ever again is unacceptable. If you can't trust anything else, perhaps you can trust that. Cloud knows what he's supposed to do if I begin to exhibit symptoms of would-be godhood or intentions toward world domination." Sephiroth cut his gaze to Cloud. "I trust he'll keep his promise this time and send me to the Lifestream for good."
"This time?" Tifa asked, tilting her head. "When did he not try and do that? Seems like he does and it just never works."
"It would, now," Sephiroth said.
"Why?" Tifa asked, her voice sharp. "Why would it work now when it never did before?"
Sephiroth paused for a moment before speaking. "All I used to feel for Cloud was hate. That hate, and the force of my will, kept me from becoming one with the Lifestream."
"Okay. So?" Tifa, practical as she was, had little use for metaphysics. Cloud knew that about her, if nothing else.
"What I feel for Cloud," Sephiroth said, so stiffly he sounded like a robot again, "is stronger than hate."
Tifa didn't necessarily look like she believed that, but it wasn't as if Cloud could blame her. She marched over to Sephiroth and looked up at him, determined and utterly without fear. "We'll all kill you if he can't. I don't care if you love him and he loves you. If you need to go back to the Lifestream, I'll send you there myself. Got it?"
Sephiroth inclined his head briefly. "I never assumed otherwise. Cloud?"
"I'll find you," Cloud said. He didn't just mean when he was finished talking to Tifa, either.
"I don't doubt it," Sephiroth said, softly. It was less menacing arch-nemesis and more challenge accepted, and it made Cloud flush despite himself. Their eyes caught and held, and then Sephiroth turned on his heel, elegant and graceful as ever, and left the bar.
There were a few seconds of quiet after the door closed. Then, predictably, Tifa started talking.
"You don't think this is a trap? That he's not manipulating you, or – mind controlling you?"
"I don't think it's a trap, and he's not mind-controlling me."
"Then explain it," Tifa demanded, and her voice sounded choked with either anger or tears. "Explain how you could let him touch you, how you could – how you could want to be with someone like him. You saw him kill Aerith!"
Cloud didn't know what to say. "Because I'm tired, Tifa. I'm tired of battling him and trying to make him go away when it's clear that for whatever reason, he never will. We're joined in some way I can't explain. But all we've ever done is fight it, and look what's happened. So now we're…not fighting it."
"That's some kind of psychological state in which you fall in love with your kidnapper," Tifa snapped. "I don't know what that's called, Mideel Syndrome or something, I read about it once. It's unhealthy, though. I know that much."
"I'm not the person everyone wants to think I am," Cloud said softly, at a loss for how to explain. "I'm not this selfless hero who wants to pick up a sword every time the planet's under a threat."
"Well, no one really wants to do that," Tifa said with a shrug. "But you did it because you're a good person, Cloud. We did the right thing, and that's not always easy."
"It's never easy," Cloud corrected. "And I know that, Tifa. But that doesn't mean I'm not tired."
"Is he all you think you deserve, Cloud?" Tifa's voice was choked. "Is this some form of punishment?"
That might have been true, maybe at one time, but Cloud shook his head. "No. He got his memories back and handed me his sword and told me to kill him. I forgave him instead and it…a lot of the guilt I've been carrying, it helped get rid of it. When I did that."
"Then how are you so sure you're not doing this to be a martyr and save the world? Because I thought you said you were tired of that," Tifa argued.
"Maybe what I'm tired of isn't doing something good for the planet and the people I care about. Maybe it's that I'm tired of always having to do it at the end of a blade." He was definitely spending too much time around Sephiroth, to come up with that one. But it didn't make it any less true.
"Gods, Cloud, of course I understand that you're tired of fighting. But why do you have to be with him? Can't you just let him go?"
Cloud stared at her. "Has that ever worked, before?"
"You've never tried it without fighting, so how do you know it wouldn't?" She tilted her chin up at him. "Because I think the problem is that he wouldn't let you go, and that's not…that's not love, that's just a different kind of obsession."
Cloud closed his eyes for a moment, seeing Sephiroth on top of the Shinra building and hearing that voice say I'll never be a memory. Maybe at the time he hadn't wanted to admit it, but he knew it was the truth. He'd always known. "I don't know if it would work because I...I don't think I could let him go, either."
"Because you'd worry he'd try something horrible and destructive, right?"
There was part of Cloud that was always going to worry about that, just like there was part of Sephiroth that was always going to want to do something horrible and destructive. "We balance each other," he said. "And before, it's always been with swords and fights to the death. It doesn't have to be that way, and now it isn't."
"This still doesn't sound like you have much of a choice, Cloud," she said.
"It would if you'd been where I was before. Tifa, I know it doesn't make sense, but there's…something there. It's been there since the beginning, and I want the chance to see if I can have this. For myself. Maybe that's selfish, but I can't help it." That was the part he found it hardest to admit. The part where he didn't want to let Sephiroth go, for the simple fact that Cloud wanted him.
She nodded. "Gods know I want you to be happy, Cloud. I just…that it's him, that you're saying there's this cosmic destiny that draws you together and you're settling for it being less destructive than it has been…"
All of a sudden, her lips twitched. "That's literally the most Cloud Strife thing I've ever heard, as much as it makes me want to scream and hit you in the face with a bottle."
Cloud glared at her, but he could feel himself blush a little and honestly, he probably couldn't argue with that.
"Look me in the eye and tell me that you love him, and you want to be with him."
Cloud really wanted to be done with this conversation. At this point, he'd rather go talk to Rufus Shinra again. "I love him and I want to be with him."
Her stare was heavy, weighted, and for a moment he felt like he did in sky above the fallen Shinra Tower; tied down by a thousand strings to people he couldn't see, promises he couldn't break and the world relying on the strength of his blade and the quickness of his mind. Seeing Sephiroth's perfect face, his own fallen angel back to battle for the world Cloud couldn't stop trying to save.
Gods. Maybe he really did have more of a martyr complex than he wanted to admit. But there was more to it than that, and Cloud had to trust in that even if he knew no one else could see it but him.
"How did you do it?" Tifa whispered. "Cloud, how were you able forgive him?"
"Because hating him for what he did…it just makes him the monster capable of doing those things in the first place." Cloud searched for a way to explain it. "And like I said. I was tired of fighting. And while he was there, when he didn't remember doing all those things, I saw the person he would have been. Part of him still is that person. He's the man who gave me lectures about recycling, built a gazebo and taught me to play chess. He's a vegetarian and he hates Black Chocobos and I've never seen him eat processed sugar, not one single time. He was in love once before, too."
Cloud realized Tifa was staring at him and he stopped talking. He felt exposed and awkward, but having this conversation with her…it felt good. Or it would, once he got over the exposed and awkward thing.
"I think you just have a hard-on for danger," she muttered.
Cloud smiled despite himself. "That's what Sephiroth said when he realized I had a thing for Vincent and Rufus."
"Oh my God, why didn't you hook up with Vincent!" She threw her hands up in the air. "We could have saved ourselves this entire horrible situation and this conversation if you'd just done that."
"Uh, because he married Yuffie, remember? And unlike my boyfriend and Vincent, I'm not really sure I'm cut out for threesomes."
"You just called him your boyfriend. I can't even. I used to wonder if maybe you and Rufus would hook up, and I remember thinking that'd be awful because….well, he's Rufus. But instead, you had to start dating your arch-nemesis." She shook her head. "Why are you like this? Why couldn't we have just been in love, me and you?"
"Because we have the same type," Cloud pointed out. "I'm betting Elena beats you at chess and you think it's hot she carries a gun and knows how to use it."
Tifa made a face and hit him on the shoulder. "She wins every goddamn time we play and yeah, fine, the gun is hot. But we still have disagreements about what she does and who she does it for. Though I guess I…sort of understand about wanting to forgive the past. I want to believe she's working for a company that's learned its lesson. Just like I want to believe you're in love with a man who has learned his, but I'm having trouble and I'm not sure when that will change."
It was more than he expected from her, and that made him feel a bit bad, like maybe he should have given her more credit if he were willing to, say, give it to Sephiroth. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I just wanted you to know."
"Thanks for not leaving a note," she said, her voice dangerous. "Oh, wait. Except for how you did that when you ran off to Healin. Jerk."
"Not my finest moment," Cloud agreed. "I'll find somewhere for us to live. Rufus paid me a pretty good amount for the last few months, so money shouldn't be a problem."
"I would let you stay here, but I just…can't. Not yet."
"I know, Tifa. I understand. I do."
She played with the frayed edges of the bar towel, staring down at it for a moment. "Is Vincent really his father?"
Cloud didn't know how to explain it, so he shrugged. "It's complicated. I don't feel right saying anything about it." He was somewhat surprised that she knew Sephiroth's parentage was even in question. He wondered if Elena had told her.
Tifa answered his unspoken question. "Vincent brought Yuffie with him when he came to meet with Sephiroth. Well, more like, Yuffie wouldn't let him out of the house without her. He left Yuffie here, so he told us about the paternity test when he got back."
Cloud could only imagine how Yuffie felt about that. "I'm guessing it didn't go over well."
"Well. Yuffie hates Shinra, that's true, but she did have something interesting to say. She said that we all thought Sephiroth was some kind of hero when he was burning her country to the ground. The second he did it here, we started calling him a monster. I know it's a matter of perception, but she did have a point."
That she did. The Wutai War was fought mostly through propaganda, but they'd all bought into it. People knew better, now, but that didn't erase all the atrocities Shinra had committed in its search for mako.
"I guess the only way the planet moves on, is if we do," Cloud said. "Maybe we're all supposed to stop fighting. Shinra. Me and Sephiroth."
"Maybe we are," Tifa agreed. She came around and hugged Cloud. "I don't know if I'm ready to forgive him or be okay with this, or even stop worrying that it's a trap. But I'll…try. For you."
"Thank you." Cloud hugged her back. It wasn't something they did, often, but he was glad to have the chance. Especially since this might have gone so much worse.
"Aerith would forgive him, wouldn't she," Tifa said, her voice muffled against his chest.
"She forgave him before he even did it." Cloud remembered Aerith kneeling on the altar, the peaceful look on her face as death descended from above.
Tifa pulled away and wrapped her arms around herself. "I think you're right, about moving forward. I do. But if you need my help to send him back to the Lifestream, I'll be there. Then Aerith can deal with him, herself." She raised her voice a bit at the end.
"Deal," said Cloud. "Thank you. I know this isn't…uh. Easy. Or. Um. Ideal."
"I think you've used up your words for the day," Tifa said, but her smile was kind. "Go find your boyfriend, would you? The longer he's alone out there, the more likely it is we'll have to build another monument."
Cloud scowled. "That's not funny."
"Who said I was joking?" Tifa waved a hand. "Let me know when you find a place, okay? You're not using this as an excuse to vanish, Cloud. We won't let you."
Cloud nodded, once, and headed out into the bright sunlight. He didn't think Sephiroth was causing mayhem – in fact, he was pretty sure it was the opposite. Or maybe he just hoped it was true.
Either way, he knew where to go.