Cloud was running before Sephiroth hit the ground. Zack, he noticed, was somewhere behind him; advancing, but more cautiously. Cloud wasn't thinking about caution anymore though. He knew geostigma when he saw it and it was something he never wanted to see again. Not on Sephiroth, not now, not when everything was looking up.
"Check his pulse," Cloud demanded, tearing Sephiroth's sleeve further so he could see the spots better. They weren't large, at least not yet. In fact, when compared to Cloud's arm back in the day, they seemed downright small. Still...
"What is this?" Zack asked, voice strained and worried.
"Geostigma. Jenova's legacy. I thought- well, never mind," Cloud replied.
"What?"
"It's just... back in my time, it was a death sentence. Incurable, painful and debilitating. As far as we knew, it was caused by Jenova cells. I think it was something like transplant shock; the body rejecting the foreign matter. And... everyone had Jenova cells, somehow. But Sephiroth and Kadaj's gang never got it. I had assumed they were immune... Apparently not. Last time, the disease was intentional, but if Sephiroth has it, I'm not sure who could have possibly caused it."
"How bad is it?" Zack asked uncertainly, carefully not asking 'is he going to die?'.
Cloud shook his head, a note of worry in his voice as he said, "It hasn't spread very far yet, I've certainly seen worse... But I've also seen people die from less. From this point on, it'll depend on Sephiroth himself. He could survive, if he wants to live badly enough."
"But you said there was no cure?"
"There wasn't. Not for years. Even when we learned how to fix it, we didn't know why it worked, only that it did. It was something to do with the combination of Aerith and her materia holy, probably. If we take him to Aerith, she might be able to do something for him," Cloud answered, with a wince. The terrible irony of that last statement wasn't lost on him. Even if Aerith remembered how to cure geostigma, there was no guarantee that she would want to in this particular case.
It was risky and a truly terrible idea. But of course, that had never stopped Cloud before.
"Well then, back to Midgar?" Cloud asked rhetorically.
"But how? 'The Demon of Wutai' isn't exactly low profile! When I was on the run with you, we only made it across because I got lucky and the Turks weren't trying all that hard," Zack protested.
"It's okay, I've got a plan," Cloud assured.
"All right, what do you two think you're doing?" a gruff voice demanded. Cloud turned to see a stocky man with cropped blonde hair striding towards them, lance held threateningly. 'Right on time,' Cloud thought to himself.
"Is that... Cid? Cid Highwind? The infamous pilot?" Cloud asked. Zack gave him a long, disbelieving look, but Cloud ignored it.
"You've... Heard of me?" Cid asked, sounding equally surprised and pleased.
"Of course! I heard you were the only pilot skilled enough to be trusted with the space program!" Cloud exclaimed.
Cid shuffled his feet and scratched the back of his head, a light red settling over his cheeks. The lance, Cloud noticed, was no longer in a defensive position. "I don't know about that... I mean, there's lots of great pilots out there... Who's been spreading these rumors now?" Cid asked, a pleased smile on his face.
"Never mind that," Zack cut in, "the general needs urgent medical care!" He was still giving Cloud odd looks, but at least he was playing along.
"Right, you just bring him around this way and I'll get the Highwind running. I'll get you back to Midgar in no time!" Cid exclaimed.
Cloud moved to support Sephiroth's right side, while Zack went for his left. "This is your plan?" Zack hissed once Cid was out of earshot.
Cloud shrugged, "It's working, isn't it?"
"What about what's-his-name; Vincent?"
"I don't know where he is; he could be anywhere. We don't have time to look for him."
"I thought you said he was in the Forgotten City!"
"No, that's just where he was headed when we parted. He's a former Turk, if he doesn't want to be found, we're certainly not going to stumble onto him. He can take care of himself, I'm not worried."
"It's not him I was worried about..." Zack muttered under his breath. It was easily loud enough for Cloud, with his enhanced hearing, to pick up, but he chose to ignore the comment.
"Over here!" Cid yelled from inside the towering metal shape of the Highwind. Together, Zack and Cloud carried Sephiroth into the Highwind.
The flight to Midgar was about as awkward as could be expected. Cloud was trying to ignore the stark contrast between the Cid he knew and this cheerful, optimistic man. Mostly, he managed that by not talking to him as much as possible. That left Zack to talk to the pilot, whom Zack knew only through stories of Cloud's Avalanche days. Between Zack's lack of information and the suspiciously unconscious general, it was a very awkward trip indeed.
To Cloud's relief, Cid set the Highwind down right outside the city, instead of attempting a truly impressive feat of parachuting. After several assurances that they could handle it from there and yes, the proper authorities had been contacted, Cid eventually took to the skies again, back to his beloved rocket.
When the airship was out of sight, Zack turned to Cloud, "Why did that work." His tone had passed beyond surprise and into the realm of sheer disbelief.
Cloud shrugged, "I don't know, I've always been a bit lucky when it comes to things like that. My luck is usually bad enough to get me into messy situations, but just good enough to get me back out."
"'Lucky' doesn't begin to cover that, man."
Cloud just laughed in response. He pulled off the coat he'd bought as part of his disguise, draped it over Sephiroth, then picked him up. "Come on, not much farther now."
They traveled through the slums in true Midgarian fashion; polite, but with very sharp weapons. They were, quite understandably, not challenged by anything smarter than the slum's monsters. One did not survive below plate by questioning armed strangers.
When they reached the church, the doors were open; Aerith was kneeling in the middle of the field, watering the flowers. Zack, who had been walking in front of Cloud for some time, stopped. Cloud looked over at him. There was a look of desperate longing on his face. It was like he was dying to call out to Aerith, but was afraid to, in case he somehow shattered the illusion. She stood up, dusted off her knees and turned around. For an instant, her face went blank with surprise, then she was running.
She hit Zack at full speed and it was only his fighting instincts that kept him upright. She threw her arms around his neck and held on tight; making a sound somewhere in between laughing and crying. He wrapped his arms around her back and if Cloud didn't know better, he might have thought he saw Zack's shoulders shaking. They stayed like that for several minutes, not talking, just holding each other.
When Aerith finally let go and stepped away, she still had tears in her eyes, but she was smiling widely. "You're late!" she jokingly complained.
"We ran into a... slight difficulty," Cloud explained, shrugging as best as he could with a body in his arms.
She raised her eyebrows and said, "Yes, I can see that."
"He's got geostigma. Cloud said you might be able to help," Zack explained anxiously.
Aerith bit her lip, "Geostigma? I can try, but I've never tried using Holy like that while I'm not... Well." She turned around and started walking back towards the center of the church where she'd been working. "The lifestream is stronger here, so it should be easier. Just lay him down in the middle of the flowers here," she said. Cloud did as he was directed, pulling the jacket off once he had finished. There was a sharp inhale, then a breathy, "Oh," from Aerith.
"Will you...?" Cloud asked.
Aerith gave Zack and Cloud searching looks, then turned back to Sephiroth, "Yes, I'll try," she said. She knelt in the flowers next to him and put her hands on his chest. For a moment, there was silence, then green threads of lifestream formed around Aerith's arms. They grew and wrapped around her until her arms were a mass of green light. All at once, the threads traveled down her arms, through her hands and into Sephiroth. His body jerked, then went still. She stayed there for several more minutes, lips moving soundlessly.
Images slid in and out of Sephiroth's vision. Everything was a hazy green and he was seeing double. Even though he knew the two images were really just one, he couldn't force his brain to merge them. In fact, he couldn't do much of anything. His body was alarmingly limp.
He got the feeling he was lying down, but his head was too muddled to figure out what he was lying on or how he had gotten there. If he'd had a bit more presence of mind, he might've been terrified. As it was, he could barely keep his eyes open. His head spun, the world went dark...
...And he was in a world of white.
He stared blankly forward for a moment, waiting for his mind to catch up to the situation. It didn't, so he sat up carefully. The landscape was not, as it first appeared, completely white. He was sitting in a green field dotted with white flowers, a sort of white mist blanketing the land and keeping him from seeing where he was.
Sephiroth knew he had never seen the flowers before, but somehow they looked so familiar, like he had seen them a thousand times. Puzzled, he reached out to touch one. The petals were soft and smooth to the touch. His fingers came away red and smelling metallic.
Alarmed, Sephiroth tried to wipe the blood off, but it only seemed to spread, instead of fading. He got to his feet shakily; the flowers all around him were spattered with blood. He felt a sharp lurch in his chest that he absently identified as panic. No matter which way he turned, the flowers dripped red and he couldn't–couldn't get the blood off his hands and–there was smoke.
He turned toward the smell and in the distance, he could see the flowers burning. The smoke was sickly black and smelled putrid. The flames burnt away the mist and turned the sky above dark. Deep in his chest, Sephiroth felt something that he couldn't quite identify welling up inside.
It was wrong. It had all, somehow, gone wrong. The flowers weren't supposed to burn, but they were and he didn't know how to stop it, didn't know what to do. He started walking toward the fire, only to stop after a few steps. There was... something, in the fire. He squinted a little, trying to make out the shape amidst the heavy smoke. It almost looked like... Yes, it was definitely a person, but not just any person, he realized.
Sephiroth knew that person. That was the 'hero'. It was the man who had fought in the war. It was the man who had been ordered to subdue a country by men who saw profits, not people. And that man–he was the one who had followed those orders. He had won the war. And come home a hero. Everything inside Sephiroth was telling him to run and for once, he listened.
He ran away from the fire, past the blood-stained flowers. He ran until the flowers turned to pavement under his feet and the mist resolved into a cold drizzling rain. There, on the street in front of him, stood a boy with silver hair. He was wearing a white hospital gown and his eyes glowed faintly. Sephiroth stood still and watched the boy. He wasn't looking at Sephiroth; he wasn't really looking anywhere. His eyes were directed at the ground a few feet in front of him, but Sephiroth recognized the unfocused look in his eyes that meant he wasn't seeing the pavement either.
Sephiroth knew. He had always known. His past wasn't something he could run from. He couldn't fight it and he couldn't forget it. It had shaped him, formed him and would always be a part of him.
The boy's head snapped up, eyes suddenly alert. Sephiroth heard it himself a moment later. Footsteps. They watched, tense, as the sound gradually grew closer. This time, Sephiroth didn't know the figure that appeared out of the mist. It was a girl, dressed in pink, with a basket of white flowers on one arm. She knelt in front the boy and placed a flower in his hand. He stared at it, a tiny frown pulling at his brows. The girl stood, ruffling the boy's hair as she did. With the tiniest of smiles, the boy faded into the mist, leaving Sephiroth alone with the girl. She stood in front of him, unafraid.
"Dilly dally, shilly shally," she said.
"What?" Sephiroth asked.
"Dilly dally, shilly shally!" she repeated. "You've already been forgiven, so don't you think it's time to let it go? You're not your past, you know."
"What else would I be?"
"Anything. Anything you want."
"The world doesn't work like that."
She giggled, "Try it; you might be surprised." She reached into her basket and handed him a flower. And this time, it stayed white.
Eventually Aerith opened her eyes and leaned back on her heels. "That's all I can do, he should wake up soon," she sighed. When she tried to stand, she swayed dangerously. In an instant, Zack was beside her, steadying her with an arm around her back.
"Let's get you home," he muttered softly. As he turned towards the door, his eyes met Cloud's. Cloud nodded and Zack smiled gratefully in return. Zack helped Aerith out the door and Cloud turned back to Sephiroth.
Cloud normally spent a lot of his time in Aerith's church meditating, but he didn't dare take his eyes off the general. He settled down on one of the pews, blade drawn and lying across his knees, in case he needed to use it suddenly. It was largely peaceful and quiet in the church, as it always had been.
Cloud stared at Sephiroth warily. Sephiroth represented a lot of things to Cloud; his failures, Jenova's control, Shinra's corruption, and somewhere in the back of his mind, the idea that heroes could exist. When he looked at Sephiroth, he had always seen a lot of things, but it wasn't until right then that he actually saw a man. He looked like he hadn't slept or eaten in days. The geostigma was gone from his arm, but he was still worryingly pale. He looked how Cloud always felt right before he decided to take an extended trip. Sephiroth looked tired.
Cloud let himself relax and find his center. He wasn't particularly good at waiting, but he had plenty to think about. The future was his most pressing concern, but at the same time, it was also the one thing he didn't want to think about. It was somewhat scarier to think you knew what was going to happen and be wrong, then it was to not know and be right. There were so many people, so many choices, so many things he could do differently. At the end of the day though, there was no guarantee that any of it would make the future better. He was so lost in thought that he almost didn't notice Sephiroth open his eyes.
A/N: Hello again! Lots of things have happened since last chapter (thus the long wait). The main reason it took so long is probably because I had a research paper to write... The next chapter may also be late, what with exams coming up and all. On the bright side though, I don't have long until summer break!
I wanted to write something about Sephiroth this time, even though it's not an interlude chapter... His hallucination isn't confusing, is it? Speaking of Sephiroth, someone told me Sephiroth being a general wasn't canon. Is that true? I mean, it's been awhile since I've played the games, but I thought he was?
On a completely unrelated note, this story is now a little over a year old! If this chapter had been on time, I think it would have been almost exact, but oh well, I suppose.