Author's Note: I'm just a teensy bit annoyed at Cloud's perpetual brooding. It's been hard to come back to it…but I'm here. Thank you all for your support. Just a few more chapters now (2 if I don't break them up into smaller ones).

What They Leave Behind

Chapter 21

Wishing Charm Bangles Weren't Just for FF

Seifer had come by and fixed the car because it was his "civic duty" or something. He said, "I'm charging you by the minute next time," but they both knew it was part of his sad apology. Today, Cloud had a plan—a very good one, at that.

Cloud woke up this morning from a deep coma of a sleep induced by his trusty little pills with his mind spinning of the possibilities that lie ahead. The night before, Squall had phoned and kindly informed him that he was free to do whatever Cloud wanted to do. That the entire day was theirs alone. So when he fell asleep, he dreamed up a million different agendas to fit in with a million different scenarios.

With the sun out and the easy warmth of a spring breeze fondling the pale curtains of his bedroom, Cloud realized there wasn't anything they couldn't do; and from then on, plans continually sprouted up.

The silence of the house on a Saturday morning was eerie but welcome. He tried not to think of the source of that silence, tried not to think about who normally stirred in the house with huge hangovers and huffed and puffed over stupid things like who showered first. He tried not to remember why the sources of the grumbling weren't there. Instead, he focused on what the morning brought to him, that in a few more weeks, the two idiots would be passed out in the living room again, and guilt wouldn't be weighing down upon his shoulders at every waking moment.

Screw ups happen, right? Mom seemed to think so. She didn't ask for too much; she always respected his privacy, his feelings. When he found her in the kitchen a few nights ago, with two mugs of hot cocoa, one graciously loaded with whip cream, he knew he'd been cornered for an uncomfortable talk. But she never asked for too much. She told him that things happened.

"You know," she'd said, rubbing her thumb along the warm surface of her mug gently, "when your father left, I told you boys not to hate him. If he ever decided to walk back into your lives with a new wife and some little kids and wanted to spend a weekend here or there with you, I told you to let him. It's because everyone makes mistakes. And if you own up to it, then it makes you a better person, doesn't it? Maybe no one will forgive you, maybe they will.

"But by acknowledging your mistake, you're looking at it critically and you're making it a point not to do it again. So maybe whoever is mad at you will feel that way forever. But there are others out there who can be part of your life, and you'll be much wiser. You won't make the same mistake twice. And you will have done what you needed to do, and you won't have it on your conscience anymore. Cloud, I don't know what has happened, and if you don't want to tell me, that's O.K. But know that you always have me to fall back on. There's nothing you can do that would make me hate you."

He'd responded gruffly, "I know, but Mom, I don't even know where to begin."

"Well, love, you could start with apologizing to me and cleaning up all that oil that leaked on my driveway from your car. And then you could do the same to your friends."

So now, this particular morning, he woke up with limitless possibilities that always started with talking to Zack. Whatever happened didn't matter. What did matter was talking to Zack and dissolving the uneasiness between them and just forgetting about it. The Zackmeister could go back to being Aerith's puppy and Basch's friend, and Cloud's world could go back to orbiting Squall. At least, that was a constant thought that hadn't been ripped away yet. There was, if nothing else, always the possibility of Squall.

Once up, showered, and dressed, Cloud made his way downstairs. Basch and Mom were already enjoying breakfast in front of the tube, Mom curled up in her bathrobe, hair wound up in curlers, and Basch dressed for yard work. Cloud feels only the faintest pang of guilt for not joining him today, but it wasn't as if anyone asked him if he'd do yard work today. Cloud joined them long enough to wolf down yogurt and half a glass of orange juice before zipping off to Zack's. Last night, he and Squall decided they'd meet up around nine, so that gave Cloud about two hours to deal with Zack.

But when he arrived at Zack's house, Zack's house was quiet and only his mother was awake. She let him in and asked him if he wanted some hot cocoa but she did give him permission to go upstairs and wake her son. "He's getting so lazy," she told him as he mounted the stairs.

Even though he felt as if the weight on his shoulders was steadily getting lighter the higher he ascended the stairs, he still felt a bit nervous. His palms were sweaty over the wood railing as he took each step until finally he stood in front of Zack's door. He didn't bother knocking; he figured the nicest way of waking the senior was to tap him to awareness gently, not startle him with loud banging and possibly rousing the entire house. He opened the door wide enough to slip through and then gently easing it shut behind him.

The sun peaked through the parted curtains opposite his bed and streaked across the floor, just barely grazing the wooden frame of Zack's bed. Zack, on the other hand, was buried deeply in his dark comforter, hiding away from any light. Cloud tiptoed toward the big lump on the bed, lifted his hand to touch it, but it stirred. "Zack?"

"Hn?" Zack murmured against his pillow in an unintelligible response.

" 'Zack'?" echoed a girl's voice.

Cloud froze, His hand still poised above the form. In just a short second, the lump in the middle of Zack's bed became two lumps, and a head popped out at one end. "Cloud?" It was Aerith. Her day-old makeup slightly smeared around her eyes made her seem like she might have been crying at some point, but there was no trace of sadness now; just surprise. She griped the comforter close to her chest, her shoulders bare, as she sat up and said, "Cloud? What are you doing here?" She swatted Zack. "Zack! Wake up!"

"I was, um, just…kind of…" Cloud broke off when he realize coherent sentences weren't going to grace his lips. What am I doing here? he thought.

Zack dragged himself out of his comforter with Aerith's prodding, as Cloud tried to remember why he was here in the first place, but all he managed to do was flush from head to toe, completely and utterly incapable of speaking. He didn't come here to admit his undying love to Zack; he was not here to seduce Aerith's boyfriend. He was simply here to discuss where they now stood, if they stood anywhere at all together. Right? But the sight in front of him left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Zack rubbed his face, rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Hey, Cloud." He continued with something that probably meant, "What are you doing here?"

"Um, well, I…I wanted to…" He had thought with Zack awake, he would get his voice back and be done with the whole thing, only have to work about what he and Squall were going to spend the day doing. But his discomfort only seemed to burgeon out of Zack's being awake, with two pairs of eyes looking at him, questioning his existence. Aerith, he expected to glare at him with hatred, but her eyes were gentle, easily overlooking the fact he'd seduced her boyfriend. And Zack's eyes were still clouded with sleep.

His face only grew redder. "I…today, Squall…I just…"

"Do you want to come back later?" That was Aerith, blinking innocently.

The puppy looked back at her for a moment with an unreadable expression before easing to the side of the bed. "Is something wrong, Cloud?" His voice came out deeper than usual, husky from sleep. Cloud's heart skipped a beat, and then he berated himself for reacting in such a way to something so stupid for someone he's not in love with. Squall is the one who should make his heart skip, make him blush.

Zack unrolled himself rather ungracefully from the grip of his comforter and steps out of bed bare-assed, his hard on bobbing free of constraint. Cloud's eyes were drawn to it—of course, just in a way of noticing it and not having anything to do with admiring it—but when he pried his gaze away and lifted it to Zack's eyes, he saw Zack's lazy grin. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes or, worse, deny admiring the proud penis without any accusation voiced.

"Put some clothes on, Zack," Aerith murmured. Cloud quickly averted his eyes away from both of them as Zack scrounged around his room for something decent. She sank back into the bed and curled up, dismissing them in the process.

Zack, wearing his sweats without a shirt, motioned for Cloud to follow him out in the hall and then downstairs. Zack sleepily nodded good morning to his mother, sitting at the kitchen table with her newspaper before leading Cloud down another hall to their den. Closing the door behind him, he said with a chuckle, "I forgot you get up at the crack of dawn every day."

Cloud had never been anywhere in the Fair home except Zack's room. He took the time to admire the richness of it, the cleanliness and pristine shine everything seemed to have. He studied the portraits of the Fair family, hanging on the wall across from the bookcases, where they weren't just smiling cheesy picture smiles, but practically grinning in very much the same genuine Zackmeister smile.

He hardens his resolve to patch things up with Zack and move on. That's what he's learned since Roxas, since Squall. Move on. There was nothing else to do but keep going. He was going to do just that. He didn't want to lose Zack as a companion, as a friend, but he was going to have Squall back. Squall who was the voice of sanity, who had been there for him for years, where Zack had only been here for him for—what, months? That was what really counted.

"So what's up, Cloud?" prompted Zack. Now that he and Aerith were back together, he seemed rather calm, less like a scolded puppy. No doubt, he would have to get rid of Cloud soon in order to keep the peace with his girlfriend. Cloud winced. Where did that come from? Of course Zack would give him enough time to work things out, regardless of anyone else, right? But now that Cloud proved to be a 'problem' for Zack that Aerith was fully conscious of, then didn't that mean Zack had to be careful? He had to tread with caution? Aerith was his girlfriend, didn't she and her needs have to come first? Before Cloud?

Cloud could only stare up at the photos in front of him as the thoughts flashed through his mind. Worrying about nothing, probably. It is nothing, he asserted. Aerith could, and very well should, be Zack's priority. Because now that Squall was back, Cloud needed to gravitate around him and he was Squall's priority. That's how it worked, right?

He reminded himself he needed to start talking, let Zack go back up to bed for a morning romp with his rightful lover—he stopped himself with a tremor. He couldn't think like that. Even if it was true, the wound was still raw. He took a deep breath, chided himself for not just coming out with it and leaving. Hurry up. But no words came.

Zack eased himself against the armchair of a recliner and ruffled his hair with his fingers, watching Cloud battle his demons in silence. Contrary to what Cloud was thinking, he wouldn't force Cloud into hurrying, wouldn't usher Cloud into leaving prematurely. He'd known Cloud for too long, had invested too much time in him to be impatient.

Finally, Cloud managed a few words. He said, "Squall and I are going to spend the day together."

"That's great, Cloud." It was too early in the morning to put much conviction behind the words, but he seemed happy enough for Cloud anyway.

"I, um, wanted to talk to you," continued Cloud, "um, because of…you know, what happened…that night."

Zack nodded encouragingly, a smile tugging at his lips. "I'm listening."

"Well, you know. It doesn't have to be awkward between us. I'm in love with Squall." He paused to take in a deep breath. "And you're in love with Aerith. So, really, we can just be friends, right?"

He expected some cheering or a round of applause. Zack should have jumped up and said something assuring like, "Of course, Cloudy, we'll always be friends." He should have ruffled his hair with a grin, patted his back. But Zack just nodded. "Yeah, 'course. You didn't have to come here just to tell me that." He followed up with a half sigh and half chuckle.

Cloud froze in place. It took a moment to register what it was that suddenly changed between them, and there it was; it stung. Zack's words stung. Was that annoyance? Was that hesitation? He turned to gawk at Zack, to size him up, to search his face for clues to what he'd meant by it. He stilled smiled, but his eyes were etched with tiredness. Maybe it was just that; Zack had probably spent the whole night awake with—well, awake, and Cloud had just woken him up too early. But his hopes sank.

"Or, I guess, we can just go back to how things were before. You, Basch, and Seifer, and me, Squall, and Lulu, in separate worlds. I just wanted to apologize for what happened the other night." He opened the door and backed out.

Zack was up and already reach out to him. "Wait, Cloud!" But Cloud was already darting down the hall to the door, tears stinging his eyes. His brain couldn't explain why; after all, what was Zack to him anyway? Zack had been ashamed of what they'd done, sorry it had happened. He was probably disgusted with him anyway. Why did he think that Zack would be eager to join hands again, be friends?

As he crossed the lawn to his car, he tried to calm himself. Why was this bothering him? It was over the moment Zack said, "I'm sorry." No, it was over the moment Lulu told him Squall was coming back. Or, rather, it never even began. Zack was just being nice, being the way he always was, and Cloud was oblivious. Always oblivious. He looked over his shoulder at the door to the Fair home, half expecting Zack to have chased him out, but the door was still shut. No one had followed him out to stop him, to talk some sense into him, to challenge his assumptions.

He sped off to the Loire's home, knowing fully well he was going to arrive early. Squall, of course, would be awake by now. And he knew the Loire's fairly well, he wouldn't feel like he was barging in even if Squall said nine.

The brunet was awake. He'd seen, or rather heard, Cloud pull up into his driveway and watched him sit in the car with the engine on, debating whether to get out or drive away. So when Cloud eventually turned the car off and got out, he was met at the front door with a waiting Squall.

There followed a moment of silence as they stared at each other like it was the first time in an eternity of separation, even if they'd seen each other around school. This was different. This was Squall and him, alone, together for the first time since…well, since they had admitted their attraction and acted upon it. Cloud pushed the thought aside, ignored the nervous feeling that arose at the thought of Squall's hands upon him.

Squall's hair seemed to have gotten longer since then, thicker even. His bangs were swept across his forehead, doing much to hide his grey-blue eyes as he studied Cloud just as intently. With a soft sigh, he suggested, "The café?" He was already tugging on his leather bomber jacket and navigating the walkway between Raine's heavy garden to the driveway before Cloud roused himself. This was it. No Zack, no protective Basch.

This was what he'd been waiting for this entire time. All of the pain, all of the drama, none of that should matter now that Squall was here, back where he belonged, and he was here with Cloud. The rest was of no consequence.

For Squall, though, it was. In fact, they had barely gotten seated at their normal booth when he just put it out there. Without any warning, without a facial expression hinting to any anger, any sense of betrayal. "I heard about the whole thing with Zack."

It was his own folly that caused the problem, but even so, he felt a certain bitterness directed at Lulu. "Lulu?"

Squall waved a hand in the air. "How about, everyone?" He snorted. "It's not exactly a secret that you gave Fair a blow job at Reno's party."

"It wasn't at—" he stopped himself. Correcting such a minor detail seemed pointless.

Squall thought so, too. He said nothing.

The waitress came by too early, and Cloud quickly glanced over the breakfast menu before ordering a bowl of fruit, since he'd already eaten this morning and since his encounter with Zack hadn't left his stomach settled. Squall ordered an omelet with a glass of ice water, and things between them seemed to calm down.

Cloud took the cleared air to change the subject. He said, trying out a smile, "Why don't we go up in the mountains?" It was really the only thing he could think of that was close.

"I was thinking we might do something around here. Maybe see a movie or something."

Cloud frowned. He hadn't even thought about the movies. In fact, ever since Squall left, he hadn't given the movies thought at all. He tried thinking what he'd done these past few months—sleep, run, avoid running, mountains, park, Roxas's hospital, watch TV. He didn't even know what was out in the theaters right now. He didn't all that much care, either. "Sure. What movie did you want to see?"

Squall frowned too. "I thought you'd have an idea." Because Cloud always knew what movie he wanted to see and dragged Squall along despite protest.

"We can just go and find a movie when we get there."

"We need look it up first. I don't want to go, and none of the movies start for another three hours."

It sounded like a rebuke with the tone edged with sharpness, so Cloud didn't say anything for a while. He wanted to say, "We can just catch up while waiting!" But then he realized that was a Zack sort of thing to do and to say, and he wanted to purge that from his life now. And something was weighing on his shoulders. Squall wanted to say something about his relationship with Zack. Was he angry about it? Indifferent? Confused, even? But Cloud couldn't force himself to bring up the topic that still hurt. Not even with his best friend.

"I think we should bring Lulu, too."

Cloud's head shot up. This was supposed to his and Squall's day!

Squall half smiled. "She's really lonely."

Cloud couldn't refrain. He snapped, "Well, so am I!" And then, sheepishly, added, "It's been a rough few months, Squall. I really…put a lot of you coming back. I guess." With the words coming finally, he found himself unable to keep them from spilling out. "I was…Zack was trying to comfort me, and for a while, I thought it was working, but it just wasn't. Zack and Basch and Seifer, they're all part of something I'm not. And it was stupid to think I could be part of it. I'm a part of us. I prefer that. I really just want things to be like they used to be."

"Cloud, you can't put that on me. Your happiness, I mean. I have enough to worry about with my own self than to worry about how you're feeling on top of it all." He couldn't say for sure, but it sounded like Squall softened his voice a little. Just a little. "So don't think I'm going to fix everything. I can't. And even if I could, I wouldn't. Because you need to do it yourself. You can't rely on others forever."

When his fruit arrived, he busied himself picking through it for the grapes, avoiding Squall's gaze. "I know," he responded numbly.

"I think you might need some time alone. To sort through this."

"No! I've been alone too much."

"You need to think about what you want and then you need to go out and get it. But don't put your shit on me. I can't handle it right now. Simple as that."

Simple as that, groused Cloud with his hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. Squall had opted to walk home alone afterward and Cloud, stung with shock at the two worst encounters of his life that happened to occur on the same exact day.

He wouldn't go home, though. He spent enough time there to last him the rest of his life, and he just couldn't stand the silence there. It wasn't Roxas's absence this time, though. It was just the monotony of his house, of his family. The fact they didn't do much talking, how they were all individuals who moved in the circles of their own life, rarely grazing each other. He wanted people.

He parked his car in a shopping center and roamed around on foot. He preferred it this way. With the fresh air pumping in his lungs, his legs stretching as he took wide steps, he thought about different places to wander to, to think about what he wanted, but his thoughts just went on to what he really wanted. It was Squall, wasn't it? These past few months, his heartaches were for Squall. His yearning was for Squall.

His feet brought him to the back of the high school, where the track team was gathered. He stood at the chain link fence and watched as his former teammates stretched on the grass. Terra was there, her hair pulled back into an easy ponytail, her P.E. shorts rolled up at the waist. She saw him, he was sure, but she didn't wave or motion him in. He wondered, briefly, if she would hate him for the rest of their lives for what he did to Aerith. And since Basch latched on for life, it was probable that Terra would end up his sister-in-law one day, and so that would be a very long time of hating him.

Terra crossed the track to where Coach Valentine was looking through his bag on the bleachers and said something to him. They both looked over their shoulders to Cloud standing with his hands linked to the fence, watching like some creep, probably. But Cloud jerked away when he saw Valentine head his way. He didn't want to leave, though.

"It's been a while," greeted Valentine when he was within earshot.

"Coach, do you think I can use the track today?" he blurted out. Now there's a start, he thought.

The coach gave him a wary look. "Those don't look like running shoes, Strife."

He followed his gaze to his sneakers. "No, I guess not."

Valentine jangled some keys. "But I have the keys to the lockers. You keep your spares there still, don't you?"

"Yes. Thank you, Coach."

"Don't thank me, I haven't let you back on the team. Yet."