"I have seen you in this white wave. You are silent, you are breathing." - Sarah Mclachlan, 'Silence'.

His skin caked with dirt and cheeks streaked with tears, Cloud finally made his way back down to Midgar - an ache in his heart and a longing for someone who had been dead for years. As he walked into his small apartment in the Shinra building, seeing Reno didn't help to make matters any better. Reno greeted him with a warm smile and open arms. Cloud felt beside himself with guilt. Knowing that his heart ultimately belonged to Reno, and that he could never love anyone else like he loves him, he still felt guilty knowing that Zack had actually been the first one to hold his heart.

Secret wishes and secret memories that had lay buried with the years that had passed. It lay buried like so many other secrets of Gaia; secrets of the heart and secrets of the mind - only to be washed away by time.

He had fallen into Reno's arms, glad to be back home. Home was where Reno was; home was where love was real and not imagined.

Home was in the heart of the new Shinra building, and though things had been rebuilt and looked almost completely different from the old building that he remembered, memories still clung to the walls like children cling to their mothers.

The walls. He stood by himself after Reno left to go talk to Tseng, looking around at the walls in his room. He found himself perched on the worn couch, like a statue, and he stared long enough to burn a hole in the wall. Four walls to hold him in, and four walls to bind him. The ticking of the wall clock pounded into his brain. He could feel the hairs rise on the back of his neck as a cold chill passed through his body and exited from the very tips of his toes.

A part of him wanted to dig that letter out again, just to feel something -- anything. But he didn't. He just sat and stared. He barely heard it when Reno came through the door and asked him if he wanted a drink of water. Food, perhaps? Are you hungry?

What is hunger, anyway? Is it truly a physical feeling, or is it emotional as well? Can you hunger for the past as you hunger physically for a piece of bread? Yes. Like a starving man begging for food, Cloud was starving for a taste of his past.

Reno sat by his side, unwilling to leave until Cloud snapped out of whatever he was experiencing. Cloud had come back from his walk hours ago and had not spoken to him since, only nodding his head yes or no when asked a simple question.

He would not move until Cloud made him.

A flash of pain, then a smooth pulling at his soul.

This is how it began.

He was wrapped in a blanket of light. He felt weightless and free.

"We shouldn't be doing this," Tseng told Rufus.

Rufus had been beside himself with intrigue after finding out that Cloud had brought Sephiroth back, but he was also frustrated at the same time. It wasn't just that Cloud could have possibly opened a can of worms, but Rufus now lived the with fact that there was a way to bring members of SOLIDER back. The thought had occurred to him that if Sephiroth could be brought back, why not other former members? They had been pumped full of Jenova cells and mako as well, had they not? Rufus was not the kind of man to turn down an opportunity, regardless of its effect on others.

Tseng had begged him not to go toying with the idea of bringing others back, but the man wouldn't listen to him. And so, here he was, standing with Rufus on the edge of a mountain that overlooked Midgar. He'd never known Rufus to get his hands dirty, and seeing his lover like this - on his hands on knees in the dirt - turned him on to no end. This wasn't the time for sex, and certainly not the place, because his help was needed.

He would have to help carry the body back to the lab.

He cringed at the thought of decayed flesh. It wasn't a pretty sight; he had seen many corpses in his line of work over the vast number of years he had spent at this job. But when he heard Rufus say, "I'll be damned, Tseng. Look," he looked over Rufus' shoulder and stared down into the dead man's face.

Raven-colored hair fell gently across pale skin; a scar present on his cheek. It was as if he had never tasted death on the tip of his tongue.

Rufus steadied the syringe and closed his eyes, cringing. "Tseng… You are used to this kind of thing. You do it," Rufus said, finally handing him the instrument. He stood up and brushed off his pants and dusted his hands off. Tseng knelt down and felt the man's arm for a vein. When he found one, he hesitated for a bit and then withdrew his hand.

"Rufus, he has a slight pulse."

He heard someone calling him from inside his head, though the room was filled with the white noise of silence.

"Za… ack."

Reno's head jerked up as the silence was broken by Cloud's voice. He had nodded off to sleep and his neck was killing him. He watched as Cloud stood up slowly and made his way out of the apartment's door.

It took him a few minutes to finally make it to the lab, but there he stood, holding himself up with the wall. A woman in a lab coat scurried past him and into the lab, the door swishing open with and air of importance. A familiar voice drifted through the crack of the door and made his blood run cold.

"I'm telling you, I feel fine!" the voice exclaimed jovially.

"Cloud? Cloud are you okay?" Reno called to him. His voice sounded so far away, even though he was right there beside him. The sounds in his head were echoing and he felt as if he would pass out. Another lab worker rushed through past them and jerked the door open. This time, Cloud heard his laugh.

Dear Gaia, I know that laugh. I would know it anywhere.

We were walking together that day. He tripped over a piece of wood and flailed his hands out all around him, trying to grasp for something to catch his fall. He found my arm as I instinctively reached out for him. We both fell, and I fell on top of him. He was still holding onto my arms when he looked into my eyes and told me, "Thank you. Thank you for trying to save me."

He was always so clumsy. We laughed about it later that evening while we shared a bottle of tequila. Zack was never the type to get shit-faced drunk, but when he got a buzz, the world was his playground -- even more so than what it was when he was sober.

I should have known by the color shift in his eyes that he was thinking he might want to try to kiss me, but I didn't notice it. Knowing what I know now, I would have beaten him to the punch. And, I know now that if he could have said more on that mountainside, he would have. He would have said 'thank you'.

Reno felt himself shoved aside as Cloud threw the door open and shouted the man's name in disbelief. Everyone in the lab stopped what they were doing and stared at Cloud, who was breathless and holding his hand over his heart. A doctor asked the man, "Do you know him? Do you remember his name?"

Zack rested his eyes calmly on Cloud and tilted his head slightly, a light smile brushing his lips.

"Long time no see, Spike."