A/N: Recently a very sweet and talented reader known as Superwitch did some amazing artwork for this story! It is so beautiful and perfect that I had to share it with everyone! Please, go have a look and let this fantastic artist know what you think!

(Remove spaces to make the link work, we all know how shitty is about links)

http://mindlessidiotxx . deviantart . com/art/SephirothXCloud-for-Eromenos-140025430


It was a tearful reunion, Cloud's mother was all joy and overflowing love, and Cloud was just happy to see her so happy to see him. All of his fears where she was concerned melted into a warm glow of acceptance – she wanted him around, she'd missed him, she'd worried that he was alone and afraid and she'd wanted him to come home all of these long, frightening years…

They sat at the table talking over tea, and every once in awhile she would reach out and clasp his hand, her blue eyes bright with happy tears. She told him sadly that his father was dead, that his grandparents had passed away as well, that things had been lonely and bleak since he'd gone.

He told her of his hopes for a future, of what he'd dreamed of doing, of how he'd prayed that his father would return and make her the happy woman he remembered as a very small child. She blushed when he mentioned it, refused to meet his eyes as she spoke. She was ashamed at the way she'd harmed him, and blamed it on her ignorant youth – she'd had him too young, she'd known nothing of babies or children, and his father had only complicated things.

Cloud wanted to ask how, wanted to ask her to finally tell him the truth of why he'd been gone from her so long as a baby, but the moment was fragile and he cherished it too much to destroy it with ugly things. He could wait now. They would have all of the time in the world to talk of uncomfortable things. She loved him and he was welcome in her home, so nothing could come between them again…

"You look tired," she breathed, and smiled at him again, holding his hands so warmly in her own. "Take some rest, Cloud."

"I can't," he told her, smiling a little. "I'm a Sergeant now, mama. I have to check on my soldiers and make sure things are going well."

"A few hours, just," she said, and laughingly added, "And then you can go tend to your soldiers, my Sergeant son!"

He grinned and flushed, pleased that she was proud of him, and hesitantly said, "Yes, alright. I can nap for a few hours before I go. Are you sure you don't mind? All of these years apart, and I spend my homecoming asleep."

"Oh, it's fine!" she said, and waved her hand dismissively. "We can talk tomorrow after your assignment, and maybe you can take some leave days and come home to stay for awhile. Would you like that? I would love to have you home, Cloud."

Tears pricked his eyes but he held them back. Still, his voice trembled a little when he said, "Yes, mama, I would like that."

She leaned across the table and kissed his cheek before she stood, gesturing him back to his old bed.

"It's been awhile since I've slept in a proper bed, the ones in the barracks are barely better than cots," he told her, unlacing his boots and shedding his gear down to his pants and shirt before he stretched out in the dense, goose-down and straw mattress. It gave beneath him just as it always had, plush and soft beneath the thick layer of wool sheets covered by flannel. He heard his back pop and sighed with relief, feeling that sense of homecoming even more.

"You get some rest," she told him, gathering up some knitting from next to the fire. "You're getting older, Cloud. You're all grown up, now. I bet the girls never leave you alone, do they?"

"…not really," Cloud denied, settling a little deeper and sighing as he relaxed. It felt good to be home, to have his mother talking to him, to heal old wounds that had run deeper than he'd realized.

"You know, I worry about you, Cloud," she said, and paced a little. "Midgar is…well, it's a decadent place for a young man like you. I'm afraid something will come along and lead you astray."

Cloud frowned a little, thinking of Sephiroth and how badly that had gone, how much he'd learned from it.

"I think you need a girlfriend," his mother decided. "That would make me feel better. An older woman, one who could take care of you – "

"I'm not really interested in that, mama," Cloud told her. "I'm fine on my own."

She was quiet for a very long time before she said, "Being on your own can be terribly lonely, Cloud…take it from me."

"I know it can be," Cloud said, and rolled onto his side, closing his eyes, weary now. He'd just sleep for a bit, go back to check on his men, and then rest until daybreak. "I've been on my own since I left, just like you…"

As he was drifting off, he heard her softly, sadly whisper, "Please forgive me, Cloud, for all I've done to you."


***


Sephiroth couldn't rest.

It seemed there was a chorus of clamor in his restless mind – a ceaseless eddy of suppositions and suspicions, of leaps of strategy that made him fairly certain he was either losing his mind or developing startlingly precise analytical skills. He feared the first but believed the latter, thinking that somehow Nibelheim was encouraging a dormant – but somehow always expected – power on a scale that Hojo could only lust for.

Sephiroth had always known he was special, that he was different from even Genesis and Angeal. It was a knowledge that had formed the basis of his arrogance and set the stage for his frightening confidence. He had never once in battle feared that he would die, because he'd always just known that nothing and no one could ever kill him. It wasn't that he thought himself invincible, he was just…better. Lessons that Angeal had struggled with, Sephiroth had easily overcome. Dismaying mathematical problems that Hojo had set him, he'd solved without a twitch. It was as if the answer was simply there for him, floating in his mind's eye without him even having to bother. Knots that Genesis would spend months plotting, Sephiroth would unravel in moments, finding the few linkage knots that would send the whole thing tumbling into a skein of yarn.

His life had been one success after the other, as if something powerful had guided his steps, and here he was in Nibelheim realizing in the quiet of his moonlit room that he was not going insane, that he was someone special.

That this world required a firmer hand and a better leader than the fat President ShinRa, and that he himself was the man who just might have the experience, guts, and determination to see it through.

It shocked him that he'd not thought of it before now, that it had taken time away in a shoddy little mountain backwater to realize his potential was being wasted. He'd won their wars, he'd fought their battles, he'd endured the tests and experiments without protest, and all the while, deep inside of himself, he'd known it was preparation for future greatness.

The military followed his leadership without question.

The public adored him to a fault.

How had he not seen it before?

He got up, rubbing at his temple and wishing the odd headache would leave him be so that he could think more on this. It was a big decision, it was something bordering on sedition, but he now understood a little better why Genesis had seen fit to defect – his old friend, too, had been made of better stuff than ShinRa was due, and even Angeal had left in the end.

Only Sephiroth had remained, and of the three of them, only Sephiroth would see success in what he was considering, because he'd never truly known failure in any way shape or form except for –

He spied the lone figure walking between two buildings in the quiet, dark square and knew at once where he had only ever tasted defeat – in the tearful despair of Cloud Strife.

Sephiroth moved to the window in just his light pajama pants, his hair trailing down his back, his eyes softening as he looked at that short, rather muscular young man moving through the dark street. So changed, his Cloud, now a man grown, no longer a child to be bent to his will. If he went through with this, would Cloud suffer for it somehow? Would Zack? Was he willing to sacrifice them to his ambition, if this plan assembling itself inside of his head came to pass? He had made no allowances for anyone else, but he thought suddenly of Angeal and Zack, of how close they had been, of how he'd wished he could comfort the young 1st as he deserved.

Was this how he repaid Zack doing what he himself refused to? Was this the reward for Zack taking his blade to Angeal and ending his life simply because Sephiroth would not? Was this how he protected Cloud as he'd sworn to do, by bringing down the company the young man had taken an oath to protect?

He felt a sudden surge of frustrated anger rise up in him, and it was so alien a response to what he was thinking of that it startled him and he jerked away from the window, shocked. His thoughts had not evoked such a reaction in himself, and for an eerie moment he felt divided, as if he were two instead of one, as if his body housed a darker version of himself that bid him shuck off any lingering emotion and be lost in power forever…

Cloud stopped on the road, shoulders slumped, head down. From where he'd come, Sephiroth had no idea, but the sight of him forlorn brought the man back to himself. He pushed that alien rage away and took a deep breath, murmuring, "He is more important to me than that. He is more important to me than anything."

It seemed he heard a shriek somewhere, a furious howl of disbelief, or perhaps it was just the mountain wolves, singing their own loneliness to the sky.