"Hey, Star Eyes. Sleeping soundly?"

Lyra continued to stare at him. He smirked lazily at her, not saying anything. He stood and walked as if he had all the time in the world until he stood close to her. He cocked his head to the side and continued to smirk. She clamped her jaw shut.

"Excuse me?"

He chuckled, but Lyra didn't understand what was funny about this.

"So, how've you been?" He asked. Lyra opened her mouth, then shut it.

"What do you mean? Who are you?"

He stopped smirking, suddenly looking at her with concern. He gripped her shoulders and studied her face. "What are you talking about? It's me."

She shook her head, waving his hands away. She turned away and took a deep breath. He tried to follow her but he didn't touch her again.

What is going on? Shouldn't she be waking up?

"Ly?"

Lyra whipped around and glared at him. His glowing green cat eyes widened. "How do you know my name?"

His mouth fell open and he stuttered a bit. He gave up and Lyra marched right up to his face.

"Who the hell are you and why do you keep appearing in my dreams? And how do you know my name? Where are we? Where was that voice coming from? What the hell is going on?"

He backed up with every word that shot out of her mouth until he stumbled, almost slipping into a pit of tar. He gasped and Lyra felt fear, but it wasn't hers. It freaked her out enough to reach out and pull him back. She didn't want to pull him out again. She pulled him forward a few steps and stopped.

He had his hands on her waist and she had her hands on his shoulders as if they were dancing. They stared at each other, hardly breathing. Lyra dropped her arms and he backed away, both their faces blushing red.

"Who are you?" Lyra demanded, but her voice was softer. A look of hurt and confusion crossed his face.

"It's me! Kadaj."

Her head started to throb. She rubbed her temple to ease it, but it didn't seem to help.

"I'm sorry," she said. "But I don't think I've ever met you. I mean, it would be hard to forget someone with silver hair and cat eyes."

He was quiet for a moment. He seemed to have trouble breathing and he looked terrified. "But you did forget me."

Lyra tilted her head. She tried to smile at him. "Why do you think I know you?"

He sighed and itched his eyebrow, turning away from her. "You're waking up."

Her eyes flew open and she was staring at the ceiling of her room. Every inch of her was sore. She checked the small clock on the nightstand. It was almost two in the afternoon. Lyra groaned and decided to get up, pulling a random sundress off the dresser.

The bandages on her hands complicated her intentions to dress herself, and she refused to ask for help for that. She decided to unwind the bandages and redo them later. They needed to be cleaned anyway.

The bandages were bloody, but her hands were fine. The slashes from Rosso's blade were gone. Lyra, with her head still foggy with sleep, stared at her hands dumbly. The bedroom door opened and she looked towards it. Yuffie smiled at her.

"Hey, new bestie. Tifa wanted me to check on you." "She heard you shuffling around up here." She shut the door behind her. She glanced down at the bloodied bandages around Lyra's feet. "Need some help?"

Lyra showed Yuffie her palms. The color drained from Yuffie's face.

"I thought Rosso cut your hands open?" Yuffie's voice shook and she looked sick.

"She did," Lyra said, yawning as she did so. She itched her eyebrow with the back of her hand, still keeping her palms in Yuffie's view. Yuffie grabbed Lyra's wrist and pointed at the palm of her hand.

"Then where are the cuts?"

Lyra stared at Yuffie, the realization finally dawning on her. Suddenly she wasn't so sleepy anymore. She pulled her wrist back and stared at her palms.

"The bruises around your neck are gone too," Yuffie said, flicking a bit of Lyra's hair away from her neck. Lyra looked down at her legs. She hadn't changed the bandage since the day before, and she had noted that the bruise was significantly smaller, but she healed fast. It was normal for her to heal fast.

But this was far too quick.

She pushed past Yuffie and ran to the bathroom. She sat on the edge of the tub and rolled the leg of her oversized pajama pants until she could check the bandage on her thigh. Her stomach churned as she stared at her skin.

The puncture wound was faint and the bruise around it was small and yellow. It was sore if she pressed down on it, but it didn't hurt anymore. She heard Yuffie running down the stairs, yelling for Tifa, and then the bathroom door opened. Marlene peeked through the crack.

"Are you okay?" She asked. Lyra nodded and Marlene opened the door wider, looking at the nearly fully healed wound on Lyra's thigh. "What's Yuffie yelling about?"

Lyra spotted Tifa and Yuffie coming back up the stairs behind Marlene. Tifa sat next to Lyra on the tub. She glanced at the bruise on Lyra's leg and grabbed her hands, looking them over. She pushed aside Lyra's hair and checked her neck. Lyra couldn't miss the alarm on Tifa's face, and the look of fear Yuffie was giving her was starting to scare her. Her eyes started to water. Her hands shook.

"Is there something wrong with me?" She couldn't stop shaking. Tifa shook her head.

"No sweetheart, nothing is wrong with you." She stood. "I need to make some phone calls."

She left the small bathroom, leaving Yuffie and Marlene staring at Lyra. Lyra wiped her eyes and sniffled. Yuffie grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet. She started to pull Lyra and Marlene towards the stairs.

"What are we doing?" Marlene whispered. Yuffie smirked at her, though she wouldn't look directly at Lyra.

"Eavesdropping."

Yuffie pulled them to the closed door at the end of the hall, where Cloud's office was. Lyra placed her ear against the door. She could hear Tifa dialing through the thin wooden door and then she started to speak.

Cloud paced before the one-way mirror, going over the questions he wanted to ask Rosso in his head. Rosso had hardly spoken a word since she'd been subdued. Wherever she had hidden herself after the battle with DeepGround, she hadn't been taken care of. Cloud thought it was interesting that she had lost limbs after falling what he guessed was ten stories.

The only thing they had gotten out of her was that whoever had given her the robot limbs had kept her sedated to a point that when he let her go, she was so confused she almost attacked the wrong building.

The door to her cell opened. Reeve nodded at Cloud. "Free to go in. Good luck getting anything out of her."

"She say anything else?" Cloud stopped pacing. Reeve smiled and shook his head. He stood in front of the mirror and pointed at her.

"Something about the sky and how much she wants to see it."

Cloud raised an eyebrow. "Really? How'd you get her to say that?"

"I didn't. She said it as I was leaving." Reeve turned towards the door leading out, waving at Cloud. "Good luck!"

Cloud entered the small room Rosso was held in. She sat at a white table bolted to the floor in the middle of the room, her hands handcuffed and her feet chained to the table. The mirror was dark on her end, and three cameras followed her every move from various points in the room. She couldn't move much, but that didn't matter.

Rosso was pale as a ghost, and dark bags seemed to hang under her eyes. Her red hair was greasy and her crimson eyes were dull and angry. She was covered in bandages from old ruptured sutures, many of them infected. Her metal arm gleamed, but the area of skin that met it was inflamed and swollen. It was honestly a miracle that she had been able to walk let alone attack and kill ten WRO soldiers.

Rosso narrowed her eyes and leaned back, chuckling.

"The man with chocobo hair," she drawled. "How pleasant."

"Rosso the Crimson. How're you doing?" Cloud pulled the chair across from her and sat in it. "Anything interesting to say or are you just going to continue talking about the sky and your crazy metal limbs?"

She smiled and stared at him. The room was silent. Rosso shivered.

"Where is the little mouse?"

"Why would you want to know?" Cloud crossed his arms and scowled.

"Just checking on her," Rosso answered.

"Is that why you were here?"

She shook her head. Cloud's eye twitched.

"Would you like to tell me why you were here?"

She continued to stare.

"Well, I'm not leaving until you tell me," Cloud snapped. Rosso laughed.

"If it's not you in here, it'll be someone else."

"Exactly. So spill."

Rosso cocked her head to the side and studied him in a way that made him slightly uncomfortable. She grunted and shifted her weight in her chair.

"Are you sure that you would you like to know who saved me?" She asked. "He isn't very nice."

Cloud narrowed his eyes, waiting for her to continue.

"Dr. Jael Azazel," Rosso said. "Elite Shinra scientist. He makes Professor Hojo look nearly human."

Cloud frowned. How do you come up with a smartass question for that? "What do you mean?"

Rosso shuddered in a dramatic way. "It's chilly in here."

"Are you trying to barter with me?" Cloud almost laughed. Rosso grinned and leaned forward, folding her hands on the table.

"This room is cold and my clothing isn't warm enough," she said. "You aren't hearing anything else until you tell them to get me a blanket."

Cloud glared at Rosso. Rosso glared back. It was silent again.

They needed this information. This scientist was mysterious and could have something to do with Lyra. Cloud considered Rosso's request. Nothing too big, and she couldn't do anything with a blanket. And she should have something anyway. With so many infected wounds, she had to have a fever. DeepGround was inhumane enough, the WRO wouldn't want to have a reputation similar to them.

"Deal. As soon as you're done telling me whatever it is you're going to tell me, I'll get someone to bring you a blanket."

At this, Rosso smiled wide, leaning back once more in her chair.

"Good."

She was silent, as she seemed to be choosing what to tell him and what to keep to herself. Cloud tried not to scream in his frustration.

"How about we start with what about this Dr. Azazel makes Hojo look human?" Cloud suggested. Rosso nodded once and placed her hands in her lap.

"Where Hojo knows when to stop and call an experiment a failure, Dr. Azazel sees another opportunity to recycle," she said, her voice much quieter, losing the tough act. She seemed afraid, and this made Cloud nervous. "My hatred for this man pales in comparison to anything else."

"What did he do?" Cloud asked though the answer was obvious. Rosso chuckled and held up her metal hand, pulling her flesh and bone hand with it through the handcuffs.

"My hand and leg were crushed by debris," she said. "He replaced them with weapons."

Cloud huffed. "At least they're humanoid. I have a friend who spent years with a gun as an arm."

"Barret Wallace," she said. "I've heard."

"So about the doctor-" Cloud started.

"Keep the little mouse as far from him as possible," Rosso growled. "He sent me to retrieve her."

Cloud sat up straight. "Lyra? He sent you to get Lyra?"

She grinned with all her teeth. "Unfortunate for her, isn't it, that she is in the center of this monster's attention?"

Cloud jumped at the knock, turning to the door. Shalua popped her head inside.

"Hey, Tifa called. She's freaking out."

"I'm freaking out," Cloud mumbled, stumbling out of the chair in his haste. Rosso chuckled and waved.

"Don't forget my request, chocobo head," she sang. He shut the door behind him, hurrying after Shalua.

"What's going on?" Cloud demanded. Shalua handed him a hastily made note. He could hardly read the scribbles. Cloud sighed and scowled at her. Shalua walked halfway down the hall before realizing that Cloud had stopped following. She looked back and turned around.

"What's the problem?"

Cloud rolled his eyes. "No one can read your handwriting, Shalua. No one. You do realize this, right?"

Shalua grumbled, marching back and snatching her note back. "Fine. I would read it for you, but it's just random words that I picked up. Tifa was rambling mostly."

"Marlene and Denzel are okay?"

Shalua nodded vigorously. "Of course, but it's not them, it's Lyra."

Cloud pictured someone else being sent to 'retrieve' Lyra from the 7th Heaven. Tifa was tougher than she looked, which was tough enough to make a violent biker gang crap their pants. She should be able to keep the kids and Lyra safe. But Cloud still couldn't stamp down his worry.

"What about her? Is everything alright?"

When she assured Cloud that Tifa and the kids were okay, he was relieved. But when she told Cloud about the healed wounds, he tried not to think of the possibility that Lyra was a Cetra. He didn't like that. And he was pretty sure that Aerith was the last of the Cetra.

Then again, Shinra was up to some sketchy stuff. If there were more Cetra than just Aerith and her birth mother and they had hidden them, he wouldn't be that surprised.

And then there was what Rosso had said about the Shinra scientist wanting Lyra.

"Any luck with her blood?"

Shalua pressed the button for the elevator. "Yes, actually, but I don't know if we should call it good news."

The elevator opened and they stepped aside as it emptied. They boarded and made their way to her lab. By the time they got back, Cloud was bouncing off the walls with anxiety. Shalua had kept her mouth shut the entire time, and she was doing it on purpose.

"So what did you find?" Shelke asked, sitting in front of the computer. "Did she say anything? How is Rosso?"

"She's fine, just cold. We should get her a blanket." Cloud cleared his throat. "Now what's the news?"

"You first, Cloud." Shalua busied herself with her notes on Lyra.

"Rosso said that the doctor guy, Jael Azazel, he sent her to find Lyra," Cloud said. Shalua and Shelke shared a look. Well, more like Shalua looked at Shelke in a way that put Cloud on edge and Shelke just stared at Shalua blankly. Shelke was getting better with her emotions, but she needed a lot more practice.

"Shalua, what's that look for?" Cloud asked. She glanced at him and held up a page that held the data from her bloodwork.

"The other night, at the bar, I got curious," she started, shuffling her pages in her hands for something to do. "The whole theory about Lyra being a Cetra started a bit as a joke, but then I crosschecked with some Cetra DNA in the Shinra database and, well, Lyra's DNA is very similar."

"And then I found some information in the chip the Turks left, and there was a direct match," Shelke said. "In other words, Lyra is a Cetra and we owe Yuffie gil."

All the blood seemed to drop to Cloud's feet.

"Well, shit."

Lyra found herself in the wasteland again, and he was still there, standing in the middle of the stars and pits of tar.

Kadaj smiled at her. He sat cross-legged on a rock with a stick in his hand, doodling in the loose dirt.

"Hey Ly, how's it going?"

She decided to shake off the usual shock and just see what he was drawing.

Then she was shocked again. He was really good. He had drawn three faces, two of them looking similar to him, and her. She smiled and laughed a little.

"You even got my weird freckles."

She turned her grin on Kadaj, who glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. He grinned back and continued drawing.

"You said silver hair and cat eyes are hard to forget, try half a face of freckles and giant green eyes," he muttered. "Know why I called you Star Eyes?"

She shook her head.

"I thought they were stars too when you pulled me out. And then when I saw you, I thought there were actual galaxies in your eyes."

Lyra made a nervous noise that had Kadaj staring at her like she grew a tail out of her neck. She felt her face heat up and her hands started to smoke.

"Are you alright?" Kadaj asked.

"Generally, not so much and at the moment, I'm not sure," her voice was high pitched.

"It didn't sound as weird in my head," Kadaj said, going back to his doodling. "Sorry about that."

"Well, it wasn't bad," Lyra insisted. "I just wasn't expecting it."

They sat in silence, Kadaj finishing his doodle of flower and Lyra watching. She found herself almost leaning on him when he was finished, and she moved to the side as Kadaj stood and stretched. Lyra shook her head. It amused her that she could feel so drowsy, even if she was already sleeping.

"They aren't stars, by the way."

Lyra blinked at Kadaj. "Huh?"

"They're souls," he finished. Lyra continued to stare at him, and then sneezed when one of the supposed souls loitered in front of her face, tickling her nose. It floated away and Lyra stood to follow it.

"These are souls?" She followed the soul a few steps and then spun to see Kadaj. "Whose?"

Kadaj shrugged nonchalantly. "Just murderers and thieves. People who took lives and ruined them."

Lyra balked at his words. He laughed at her reaction. Lyra scoffed and rolled her eyes, not one bit amused.

"Where exactly are we?"

"Well, it's a lot nicer than the part where I was before, but we're in the Lifestream," Kadaj said, scuffing at the dirt.

"Lifestream?"

"Yeah. The Negative side, of course, but it's still part of it."

Lyra shook her head and cut him off with her hands. "No, I mean, what the hell is the Lifestream?"

Kadaj looked concerned again. "Seriously, what is wrong with you?"

"What is wrong with you?" Lyra retorted angrily. Kadaj glared at her, and the souls around him shot off into the distance as if they were afraid.

"I just spent the last year in a place worse than the labs, thinking about all the ways I messed up and failed and honestly, this scenario was one of the worst ones that she thought up for me." Kadaj started.

Lyra froze, unsure what to do with this new load of information, and she knew that it wasn't the right thing to ask, but she asked anyway.

"Who showed you what?"

He met her eyes and she could feel a glimmer of his emotions, and just that glimmer was enough to rock her off her feet. He was angry, ashamed, horribly afraid, and sad. Very lonely and very sad.

"I don't want to talk about her, but she kept showing me glimpses of my nightmares, and this was part of one of them."

Kadaj blinked back tears and plopped down on the rock, holding his head in his hands. He sniffled. Lyra looked around, feeling awkward. She hoped that the pleasant voice would come back and tell her what to do, but it didn't. She sighed and made her way to sit by him. She listened to him silently cry, and she patted his shoulder, her arm feeling like a robot's and her fingers tingling as if she had touched a live wire. Kadaj jerked, but he didn't brush her off.

"You want to talk about it? Your nightmare?" She asked in a soft voice. Kadaj shrugged and sniffled. He sat up and brushed his face with the back of his hand.

"Well, first off, I don't know where my brothers are," he said in a shaky voice. "And second, you forgot about me."

Lyra stared at the drawings, feeling suddenly embarrassed for the way she had been acting. She didn't feel that she had been outright rude, and neither had he, but she also didn't give him much of a chance to explain himself other than this moment. And if he was telling the truth about her knowing him, maybe any memory of him was hidden by the mind block.

"Um, about that whole forgetting you thing? There's actually a reason behind that."

Kadaj was silent, and Lyra took that as a signal to continue. She told him about how she remembered walking home and being attacked and kidnapped by the man with multicolored eyes, how she woke up in a cave system under the Northern Cave Crater, how she had been taken in by Cloud and Tifa, everything. He was quiet the whole time, seeming more and more concerned as she talked. When she finished, they sat in silence.

"Lyra, I am so sorry." Kadaj finally broke the silence. "What do you remember before?"

Lyra chuckled and picked up his stick. She traced a few curlicues in the dirt. "Not much. Just enough to know that I don't remember my childhood or my parent's names and that it all feels wrong."

"How would you feel if I tell you that it is?" Kadaj asked. She met his eyes and was annoyed beyond belief when she was shaken awake by Marlene and Denzel.