Hey again!  Back again, with a new chapter... and thanks for all the reviews!  Don't stop though... ^^  Everyone's gone completely crazy in the story, if you can tell, so I hope you enjoy...

Rating: Same as usual.

Disclaimer: Also same as usual.... strangely enough.

***


The next morning, Cloud woke up with the sun pouring into his eyes.  Grumbling, he got out of bed and fixed up his spikes.  That damn dream again!  And I'd better not be hearing people's thoughts again.  I won't be able to take it.... and the Turks as well!  I need a vacation...

After his spikes were in their usual upright position, he padded down the stairs into the kitchen, like always, and headed straight for the coffee machine.

"Hey Cloud, what's doin?"

Cloud spun around in surprise. "Oh, Vince.  I told you yesterday to stop doing that." He took a seat, eyeing the dark man, who as usual, was shrouded by the daily newspaper.

"I didn't remember."

Thank god.  I don't hear all that mind-talk.  At least he's back to normal...

"That's weird, hey?  I mean, I remember the rest of the stuff that happened yesterday, like you talking to me when I didn't say anything, which was damn weird, but I don't remember scaring you, if I actually scared you in that sense.  But, yeah, I dunno how I could scare you.  You need more sleep.  Get up later or something.  I mean, who's going to notice?"

Cloud just stared at him at a bit.  Vincent shrugged at him, and looked at the paper.

Tifa dragged herself in to the kitchen, headed straight for the coffee.

"Morning Tif." Cloud said warmly, seeing she was a little touchy.  He just supposed she had a bad sleep, or something.

"Fuck you Cloud." Tifa replied in between mouthfuls of coffee. "Make your own damn eggs."

"I didn't even say... anything..." Cloud stammered in surprise.

Vincent dropped the newspaper on the table and shot Tifa an amused glance. "What the hell's wrong with you?" He asked. "You know Cloud can't defend himself."

"Too fuckin right..." Tifa leaned against the counter, and inhaled the strong coffee scent with a satisfied sigh.

Cloud looked at the two of them. "Are you two... alright?" he cautiously asked, eyeing each of them in turn.

"Just bitchin'..."

"Well, I'm pretty good, actually.  Well, this morning my bed had this weird little creak, and that was so annoying, so I had to get up early."

"You're always up early." Cloud replied dumbly.

"It's because my bed squeaks, I just said that." Vincent shook his head. "Geez..."

"Good morning all." Barret greeted mildly, without his usual eloquence.  He reached into the cupboard and took some cereal.

"Hi guys!" Yuffie bounded in behind him. "Hi Vinnie! What's up?" she dropped into her chair.

Well, Yuffie's the same... somewhat.  Barret's quiet, though. That's a good thing for a change, Cloud mused, absently tapping his coffee mug against the table.

Vincent began to go on about his squeaky bed.  Aeris entered silently.  She smiled vacently at Cloud, stuck her tounge out at Tifa, and sat down.

"What was that, you ugly bitch?" Tifa demanded shrilly , slamming her mug on the counter and making for Aeris, fists curling.

"Why fight guys?" Cid asked. "Not that it's unorthodox in this gathering of esteemed people."

Shocked silence.

"The fuck you talking about?"

Sigh... Barret's back...  Cloud sighed.  But it wasn't Barret, he noticed.  Instead, Reno stared at them all as he slouched against the door frame.

"Oh, hey Reno, grab some cereal." Vincent said. "Tif's in one of her moods, so there's no eggs."

"Moods?!" Tifa screeched. "I do not have MOODS!!" She stopped glaring at Aeris and started glaring at everyone else. Cloud whimpered quietly to himself.  Aeris had tuned out already.  Cid and Barret had gone outside, apparently have an "educated" discussion about mechanics while they ate their healthy cereal.

Reno just stared blankly. "Did I miss something?"

"Reno, why can't you be a good Turk, just like Vincent was..." Yuffie replied.

"Hey, thank you."

Reno kept the blank expression, moving on to Tifa. "Hey, babe, can you-" he gurgled as his oxygen supply was abruptly cut off.  Tifa glared at him, and finally removed her hand from his throat.

"My name is not 'babe'." She snarled. "It's Tifa. TI - FA.  You want to sound that out again?" she pushed Reno away. "And make your own damn eggs."

"Uhh-huh.." Reno rubbed his neck. "God damn, am I the only sane person round here?" he sat down with his cereal in a huff, glaring at Tifa from time to time.

"Hey, Cloud..." Aeris said. "I like you.  You know that?  I tried to make it obvious, but you're a little dense."

Cloud sweatdropped, and watched Tifa launch herself at the Ancient with a shriek of rage.  The others, other than Reno, just ignored the massively clichéd bitch-slapping-fight.

"Whoo!" Reno cheered, his foul mood evaporated at the sight of the tussle. "BITCH FIGHT!!"

The fighting pair moved it to the tiled floor, rolling around in their attempts to rip out hair and eyes.

Rude entered the madhouse... uh, kitchen, sunnies on and a huge grin on his face.

"Whoa, the sun is just sooo out there this morning!" he beamed, completely ignoring the cat-fight, and throwing open the curtains. "Look!  Perfect day, right?"

"Dude, what the hell's with you today?" Reno demanded.  He leant over to feel Rude's temperature. "You sick or somethin?"

Rude knocked Reno's arm away. "Nope.  Oh hey!!  Mako loops!  I love them!" he proceeded to snatch away Reno's cereal. "Did you know that if you feed these to bird, they explode?"

Tseng appeared soon after, looking curiously at the fight on the tiled floor. "What's going on on your floor, Cloud?"

Cloud sighed. "Aeris and Tifa are fighting."

"Well, that's kinda obvious." Tseng grumbled. "Geez, whaddya take me for?"

"A not-too-bright Turk, obviously." Vincent looked up from his conversation with Yuffie.

"Not too bright?" Tseng glared. "That's just the other Turks, not me, remember."

"Oh," Vincent shrugged. "My mistake."

"HEY!!" Elena stomped into the room, holding her fist towards Tseng's face. "So I'm not too bright then?"

"Ah, settle down Elena." Tseng hurriedly backed away. "Hey, have you taken something?  You're acting a little bit more violent than usual."

"Yeah, hey, what the hell's up with you?" Reno added, an eyebrow raised in amusement.

"I'm sick of being treating like some fucking rookie, alright?" Elena snapped. "I could take ya all on myself!"

"Oh yeah?" Tseng could never refuse a challenge.  Soon, there were two fights on the kitchen floor.

Cloud groaned.  Reno looked at him sympathetically.

"Don't tell me they're like this all the time?" he asked curiously.

Cloud shook his head. "Are the Turks always like this?" He countered.  He couldn't help thinking about that weird dream. Is this all because of these weird dreams?

Vincent commented calmly, "You should break that up before something gets broken.  And then we'd all be screwed."
"Uh huh!  Damn, Aeris and Tifa are sooo pathetic!" Yuffie chimed in, pumping her fist.

"Damn straight.  You should see them when they go both swimming with Cloud..."

Vincent replied, and they faded into another conversation Cloud didn't want to hear.  Apparently, they both seemed to enjoy Aeris and Tifa fighting over him.  But, then again, he didn't exactly want to try to break up the two fights on the floor.

"Hey Rude," Reno finally said. "Can you get El' and Tseng to take that somewhere else?"

"Yeah sure, but why should I both when you can, hmm?" Rude countered smoothly, still gazing out the window with his Mako-loops.

Reno frowned. "...Damn, got no comeback for that one." He looked puzzled. "Why the hell'd I say that?"

"Losing your mind, Reno?" Rude asked. "Not a good thing for a Turk.  You know, a Turk back around Vincent's time had..."

He'd had enough.  Getting up, he placed his coffee mug in the sink, and walked out, all with a serene smile on his face.  Maybe if he denied it ever happening, he'd wake up and find everyone was normal again.  He bit back a sob.

Leaning against the doorframe, he gasped for breath. What the hell is going on?  Is everyone playing tricks on me?  Nah, it's too smart for them, and those guys couldn't agree on anything.

"This is so crazy." He muttered, rubbing his temples and trying to get his heart rate back to normal.  Then he heard muted piano music. "What the..." Sure, there was an old piano upstairs, but it was so old and broken no one bothered to use it.  So what was going on now?

Cloud ran up the stairs.  He didn't want to leave that group in the kitchen, but he didn't want hang around, either.  In the old ballroom was Cid and Barret, crouched over the old piece of junk.  They turned around when they heard him approach.

"Oh, hey Spike." Cid greeted, waving with a spanner. "We just decided to fix this old piano."

Barret nodded. "Yeah, it'll sound really nice when we've finished."

Cid, and Barret, working together?? That's impossible.  And them actually liking the sound of a piano... even weirder.

"Uh, I didn't know you liked pianos." Cloud said, not willing to go any closer.

"Yeah, they're quite nice, actually." Cid said, nodding before disappearing under the piano again. "Not as good as an airplane, but quite close."

"Actually, I find pianos a much more soothing than the sound of an airplane." Barret countered reasonably. "And you don't have to go into the air to hear it."

"That's true, but..."

Cloud shuddered.  These two, having a normal, sane conversation, is something I would never have dreamed of... Hey, maybe if I go back to sleep, I'll wake up and everything will be normal.

He cheered slightly at the prospect of everything being the way it was, and exited quietly, heading for his room.  He was sure Cloud and Barret had completely forgotten his presence.  Opening his bedroom door, he yawned, already anticipating the cool sheets and quiet oblivion.  And almost fell in shock to find his room wasn't empty.

"Hi Cloud!" Aeris smiled at him from her seat on the end of his bed.

"Cloud..." Tifa glared at Aeris, and turned back with a cheery smile.

Uh oh...

Cloud looked at them, his mako-blue eyes wide in surprise. "Uh... uh... what're you doing... here?" he stammered, glancing nervously between them.

Aeris giggled.  Tifa made a face.

"Well, it's kinda obvious, really Cloud." She said matter-of-factly. "I want you to sent Aeris away, and tell me how much you love me."

Aeris slapped her, green eyes flashing in anger. "Shut up, bitch!  Cloudy loves me!"

"HE DOES NOT!" Tifa retorted, her fists already flying.

Cloud closed the door behind him as he escaped quickly.  The sounds of a fight followed behind him.  Shit!  Isn't there any room in the mansion where there isn't any psychotic people either fighting or... talking?

A peek into the kitchen showed that Tseng and Elena had taken their fight elsewhere, while he couild see Rude in the garden through the window, feeding the birds his Mako-loops, and cunning grin on his usual passive face. Reno was seated on the couch, drinking a beer.

"Hey, Cloud, you mind tellin me what the hell's goin on with these people?" he demanded when he saw the leader of AVALANCHE in the doorway.  "Thanks for the beer, by the way."

"Um, that's okay.  And I have no idea..." Cloud admitted, taking a seat beside Reno. "It looks like you or me haven't been affected by this... thing."

"Yeah, I've been thinkin it was like, some kinda poison in the water, but I dunno..." Reno shrugged. "It's freakin me out... Holy shit!  Why'm I tellin' you this shit!" he leapt up and stalked outside to try and talk some sense into his colleagues.

No, you've been affected by whatever this is, Cloud thought morosely. The difference with you is that you speak your thoughts all the time, unlike everyone else.  Hey, maybe there's a clue or something downstairs in the cellar.  Let's hope so.

He took a peak in Vincent's "room" as he went by.

"Check out this little bit here... see?  It squeaks!"

"Yeah, that totally sucks!  You should get another bed Vinnie..."

"Vinnie? Where the hell'd that name come from?  It makes me sound like a puppy. 'Here Vinnie!  Good boy...'"

Yuffie laughed. "Good Vinnie..."

Cloud shrugged, and continued into the cellar, where all the books from the Niebelheim Mansion had been dumped after the move.  He had always planned to organize the massive collection, but like many things, he'd never found the time.  Always breaking up some fight or another.

The cellar looked just the same as it did the last time he'd visited.  Thousands of books, old and new, were in piles reaching to the ceiling.  And there was a bonus of dust covering each one.  Cloud sighed, picking up the nearest one and blowing the dust coating off.

Looking through Hojo's old books, he found a whole number of interesting possibilities.

"Cursed by a witch on New Years... no, that can't be it, it's July.  Drank melted ice from the Ice-witch in the snow fields...haven't been there for a while.  Made love to... that's just WRONG! ...God, maybe it's just me hallucinating.  But I haven't been hit with any staus attacks, or been cursed lately, or smashed a mirror- no wait, that's bad luck.  Dammit!" he threw the book down in disgust, causing little piles of dust to explode into pretty little mushroom clouds.

"What's your problem?" Elena demanded, suddenly appearing from nowhere.

Cloud jumped, swinging around to see the blond Turk in the doorway, tapping her heel against the doorframe. "E-Elena!" he tensed his muscles.  With everyone's crazy mood swings lately, he wasn't taking any chances.  Besides, he already knew Elena was psychoticly violent.

"Yeah, well, who else could it be?" she 'tisked' impatiently. "Anyways, me and the other Turks," she almost spat the word. "Are going after those terrorists.  We'll be back here later." She stomped off, her heels clicking loudly on the stairs.

Cloud looked after her, and scratched her head wondering how he hadn't hear her arrive.  Elena wasn't really acting much different to usual, he realized, she was just a little less dense and passive.  Seems that some people's thoughts aren't as different to their actions.  He sank back into the overstuffed couch with a groan.  Unlike some people... namely Tifa and Vincent and Cid and Barret... hell, just his entire team.  Tifa was the real worry, though.  Her new personality, or just the personality she kept hidden all the time, was so drastically different to her normal sunny disposition.  It was hard to believe that she kept that hidden the whole time he'd known her.   But, then again, the whole tea thing from a few weeks ago had brought out parts of her personality he never wanted to see again.

"Hey, man, you feeling alright?" Vincent asked. "You look a little pale.. heh heh.." he laughed at his own little joke. Uninvited, he sat down in the adjacent chair.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Cloud replied tiredly.

"No, I'm not too sure about that," Vincent replied shrewdly.  He leaned forward in his chair and added, "you've been jumping all over the place, running in and out, saying weird things, just acting weird."

"Speaking of acting weird..." Cloud muttered to himself.  Looking up, he said, "Vincent, have you noticed anything weird about anyone else in the house this morning?" he watched Vincent lapse off into thought.

"Hmm..." he mused. "Well, now that you mention it, I've never seen Barret so hyped about a piano before."

Cloud sweatdropped. "That's all?!" he choked out. "That's the only thing you think is different to usual?  Not Tifa and Elena's new psychotic tendencies, not Rude's evil mako-loop habits, not Aeris and her inability to make coherent sense?  How about Cid and Barret's newly developed friendship and their good manners?  And what about you?  Why are you so damn perky?" he demanded, his stress reaching borderline, and breaking through it.

Vincent stared at the broken man in front of him, and carefully saying in the tone people use only for the mentally insane, "Cloud, I think you might be hallucinating."

Cloud just giggled madly. "I think so too..."

"Oh please." A deep voice remarked with a sneer. "I wasted my time, and he just thinks he's crazy."

Vincent looked around the shadowed room with mild curiosity.  It took him a few moments to notice the figure sitting on a pile of old books. "Sephiroth, I wasn't expecting you here." He greeted smoothly, patting Cloud on the head at the same time.

"I'm not surprised you're not surprised," Sephiroth commented dryly, and vanished to reappear on a closer pile of books.

"Hmm, that sounded clever," Vincent replied, picking one of the books beside his chair, blowing the dust away before opening the cover. "How's Jenova?"

"Oh, good good," Sephiroth shrugged. "A little bloated, but you get that."

Cloud slowly began to collect his thoughts, the sound of his nemesis chatting bringing him back from the brink of another mental breakdown.  Then he realised... it was his nemesis! Sephiroth!

"YOU!" he cried, his finger trained on the silver haired ex-megalomaniac.

"Cloud... you haven't got your sword here..." Vincent hissed.

Cloud belated realized that, and withdrew his hand, scratching his head instead. "Aren't you dead?" he asked, curious now, after the initial shock had dropped back into denial.

Sephiroth rolled his green eyes, and a little smirk appeared on his elegant face. "Cloud, sometimes I wonder how you defeated me," he said with a shake of his head.

Cloud just stared up at him blankly. "What do you mean?" he asked dumbly.

                                                            Flash.

                        Thousands of Phoenix Pinions, floating into the lifestream.

                                                            Flash. 

"Oh, shit." Cloud uttered dully as he realized.  He realized, as his earlier state of denial vanished, that his most hated enemy, the General Sephiroth, who summoned METEOR, as well as doing a whole lot of crazy shit, was sitting just above him. "If you'll give me a second, I'll get the Ultima Sword, and finish you off for GOOD!"

He was about to run to his bedroom, when he noticed that Sephiroth hadn't moved.  In fact, he hadn't even reacted.

"Um, Sephiroth?" Cloud asked. "Are you just going to sit there while I cut you up?" An honorable suggestion, he thought proudly.

The great General just shrugged, and vanished to appear relaxing comfortably on the seat Cloud had just vacated. "Not like it wouldn't be fun to cut you up," he replied thoughtfully. "I'm not really interested in that anymore."

Cloud's jaw dropped. "..."

"The whole possessed maniac thing's kinda passed now," Sephiroth continued mildly, flicking a speck of dust from his shoulder pad.

"Oh..." Cloud just nodded. "So... it was you who made everyone else go crazy?"

"Didn't you want to know what people were really thinking?" Sephiroth asked in an innocent tone. "I thought I was doing you a favor."

Vincent smirked. "Some favor."

"But... how?" Cloud asked dumbly.

"Really, Strife, being dead does wonders for a person." Sephiroth replied coolly.

"Ahh!!  There you are!"

Sephiroth's face instantly darkened as the trio's attention was drawn to a greasy looking figure standing, stooping rather, in front of them.

"What do you want now, Hojo?  I told you to stop following me."

"HOJO?!" Vincent and Cloud exclaimed.

"Yes, yes, I know.  But I want to be near you, my son!" Hojo reached out to Sephiroth, who batted his hand away.

"Get away from me.  And I'm NOT your son!"  His tone suggested to Cloud that they'd had this argument before.

Besides him, Vincent was clenching his fist.  And claw.  "Hojo..."

Hojo's glasses flickered as he turned to the ex-Turk. "Oh, Vincent, how's it going?" he asked in his slimey voice.

"Grr..."

"Oh, but you can't turn into Chaos anymore!" Hojo continued. "So what're you gonna do now, heh heh... uh oh."

Vincent was holding the Death Penalty in his hand.  Hojo gulped, and began to half-run, half-shuffle to the doorway.

"Come back here, you bastard!" Vincent yelled, giving chase.

Cloud and Sephiroth listened as the sound of shouts, gunfire, and smashed glass filled their ears.

"TAKE YOUR GOD DAMN FIGHT OUTSIDE!!!"

Cloud sighed.  Tifa.

The front door opened, then slammed.  The lights dimmed for a moment, then returned to their usual dull lustre.

"Can you turn them back to normal, please?" Cloud finally asked.  He'd thought it over for a few moments, and decided that a peaceful house and owing Sephiroth was better than living with 5 or so crazy people.

Sephiroth shrugged. "Aren't you going to ask why I did it?" he asked, his green eyes piercing Cloud's mako-blue ones.

'That would be clever...' Cloud's inner voice remarked. "Ok," he said aloud. "Why?"

Another shrug. "Because I can."

Cloud sweatdropped.

"And because they said it's time for Aeris to come back."

"Who is they?" Cloud asked curiously. He remember Aeris speaking of a them a while ago, but he'd forgotten to ask...

"They... is them." Sephiroth replied expansively, his face blank but his eyes mirthful.

"Um..."

"You wouldn't understand, since you're not dead." Sephiroth, in the space of an instant, had drawn the Masamune and hit Cloud over the back of the head with the flat of the blade.  Cloud found himself falling into the sweet oblivion, and heard the words, "Sleep now..."

And everything shattered into blessed darkness.

***

He woke up with a mouthful of dust.  Rolling over and coughing it all back up, he realised belatedly that he was on the floor in the cellar.

Sephiroth.

Hojo.

Aeris.

In a flash, he was on his feet, running upstairs.  Almost skidding around the corner to the kitchen, he stopped still at the sight of his friends at the kitchen table.

"Morning Cloud!" was the general greeting, as he strode over to the coffee maker.  As the beans were ground, he turned to look at his team.  Cid had a cigarette, and dumping the ashes into Barret's orange juice while the massive man was retying his shoelaces.  Vincent was behind his daily newspaper, reading silently.  And Tifa was walking towards him with a smile.

"Aeris left early this morning," she said, her face displaying a hint of satisfaction though her voice was good-natured. "I don't think she wanted to wake you."

He noticed that she didn't comment on exactly where he was sleeping.

"And the Turks?" he asked, as he noticed the four blue suited Turks weren't there.

"They left this morning, too." Tifa gave him a small smile. "I heard Reno complaining as they left."  She handed him a piece of paper from her pocket. "This is from them."

Cloud carefully unfolded it and read Tseng's impeccable writing. 'Thanks for the hospitality?' He thought in amusement, reading Tseng's polite, but obviously insincere note.  He handed the sheet back with a grin.

"Hope they won't be returning too soon," he commented, turning back to his now percolated coffee beans.  He added hot water and milk, and followed Tifa back to the bench.

"HEY!" Barret suddenly bellowed, making an effort not to spit his orange juice all over the table. "Who tha HELL put crap in my juice?!"

Everyone looked at Cid, who was stubbing his cigarette in his eggcup.

Cid drew himself up in outrage. "Why the %&^# are you all lookin' at me?" he demanded. "I never $&^%&^# put no ^$&#% in his" he gestured with an elbow to Barret. "$#^&$# drink!"

"We SAW you, old man!" Yuffie burst in with her high pitched voice. "It's your ash!"

"&^^&* you too!" Cid retorted.

"Stop swearing, Cid," Tifa admonished with a severe expression. "And go and get Barret some more juice."

"Yeah, %&^% em." Cid slouched off to the fridge, cupping the flame of the match as he lit up another cigarette.  He flicked the match to the floor, watching the burst of sparks it sent up on its path. 

It almost scared him to death when the smoke alarm went off from directly above him.

"%&&$!!!" he cried, dropping his cigarette in surprise. "#@%&#$#%!!" he added, cursing the loss of his cigarette.

"You foo!" Barret lumbered over to the alarm, flicked it off and sending the room into silence.

"Really Cid, you should smoke outside from now on," Cloud warned good-naturedly. 

"Yeah, yeah..." Cid made for the door, still cursing and muttering under his breath.

"We'll come to your funeral!" Yuffie sang after him.

"We're going to have to do something about that," Tifa said, her face taking on fierce determination. "He smokes too much, it's not good for him."

"Swears too much as well," Cloud added. "I'll talk to him about it later."

Tifa gave him her brightest smile. "Thanks Cloud."

Yuffie got up, rolling her gray eyes and gagging. "Ohh, thank you Cloud,  you're my hero, Cloud, I want to have thousands of your babies..."

"YUFFIE!" Tifa squawked, her face turning crimson as she chased the little thief out the kitchen door.

"Gonna go finish some work..." Barret muttered, treading out the door and up the stairs.  Soon after, the faint strains of piano music whispered in their ears.

"So... it's just you and me, Vince," Cloud said, finishing off his coffee and putting his mug in the sink.

"I'm going hunting with Sephiroth." Vincent replied flatly, beginning to neatly fold his newspaper.

"Oh." Cloud replied.  Out of all his friends, only Vincent had seen the General, and remembered it. "So what are you hunting?"

"Hojo." Vincent replied, leaving the paper on the table as he left.

Cloud sighed.  Walking out the back door, he decided to have that talk with Cid.

***

To be continued!  Next up, Cloud's out to fix Cid's swearing and smoking problems, Yuffie develops narcolepsy, a brief visit from Shera, and cameo's from random dead people!

R&R is (VERY!!!) welcome, and I'll *hopefully* get the next chapter out soon.  By soon, I mean eventually...