Cloud woke up, which was a little strange since he didn't remember going to sleep in the first place. He stared blearily up at the darkened, unfamiliar ceiling. What had he been doing? Something important. Something...was this the explosions plan or the kidnapping plan? No, wait, he'd already done the kidnapping plan.
Hadn't he?
Degradation, the voice that sounded like Tifa reminded him helpfully.
Right. He'd been fixing the Commanders' degradation as Zack asked—begged, really, because Cloud didn't particularly care. But the guy had died for him, so assaulting two First Class SOLDIERs in broad daylight was really the least Cloud could do in return.
Yeah, and how'd that go, dumbass, asked the voice that sounded like himself back when he thought he was Zack.
Hey, it worked didn't it! Zack-voice said heatedly.
"It did work," Cloud mumbled in agreement, which was technically true even if the Commanders had then dragged him back to the Tower like an extremely ill-advised choice of hostage. He sat up, rubbing at his eyes, and realized that he felt...weirdly clean, and comfortable, and warm, none of which had really been high on his list of priorities since he'd been unceremoniously stuffed into his old body like Palmer into a suit two sizes too optimistic. He patted at his chest, surprised to find that all the small wounds he'd been ignoring were gone and someone had put him in an old grey tee.
It couldn't have been either of the Commanders, could it? Why would they bother?
Cloud tossed the heavy duvet off his legs, equally surprised to find a tatty old pair of sweatpants that he...thought used to be his, way back before Nibelheim and Hojo and all that mess. It made him pause, head swimming, but the memory didn't get any clearer.
Focus, Zack whispered.
Right. He stood, swaying a little, and stumbled out of the small room. He didn't recognize the apartment, which he definitely would have if he'd ever been there before, because it was covered in plants. He couldn't hear anyone, though he thought someone might have been in the neighboring apartment. They were humming absently.
He put a hand to his head. Where was he? And why? He remembered...hadn't they been taking him to one of the doctors? Science...no. Sephiroth had been there. And now he was alone in an apartment for some reason?
Of course, then Cloud's stomach growled loudly and he lost that entire train of thought in favor of a different one. He was unsupervised in an apartment that had a very solid shot of having a fully-stocked pantry. It had been a long, long time since he'd had more than scraps. Without an ounce of shame, and poked around until he found the kitchen and gleefully opened the fridge.
It was full to bursting. The grin that crossed his face was so wide it hurt.
He might have lost track of his surroundings as he sat against the cabinets next to the sink and devoured several containers of cold leftovers, too hungry to bother heating them up first. They were utterly delicious, even compared to a normal hot meal. Who the hell could cook like this?
"Cloud?"
He startled, leg jerking into the stack of empty containers and knocking it over with a loud clatter. Hewley was standing in the doorway, blinking at him in shock. Well, that answered that question, though it raised a lot more.
"...hey," Cloud said lamely. It came out a little muffled around the fork.
"How are you awake?" the Commander asked with an odd twist to his lips, walking forward enough to drop two armfuls of bags onto the kitchen table. "You've only been asleep for four hours."
Cloud stared. "Four hours?" he asked in disbelief. "Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure," Hewley said dryly, rounding the table to crouch by Cloud. "You should have slept for ten hours minimum." He looked at the stack —pile, now —of empty dishes and arched a brow. "Stomach wake you up?"
Cloud was still staring into the middle distance, reeling at the thought of four hours of dreamless sleep. "Um."
Hewley sighed. "Finish eating and then you're going back to bed."
"Huh?" Cloud blinked at him, finally lowing the fork from his mouth. "No, I'm fine now. Four hours is more than enough." Way more than enough.
The man's eyebrows shot toward his hairline in disbelief. A look of realization crossed his face. He sighed and bent in a sort of stilted movement bury his face in one hand. "I —no. No, Cloud, it's really, really not enough. Did anyone ever explain exactly how mako alters your body's needs and capabilities?"
Cloud opened his mouth to say yes, but...no, actually. He'd just kind of...woken up enhanced, and none of Zack's memories had really filled in the gaps. There was a certain instinct about what to do, of course, based on normal human body functions. It wasn't like his stomach stopped growling or anything. But if Hewley was saying it like that then maybe he'd missed out on something vital.
Cloud closed his mouth with a click.
Hewley drew in another deep breath, raising his head and turning his eyes to the ceiling as if he was begging the gods for strength. "Yeah, I thought so. Kid, mako enhancement is...not strictly biological. You may need less sleep when you're out in the field, under stress, but as soon as you're out of danger? You need more sleep than an unenhanced person. More sleep, more food, more maintenance. It's a trade-off."
Cloud stared. Oh. Ooooooh. That...made a lot of sense, actually. And explained some things. A lot of things. A sheepish grimace slowly crossed his face. Oops. He felt the sudden urge to apologize to...all of AVALANCHE, basically.
"Yeah," Hewley said, watching the realization dawn. "So. You're going to finish what you're eating and go back to bed." It wasn't a suggestion. He stood, effectively ending the discussion, and started dealing with the bags he'd left on the table.
Cloud slowly ate another forkful of the (fucking delicious) leftovers, thinking hard. Privately, he decided he wouldn't be going back to sleep even if he started feeling tired again by some miracle. It wasn't like he was actually 'out of the field,' so to speak.
But he had assaulted Hewley, and whatever the motivation for kitting him out like a guest instead of tossing him to the Turks or to Medical, he doubted he would be allowed to just get up and leave. Better to smile and nod and then vanish when they turned their backs.
So he stretched his legs out in front of him, and flexed the stiffness from his toes, and continued eating without a single complaint.
He didn't even make it through the rest of the bowl before he was out cold.
Angeal froze as Cloud's vitals suddenly plunged for the second time in less than twelve hours. It was only the memory of the first time that allowed him to calmly set down the groceries he was sorting and check on the idiot teenager he'd been saddled with. Cloud was dead to the world against the cabinets, head tilted back awkwardly and mouth slack as the fork and container threatened to slip from his grasp. When Angeal triple-checked his pulse, pulling off a glove and setting his fingertips on the side of Cloud's neck, it was strong and even.
Angeal sat back on his haunches and looked hard at Cloud. He shouldn't have collapsed that quickly —or at least, he shouldn't have unless he was in a much rougher state than Angeal originally thought.
Or unless he was more enhanced than Angeal had assumed. Enhanced beyond Second. Enhanced beyond First. One of Genesis's offhanded comments from earlier stuck in his mind: Look, come see his eyes. They have so much mako that there's green in them.
Carefully, remembering how Cloud had woken up when Sephiroth had done the same, he thumbed one eye open. The iris was a much brighter blue now, after food and sleep and medical attention, with shining green threads winding around his ciliary ring. The glow seemed to be getting stronger even as he watched.
He withdrew his hand and sighed deeply. Of course the idiot teenager who'd never had a proper introduction to his enhancements would somehow be pumped full of enough mako to rival Sephiroth. And of course he'd been actively pushing his limits by not sleeping or eating or cleaning out his wounds properly.
Forget the past few weeks —how had Cloud survived the first few days? He was adapting both freakishly well (not a single one of Angeal's dishes had been broken , for a start) and catastrophically badly.
And now all this mess was Angeal's problem. The meanest, pettiest part of him wondered if he could sneakily pass Cloud back off to Genesis. Luckily, his honor was far stronger than his pettiness—he didn't want the kid dead.
It was still tempting. Genesis deserved to try and sort this out himself.
Angeal took the bowl and fork from Cloud's slack hands and gathered up the rest of the dishes while he was at it, dumping everything into the sink for later. He hauled Cloud up and returned him to the guest bedroom, all without the kid so much as twitching at the change. He was just going back to putting away the groceries when his front door opened and a familiar pair of heels clicked across the threshold.
"Angeal, my friend, I've done us all a very impressive favor!" Genesis sang as he strutted in, pleased as a peacock.
Angeal tilted his head back and resisted the urge to immediately toss his childhood best friend out on his ass, just for a few minutes without another crisis to handle. "Genesis, don't I already have enough to deal with?"
Genesis tsk'd at him, smiling like the cat who got the cream. "Such a pessimist. I went out of my way to solve problems and do expedited paperwork and this is the thanks I get?"
A chill went down Angeal's spine. Genesis, voluntarily doing paperwork? That could only mean trouble of the catastrophic interdepartmental variety. He dropped the groceries and rounded on him. "What did you do?"
Genesis looked somewhere between smug and gleeful. "I paid a visit to Lazard and a few other people to arrange things is all. You'll be pleased to know that 'Cloud Strife' is now not KIA and has been enlisted as a Third in the SOLDIER program."
Angeal could feel his hands creeping up toward Genesis's neck. That was all bad enough —he'd no doubt done something highly illegal to make it happen so quickly —but Angeal knew the unholy gleam in his eye. "And what else?" he demanded, a sinking feeling in his gut. He wouldn't dare to do something as stupid as…?
He got a grin in response. "Well...I may have a new apprentice."
HE HAD.
Suddenly it was no longer two mature, responsible First Class SOLDIERs having a conversation in the kitchen —it was a pissed-off twenty-something man and his idiotic best friend. "GENESIS RHAPSODOS!" Angeal lunged, intent on a good strangling. Genesis cackled, dodging, and bolted for the door with Angeal chasing after him. "GET BACK HERE!"
"Quiet, Ange, you'll wake Cloud!" Genesis called over his shoulder.
"I'll show you quiet!"
"That doesn't make any sense!"
The door slammed shut behind them.
In the guest room, Cloud mumbled something, burrowed deeper under the covers, and continued sleeping.
Several floors down, Sephiroth was having something of a crisis as he stared at the innocent-looking vial of theoretically-just-water in his hand. Every test was coming back with the exact same assessment: water. Normal, pure, neutral pH water. No additives. Only the barest traces of the usual minerals that drinking water contained. He stared into it, taking in the completely normal way it refracted the light across his black glove, and willed it to reveal its secrets.
Sephiroth knew the placebo effect was real and powerful, but it relied on the subject actually believing the placebo material had an effect. Genesis certainly hadn't believed so, and even if he had a placebo couldn't cure something like a wound that refused to heal. Get rid of the pain, maybe, but actually close a flesh wound in seconds? No.
Impossible. Purely and utterly impossible.
So there had to be something in the vial that the standard tests were missing. There was an answer here, an anomaly, and Sephiroth was going to find it. He tucked the vial back in his coat pocket and pulled out his PHS. It would take some research first to compile an appropriate list of less-common tests to run, but with the right preparation it wouldn't be long until he solved this infuriating mystery and finally got the answers he, Genesis, and Angeal all sorely needed.
