Last chapter was a bit of a downer, and I'm afraid that this one is going to be even grimmer. People with gore problems are advised to skim; vividly described blood ahoy. On the plus side, my writer's block has marginally improved. This chapter is very odd; I seem to be getting better at writing on my computer, because this chapter was completely written in the same day as the one before it.

Second note: I'm posting this a bit early, not that I think anybody minds, because I forsee iminent loss of net priveledges in my future. If you don't hear from me for a while, it means I did get grounded, not that I quite writing. Furthermore, I had much less time to edit this, so please bear with the mistakes.

Cloud's PoV

I locked my bike to the rack with the ease of several months practice and looked up at the overcast sky. It was finally cooling down to what I considered proper summer weather, but that was all right; it had finally sunk in that I wouldn't have to deal with snow this year. I headed for my first class with a small smile playing about my lips. Things had gotten better lately, with Leon not being nearly so hostile. Then again, I thought as I rubbed the bruise on my face, he certainly hadn't held back any, given the chance to hit me. That had been really stupid; Leon could have really hurt me, particularly since I wasn't really dodging. Dodging would have defeated the purpose. I still didn't know why, but something in me had trusted that he wouldn't hurt me. It had felt right at the time, but that didn't make it look any less stupid in hindsight.

Much of the day seemed to pass fairly quickly; it felt like, if I blinked, it would be tomorrow. Something, however, brought me down to earth very sharply last hour; I had the strangest conversation with Damian. He was writing something, with a sad look in his eyes that I had never seen before. Damien was normally so cheerful, it struck me as strange to see him so depressed.

"What are you writing?" Maybe that would explain what was wrong.

"A letter." Hairs along the back of my spine rose at his tone; sad and just a bit scared, with an undercurrent of something unidentifiable, but terrifying.

"To who?" Cloud Strife rule number one: never admit that you're scared.

"Leon." This puzzled me. It wasn't exactly hard for Damian to talk to Leon in person, after all.

"Why a letter? You could just talk to him." Damian was smiling, an odd, inhuman expression, like the edge of a drawn knife. Something in his face was just wrong, something missing or there that shouldn't be.

"Forget it." His hands flashed into sudden movement, and I had to steal myself not to flinch back. He folded whatever he had been writing, then slid it into an envelope with Leon's name written across the back in neat cursive. "When… it all happens, make sure he gets this." I took the letter with hands that were not quite shaking. This conversation was scaring the hell out of me.

"When what happens?" My temerity amazed me, despite it being a perfectly logical question. Something about Damian today was just scaring me, and I thought back to that night in August, when I had met him on Suicide Point. Damian laughed, softly, though there was no real mirth in it. The sound made me shiver, though I don't think he noticed.

"Trust me." He said. "You'll know once it's happened." The bell rang that instant, and I went to gather my stuff. By the time I had the letter safely stowed in my pack, Damian was gone. I walked out into the sunlight; after that odd encounter, even the harsh desert sun seemed slightly chilly. I biked home quickly.

Exercise is an excellent cure for thinking too much. Back in Massachusetts, there had been a dance studio near my house; dozens of different styles, and I had learned some of all of them. Every free moment I had was spent with Aerith, there, or at the martial arts studio they shared space with. When things were going badly, I always danced; it helped me find my balance. Today, when I got home, I took a boom box and ran the power cord out the window. The little room outside my window was shaded and cool; the water jars were mostly filled with water that would be truly icy by now. I turned on the radio, and I danced to any song that came on, any style, changing styles as quickly as the shadows on the flagstones changed in the wind. I must have danced for over an hour that way, doing my best not to think about anything. I didn't want to stop, because I knew my problems were waiting, only held at bay by the music and my movement.

Finally, though, I started to feel the burn in my muscles that said that I had done enough. I turned off the music and filled a bucket from one of the clay pots. They were down by half, this late in the day, but the water was mercifully cool when I dumped it over my head. I was feeling better now. I went into the house through the window, enjoying the chill of air-conditioning on my wet hair and skin. I fell asleep sitting in my desk chair, watching the wind make patterns with the leaves on the wooden lathe.

I managed to avoid thinking about Damian until Sunday night, when the most unlikely of people rang my doorbell. Leon. He looked nervous, distracted.

"Have you seen Damian? I can't get a hold of him." I was forced to shake my head, and Leon looked even more worried. His hair was sticking up oddly where he had run his hands through it so many times, and I wanted to tell him that whatever was wrong, it would be all right. I didn't; he wouldn't have listened if I had. Instead, I did the next best thing I could think of.

"Sorry, no. Want me to help look?" Leon shook his head, looking positively frantic.

"No, I'm sure I'll find him soon. I'll see you tomorrow, then." With that he headed back across the street, got into his car and drove away. I wondered distantly who he was trying to convince. It was only a hunch right now, but I had a feeling, in the back of my mind, that this was what Damian had meant. I pushed the thought away. No.

I waited for Leon the next day at the gate; I was pretty worried about him. He had seemed so frantic. He was a sight, walking in, too. His hair was even more disheveled than the night before, and his eyes had dark circles under them, as though he hadn't slept at all.

"Have you seen him?" were his first words to me, and once again, I had to shake my head. We headed in the direction of first hour, to be brought up short by a huge crowd just outside the library. It was unreigned chaos; everyone was shoving, trying to get to something on the benches in front of the library. Several people had pulled back, looking greenish. An official-type voice was shouting at people to stay back. I pushed my way through the crowd, with Leon at my shoulder, and the sight that met my eyes left little doubt as to Damian's meaning.

He lay sprawled across the concrete bench, his black hair framing his face like a halo, and his eyes were closed. Something dark red-brown streaked the bench and pooled on the concrete below it, the color eerily reminiscent of dried blood. I retched when I realized that it was dried blood. Damian lay as though he were merely asleep, his eyes closed peacfully, and blood spattered over his unaturally pale cheeks. His wrists were a mess, the inside of both fore-arms a meshwork of slashes. The skin had already darkened and begun to stink; fly's buzzed around what was clearly his coarps, yellowish bone showing in some of the deepest cuts. There was no doubt in my mind that he was dead, or how he had died; a box-cutter lay on the ground, inches from his outstretched fingers, innocent exept for its coating of something that could not quite be mistaken for mere rust. I looked away, trying very hard not to vomit, and my eyes fell on Leon.

His eyes were wide; shocked, and I had no doubt that even with his eyes closed, the macabre scene would remain printed on the insides of his eyes. His face had no color to it; his expression was non-existant; frozen. His face was completely blank, the shock not really having sunk in yet. I needed to get him out of here before it did, snap him out of this unatural stupor. I grabbed his arm and tugged, and he remained limp—neither moving with, nor resisting my pull. I called his name, trying to snap him out of it.

"Leon, Leon. Leon, wake up. We need to get you away from here." He turned those startling grey eyes towards me, and they were vacant—nobody home. It was like watching a delicate porcelain doll, somehow animated. I tugged harder on his arm, and this time he stumbled before following me slowly, as though walking in a dream. I wanted to get him home, his or mine, but I wasn't sure how. Walking was out of the question, with him in this trance-like state, bicycle doubly so. Yuffie caught up with us at the gate, looking not to much better than Leon, but at least she seemed self-aware.

"You're taking him home?" I nodded. If I could. "If you can get the keys, I'll drive. I'm not legal yet, but I know how." I nodded myself, showing I understood. I had seen this shocked frame of mind once before, Aerith when her mother had died. I knew how to deal with it this time around. No leeway for mistakes, not this time.

"Leon. Leon, keys?" He fished absently in his pocket, and then handed them to me, that awful, dead look still in his eyes. I knew for a fahct that he wasn't really aware of anything that was going on. I gave the keys to Yuffie, and somehow managed to get Leon into the backseat with me.

I wasn't thinking too clearly myself; the world had taken on a distinctly too-sharp edge, like it does when you stay up for three nights straight. I had only done that the once, but when I had, it had been like this; things going sharp instead of fuzzy at the edges, and a feeling that everything around you was too real to be a part of our reality. Leon was still just staring into space, with an unbelievably lost expression on his face. I had seen this before in Aerith, but truly, I was scarcly less lost now. I pulled him over so that his head lay in my lap and brushed the hair back from those vacent eyes, but he didn't react, didn't move.

We got to my house sooner than I believed possible, and brought him around the house to my little alcove in the backyard. He had gone limp now, so I had to half carry, half drag him. I had read somewhere, that the best way to get a person out of shock is to douse them with cold water. I had gotten in the habit, since I moved in, of filling the large jars before I left for school in the morning, so the water wasn't very cold yet. I hoped it would be cold enough.

"Yuff, do you think you can get a change of clothes for him? He's going to be pretty wet." She nodded, her lips so tight they were almost white, and I realized that she must have seen Damian, too. She left as I filled an old metal bucket with the cool water. First bucket was for Leon; it didn't seem to have any effect, but damn if I was going to give up. Second bucket went over my own head, in an attempt to clear it slightly. It worked, too—the cold helped me focus. I filled the bucket again, and dumped it on Leon. This time, it almost worked—I saw him twitch, before he froze down again. Well, third time's the charm. I refilled the bucket, and splashed him with it, right in the face. This time, he blinked a bit, and sputtered, but when he opened his eyes, the were filled with his own ascerbic personality. His expression hadn't changed much at all, but any fool could see the depths of the anguish in his eyes. He looked at me for a long moment, and when he spoke, it was in an utterly broken tone that made my heart ache in sympathy.

"Tell me I'm dreaming." He said. "Please?" I couldn't bring myself to answer that much pain. Apparently, my silence was answer enough.

He broke down—silent crying that was more heartbreaking to watch than loud sobbing would have been. I knelt beside him on the wet flags and held him, and he just leaned on my shoulder and cried. I spoke to him, though I didn't know even at the time what I said; nonsense words of reassurance, but they seemed to help him a bit. Any bit I could help him was more than important, vital. Yuffie showed up at some point with dry clothes, then left to put together lunch; it had taken her a while to sneak past Leon's mother, and it was now nearly noon, and leon still wept, his head on my chest. I held him tighter, still whispering to him.

It seemed wrong, to see Leon like this; he was always the strong one, hating to be seen as weak more than anything. It didn't seem right, that he should be hurting so much. Leon was supposed to be happy; a cheerfulness masked by a certain clever sarcasm, an inherintly honest heart that balanced paralell streaks of ruthlessness and overwhelming compassion. It didn't seem fair that the world would do this to him. He wasn't born to hurt like this. I held him tighter, and slowly the tears came fewer, then stopped. He looked up at me, and I could tell the pain hadn't eased a bit; he just couldn't stand to cry anymore. I looked back, trying to put all the sypathy I felt in my eyes.

I led him into the house, and he changed into the dry clothes. Yuffie had picked out an outfit I had never seen him in before; a white button-down shirt and a pair of blue jeans. It seemed odd to see Leon in a color other than black, but I had to admit the white suited him just as well. When he was dressed, he lay down on my bed, and I pulled the covers over him. He watched me, as trusting as a child, and neither of us spoke. The world seemed to fragile to trust with words; Leon seemed fragile enough to shatter with a breath. He fell asleep, finally, and only then, when I tried to move away from him, did I notice that his hand was still clasped firmly around mine.