To the Morrow, For the Past
Chapter 17 – A New Direction
This was not something that he'd looked forward to. In fact, he'd hoped that he wouldn't have had to do this at all. He didn't want her to have anything to do with this, he wanted her to stay as innocent and care free as she possibly could. He wanted to work hard to make sure that she never had to face the dangers and uncertainty that she'd been through in his time.
But he had little doubt as to who Zeke had been talking about. There were only two entities that he would use that term and tone of voice for. One was Aerith, the other was the planet herself. Either way, Cloud knew where he had to go, and either way, he would end up speaking to Aerith.
She was there, of course, tending to her flowers. Above the plate, the sun had set a few hours ago, but it wasn't too late. He remembered her saying that she liked to stay with the flowers as long as she could, and that the church had been a calming and tranquil place for her.
When he walked through the doors, she looked up, a curious, then sad look on her face.
"Hello Cloud." She said, a soft smile playing at her lips.
She looked almost the same as he remembered her. Small, thin, but strong of will and heart. Her hair was the same as it always had been, and her green eyes looked at him with the same fondness. She was even wearing the same pink outfit that he'd seen her wear in their travels. If it wasn't for the fact that she looked younger, he may have mistaken her for his Aerith.
But... the way she was looking at him...
He took a few hesitant steps forward, vaguely noticing footsteps behind him. He paid them no mind, too caught up in seeing her alive for the first time in almost a decade. "Aerith..." He said quietly, swallowing the lump in his throat as he made his legs move forward, one at a time. Eventually, he was stood not far from her. He looked down at her, trying to keep his emotions in check.
And then, she said two words that brought him crashing down to his knees.
"I remember."
She caught him as he collapsed and knelt down with him, her hands moving from his shoulders to take his hands. "It's okay, Cloud." She said quietly, her voice for him only. He struggled to breathe through the crushing guilt and horror. How? How did she remember things that hadn't happened to her yet? "The planet gave me her-my memories." She was still speaking to him, but all Cloud could think was why. Why had the planet been so cruel? Why had it stripped away her innocence? Why had it showed her the horrors that their last journey had been full of.
"Cloud." Aerith's voice finally broke through the emotions enough for him to look at her. She was still smiling softly. She was so strong. She'd always been so damn strong. Even at the last minute. "Oh, you silly man." She scolded him lightly, pulling him into an embrace. "Are you still feeling guilty?" She tutted at him and he could feel her shaking her head. "Didn't I already tell you that you're forgiven?" She sighed, "Why does nobody ever listen to me?"
After a moment, she pulled back and stood, her hands on his shoulders bringing him to his feet too. "I'm sorry." He said, finally able to say it to her living face.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You're already forgiven!" She slapped him lightly on the arm. "I know why you're here." She added, moving to sit on one of the pews. Cloud followed, still hardily believing what was happening.
After a few moments, they were joined by Zeke, who sat on the floor in front of them cross legged. He looked up at Aerith and she started to speak.
"You're not here for Sephiroth." She said, and Cloud straightened up, his eyes widening slightly. He wasn't? That was new. He hadn't even considered that possibility. "Well.. not directly." Aerith corrected herself.
"Then..?" He prompted.
"Jenova. Or... Jenova's... people. They're coming."
There was a silence for a moment before Aerith frowned and shook her head. "Maybe I should start from the beginning." She said, nodding to herself.
"You both know about the lifestream." When they nodded, she continued, "Well, the lifestream also connects other versions of the same planet together." She frowned, apparently confusing herself. She sighed, "It's hard to explain..."
"The timelines are separate." Cloud said softly, having figured this out already, "I've been to three separate timelines. The one that I come from, the one that Zack comes from -" He gestured to Zeke, "And this one."
"Right!" Aerith agreed brightly. She always made everything brighter. "Well, the planet can see them all. The lifestream runs through them all. As long as one of the timelines survives, the planet does too, and new timelines are created. If all but one timeline ends, then all the new ones come from that one. Does that make sense?" She asked, unsure.
Cloud nodded, and after a moment, Zeke did too. They waited for her to continue.
"Well, that might happen. In some of the timelines, we weren't in time to stop Meteorfall. In others Omega came and the world died." Cloud would have to ask about that later. He'd never heard of Omega before. But for now, he was going to let Aerith speak. It was so good to hear her speaking. "There aren't many left, and Jenova's people are on their way."
"So what do we need to do?" That was all it came down to, really. Or at least, he thought that that was all it had come down to.
A sad look fell onto Aerith's face, as Zeke spoke up. "Wait... does that mean that this is the only timeline that'll survive?" He asked quietly, "What about Tifa? Denzel? Marlene? What about Vincent and all the others?" Tears were falling from his eyes and suddenly he looked like the nine year old he truly was. He was afraid for his friends, for his family.
Cloud sunk down from the pew and wrapped his arms around his son, looking up at Aerith and pleading with her to tell them that Zeke was wrong. That when this was all done, they could go home. Instead, she slowly nodded, "That's right." She said quietly.
"Why this one?" Cloud found himself asking. "Hasn't our world been through enough?"
"The planet realised that there was no way to defeat them. Not in your timeline. It tried, but it saw that one wasn't enough." She was looking at Zeke, "I'm sorry." She said quietly, "But... the I'm the last of the Cetra, or I was. Normal humans wont be able to do anything to help and it took almost all of my people last time. But now... Zeke, you know you're Cetra, right?" Zeke nodded, "Which means that the Sephiroth of this world is one too. The planet used most of her strength to bring you two together, and then to bring you here. She can't gather enough energy to send anybody else. So... it's up to us."
"How are we supposed to beat them?" Cloud asked. Even though he wasn't Cetra, there was no way he was leaving them alone. No way he'd let them fight without him. Not this time. He was planning on fighting in any way he could.
"First, we need to stop the Jenova that's already here." She said, "After that... I'm not sure yet."
"Okay..." Cloud shifted to pull Zeke on to his lap, to hold him close like he had when Zeke had been a baby. "I get that you need more Cetra, and Sephiroth was made to be one," he said slowly, "But why me?" He asked, "I'm not Cetra."
Aerith shook her head and thought for a moment, finger on the corner of her mouth. She seemed like she was listening to something – and Cloud realised that she was. The planet was talking to her. She frowned before an understanding smile crossed her lips.
"Because you are Nexis." She said quietly, "Intertwined." Cloud just looked at her blankly and she wrinkled her face, thinking on her next words. "Sometimes, rarely, when a person returns to the planet, their connection to someone they love is so strong that it can break the barrier between death. Your souls are so connected, that the even the planet can't keep them apart."
"Like when you would... talk to me?" Cloud asked, trying to understand.
Aerith shook her head, "Not... exactly. The bond between the two of you is how Sephiroth kept coming back. His soul called out to yours and found you, he used it as an anchor to come back."
Zeke looked between them for a moment, "What, like...Soul mates?"
Cloud looked down at his son, frowning. That had some... connotations that he didn't want to think about. He looked at Aerith, hoping that she would deny it.
"That's an old way of thinking about it." She said with a small nod, "But it's not always romantic." She assured Cloud, "Sometimes it's love: between a parent and child, between brothers, comrades, friends. Sometimes it is romantic. Some time's it's not love, but a hate so strong that it burns at the soul."
"So... functionally, as long as I'm around, Sephiroth will keep coming back?" Cloud asked, now understanding why he was needed. If one of them fell, they would come back to him. As disturbing as that thought was, it was also kind of comforting. He held his boy a little tighter.
"If their will to return is strong enough." Aerith said, "If they want to come back. They have to want to come back so completely that it all but consumes them."
Cloud nodded. He was still a little thrown by the whole soul mates thing. It certainly explained a few things. Like how one of his first thoughts was that he needed to get close to Sephiroth. The desire to know him, to be friends with him. His complete reluctance to hurt him. It also explained Sephiroth's feelings towards him and his own complicated feelings. If their souls were... connected through strong emotion, then Cloud would much rather it be this than hate.
He looked down at his boy. It explained things there too. How quickly he'd grown attached to him, how quickly he loved him. And how much he'd missed him. He squeezed slightly and felt Zeke squeeze his arm in return.
Aerith smiled softly at them. "It's rare. Very rare. But we can use it." She said quietly, "I can teach you how to use it. If you know how to do it, you can use the connection to find each other, to protect each other." She tilted her head to the side and nodded.
"But we have a more important mission." She said quietly, "We have to find a way to completely destroy Jenova. I can't do it like I did in your time." She said, "I can't make the rain from here."
So she would have to be dead to do things that way again. Cloud wouldn't let that happen. Not a chance. Not again.
"We'll find another way." Cloud promised, meaning every word.
Aerith nodded with a smile, "We need to find a way to destroy her without her returning to the lifestream." She added, "She took over a host, the body was Cetra before she took it." She told them. "If we kill the host, Jenova will return with her to the lifestream."
That... made things trickier. How do you kill something without actually killing it? How do you stop a living thing from returning to the lifestream. Cloud had no idea, and if Aerith didn't know, he didn't know who would.
He nodded anyway. They would think of something.
Zeke shifted slightly in Cloud's lap and looked up at his dad, "Do you think... maybe there might be some information in the labs?" He asked quietly. Neither of them wanted Cloud to get close to the labs, they both knew how risky it was, but it was the only lead they had.
"I can't say for sure, but I'll think of a way of finding out."
– – – – – –
Zack and Sephiroth were both waiting for Cloud when he let himself back in through Zack's window. They waited for him to get inside before turning to him, expectant looks on their faces. They probably wanted an explanation for his sudden disappearance.
"Uh..." How did he explain any of what he'd just found out. He sighed and went to the mini fridge. He retrieved a beer and handed it to Zack before sitting down on the couch. "You both know where I'm from." He said quietly.
The other two looked at each other, and shrugged, "When you're from, you mean?" Sephiroth asked, re-taking his seat beside Cloud.
"Yeah. Well... I found out why I'm here. What my mission is." He said, "But... If I tell you guys, I'll have to give some background." He turned to Sephiroth, "About Jenova."
There was a pause as Sephiroth thought. He looked at Cloud, then at Zack before giving a single, hesitant nod.
"What's Jenova?" Zack asked, sitting on the floor in front of the couch. He took a long drink from his beer.
"Two thousand years ago, something fell from the sky." Cloud started, "The Cetra- the Ancients – called it the Calamity. From what I can figure out, it was some sort of virus that infected the Cetra. It turned some to monsters and just killed others. It took nearly all the Cetra to contain it to the northern crater." The other two seemed to be keeping up so far, "A little under thirty years ago, Shinra scientists discovered the last remaining host of the Calamity and called her Jenova. They realised that she was an Ancient and decided to try to bring them back."
"Why?" Zack asked.
"Because legend states that the Cetra know the way to the promised land. A land of beauty where the lifestream is all around. Shinra wants to find it to tap it as a resource." It was an awful plan, and there was no way it could work. Cloud just smirked. "I've been there, I think." He told them, "It's the place that people go when they die – before they rejoin the lifestream." At least, that was his working theory. It made sense, and he was convinced that Aerith's otherworldly garden was the promised land. "You can't get there without either dying or being taken there by a Cetra who already died."
"And you knew a Cetra that died?" Sephiroth asked.
Cloud nodded, "Technically two." He said.
"Okay, so Shinra was trying to make new Cetra using this Jenova thing." Zack prompted, "How did that turn out?"
Cloud looked at Sephiroth who shrugged. "I'm not Cetra." He pointed out and Cloud grimaced slightly before shaking his head.
"Yeah." He told him, "You kind of are. You just can't hear the planet because Jenova's blocking you. She's... kind of telepathic, and she has the ability to control people with her cells. If they let her."
They both looked at him, Zack with more questions, and Sephiroth with an answer. Cloud sighed and continued.
"There were a few experiments done on how to use her to make people Cetra. They thought they'd failed because none of the children could speak to the planet."
"Children!" Zack's eyes widened, "Shinra were experimenting on children!?"
Cloud blinked. How had Zack not known this? Hadn't Cloud told him? He couldn't quite remember what he'd told Zack and what he hadn't. Sephiroth spoke up before Cloud did.
"Not just children." He said quietly, "Apparently the experimentation done on me began before I was born." Zack's eyes somehow got wider and he stared at Sephiroth.
"The kids weren't able to speak to the planet, but they were enhanced. Strength. Intelligence. Agility. Speed. Height. Looks. Even their rate of growth was accelerated. They used that knowledge to continue experimenting until they found a way for it to work on older humans. Then, they created the SOLDIER project."
"So wait... the serum they inject SOLDIERs with..." Zack didn't seem to want to end his sentence, so Cloud nodded.
"Contains inactive J-Cells. Jenova cells." He confirmed. "Sephiroth and the other kids had active J-Cells introduced at different times of gestation."
"So Jenova could control any of the SOLDIERs?" Zack was paling a little and he guzzled down the rest of his beer.
Cloud shook his head, "No. The cells need to be active. She can't control dead cells. You also have to have a large number of them." The more, the better.
"But you said she could control you." Sephiroth pointed out.
"And you said you'd failed to get in to SOLDIER your first time..." Zack added.
Cloud nodded and took a breath. This was the part he hadn't exactly wanted to tell them. "I told you I spent four years in Hojo's lab?" He asked Zack, who nodded, "Sephiroth was... dead..." He grimaced as he felt the man shift beside him, "Hojo wanted to make copies of him. I... I'm a failed Sephiroth clone. I got my enhancements from the experiments, and I have active J-Cells and S-Cells – Sephiroth Cells."
There was silence for a moment, as the others processed what he had said. Cloud felt anxious, nervous as to their reactions, but neither men regarded him any differently. Beside him, Sephiroth spoke, his voice low and dangerous. "I will kill him." He announced.
Shocked, Cloud turned to Sephiroth. The man had a dark look on his face and Cloud didn't doubt that Sephiroth wanted to march up to the science department and run Hojo through right away. Cloud just shook his head, resting a hand on Sephiroth's arm. The man relaxed a little and looked at him.
"No. We... actually need him." He grimaced at the words. "I've been sent here to take out Jenova, but to do so in such a way that she doesn't enter the lifestream. She'll pollute it, and the planet won't have the strength to fight it off. She'll poison the planet, people will get sick and die... And we can't access the cure in this timeline."
"Okay..." Zack said slowly, "So why do we need Hojo?"
"Because he's the leading expert on Jenova." Cloud said, "He's pretty much the only source of information we have on her this side of Nibelheim."
"There's information in Nibelheim? Perhaps we should go there first?" Sephiroth questioned, if they could figure this out without Hojo, all the better. But Cloud shook his head.
"No. Jenova is there. I don't want any of us going anywhere near her until we know how to stop her. The last time... the last time you went there you..." He shook his head, "I had to kill you." He told him, "You went insane and burned the town down."
There was a hand on his arm now, and Cloud looked over to Sephiroth. For once, he couldn't read the emotions on the man's face, but he was reassured when Sephiroth nodded.
"Then I'll go and... speak with him." Sephiroth offered, "I'm sure I could persuade him to answer some questions."
It was an idea. Sephiroth often had to go to the science department. As far as Cloud knew, he would receive monthly check ups from Hojo himself. It wouldn't raise suspicion if Sephiroth went up there. It was a way in but...
"No." He said quietly, still thinking. "I don't want Hojo to know that you know anything about this. Not yet. It could be dangerous. I'll go."
"But wont Hojo do nasty things if you go up there? He's been wanting to get a hold of you for a while, to test you and stuff?" Zack put his empty beer bottle aside and watched Cloud expectantly.
He just shrugged, "I spent ten years travelling and fighting along side an ex-Turk. He trained me in infiltration and stealth. I'm no Turk, but I can probably get myself out of there easy enough."
"You know... one day you'll have to tell us everything." Sephiroth murmured. "I have a lot of curiosities about your life."
"When I've finished my mission..." Cloud said softly, "I'll be stuck in this timeline. After the mission... I'll answer all your questions."
"Does that mean you won't be able to go home?" Zack asked quietly and Cloud nodded, "But... what about -" He looked at Sephiroth then back at Cloud, "-What about your family?"
Cloud just shook his head and turned away. He didn't want to say it out loud. Saying it out loud made it true, made it real. He wasn't ready for that yet. At least he had Zeke. But until Shinra was brought down, or the entire science staff gone, Cloud couldn't trust anybody to know that. Not even his friends.
"If I don't complete my mission," He said instead, "The planet and everything on it will die."
Silence fell again, both men regarding him solemnly. "That's... heavy man." Zack let out a sigh, "But... we've got your back. You're not alone in this." Beside him, Sephiroth nodded.
Maybe.. maybe that would be enough.
– – – – – – –
