Author's note: After the last chapter was posted, my daughter (who actually is an artist, unlike me) explained that a sketch book actually is a private thing like a diary, and it's bad form to look through someone's sketches, even if they show you one of their drawings. She likened it to when you show someone a picture on your phone, and they then scroll through the rest of your camera roll. Duly noted. Shame on you, Cloud! (But cut him some slack – parenting is a perpetual learning experience!)
Chapter 6 – Out of the Woods
The road to the bottom of the mountain was as cold and treacherous as Denzel remembered. They went even slower on the way down, as the falling snow obscured the narrow path and camouflaged the edge of the cliff. The pace must have been excruciating for Cloud, who lived life on the razor edge of light speed, but it would have been too easy for Denzel to get hurt.
Unfortunately, the creatures of the mountain had more evolutionary advantages on the ice than Fenrir's tires, and a couple of shreds, looking eerily identical to the mother that Denzel had battled behind Web's cabin, were following the bike. They were gaining ground and would need to be dealt with, and Denzel had no intention of missing his shot at redemption.
He hooked his left arm through the back of Cloud's empty harness to brace himself as he twisted around in the seat. "I got this," Denzel yelled over the howling wind.
Cloud glanced over his shoulder to see the shreds closing in on the bike as he maneuvered it down the slippery trail. "All yours," he confirmed, turning his attention back to the road and speeding up as much as he dared.
Denzel held Skoll over his head, listening for the voices in the lifestream. He heard the whispers as clearly as ever in his mind, the external sounds of the howling wind and the powerful engine fading to a low hum. He focused the stream on the fire materia, charged it up through his sword, and swung it down.
The red wave shot out from the end of the sword, hitting one of the shreds squarely in the chest. It stumbled and fell back a few steps, emitting a horrible shriek that was music to Denzel's ears. After only a few seconds, the lizard shook itself, and then growled and resumed the chase.
The other shred was getting uncomfortably close to the rear tire. It seemed honed in on the heat and smell of the living creatures on the bike, paying no attention to the vulnerable tire that would have ended their chase, but its claws were long and sharp. Even an accidental brush would have been catastrophic, and the rubber was between the monster and its target.
Wary of the deadly blades slicing through the air so close to the tire, Denzel only charged the spell for a few seconds before releasing it this time. The red wave smacked against the torso of the second shred, but he snarled and slowed less than the first. By this time, the first had already recovered, and was starting to close in on the bike again. Denzel sent out more and more fire, alternating shots between the shreds, but each one had less time to charge and was weaker than the one before.
Denzel started to panic. This was his fight! He didn't want to give in and ask Cloud for help, but he was barely holding off the two beasts. They weren't getting any closer, but he was burning through magic points quickly. Cloud had helped him figure out his capacity one day during training, and it was pitifully low. He had no idea how much more the monsters could take.
Suddenly, the closer shred made a leap for the bike. Denzel let out a startled yelp and lashed out with Skoll, knocking it back, narrowly missing the tire with his sword. The lizard landed on its face, skidding across the ice and triggering another memory.
Always be aware of your terrain. Use it to your advantage. If you don't, your opponent will use it against you.
With a burst of courage, Denzel stood up on the seat, his left arm still securely looped in Tsurugi's harness, though now up at Cloud's shoulders. Cloud looked back at him with alarm. "Denzel! What are you doing?"
"I told you, Cloud, I got this. Just drive!"
Cloud was looking uncharacteristically nervous, but he did as Denzel requested.
The shred nearest the mountain wall was closer, a few steps ahead of its friend. Denzel glanced at the trail ahead and charged his fire materia, visualizing his attack. Leaning forward as far as he could reach, keeping his knees slightly bent for stability, Denzel watched the shred close in. He became more and more tense as the beasts drew closer. The nearer lizard leapt into the air, arm drawn back to slice through tender flesh. Now!
Denzel surged forward and slashed, driving Skoll into the beast's chest and releasing the fire right in the center. The force of the explosion in its chest threw the shred backwards into its friend, and threw Denzel into Cloud's back. Cloud reached behind him and forced Denzel down onto the seat, stabilizing him. The shreds skidded across the ice and tumbled over the edge of the cliff together.
The momentary fear of falling off the bike wasn't enough to drown out Denzel's euphoria as he slid his sword back into its sheath and wrapped his arms securely around Cloud's waist once again. "Waahoohoohoo! I did it, Cloud! Did you see that? I did it!"
Cloud leaned into the next turn and grunted. "Yeah. Great job, Denz. Now don't ever do that again." He didn't look back. He didn't want the kid to see the smile on his face.
Night had fallen by the time they reached the forest where they had spent their second night of the trip. The original plan had been to camp there on the way back after delivering the package, although they had intended to be there three days earlier.
As soon as the tires stopped moving, Denzel was on his feet. "Cloud, can I call Tifa?"
Cloud looked over at him. "Uh, sure, but let's get camp set up first."
"Please, can I call her first?" Denzel begged. "I just need to talk to her for a minute, and then I'll help set up, I promise."
Cloud slipped off his goggles and squinted at Denzel. "Why are you so excited to talk to Tifa all of the sudden?"
"I…well, it's personal," he said, looking away evasively.
Cloud shrugged. He supposed it was ok for Denzel and Tifa to keep some things between themselves. "All right." He tossed the phone to Denzel. "Let me talk to her when you're done."
He started unpacking supplies from Fenrir while Denzel dialed. He set up the tent, laid out the sleeping bags, and carried their luggage inside their canvas haven. He pulled out the soft-sided cooler that Web had sent with all of his pre-cooked meals, placing it next to the intended fire pit. Returning to the bike, he released a bungee cord to pull out a bundle of wood, and then re-secured it around the remaining logs. Web had sent them off with more wood than they needed for the rest of the trip, so there was no point collecting more.
"Cloud, she wants to talk to you."
Cloud looked over at Denzel, who was holding out the phone. He took the phone and piled the wood in Denzel's arms. "Want to set up the fire? Do you remember how I showed you to stack the wood?"
"Yeah," Denzel said enthusiastically. He seemed much more confident after his redeeming defeat of the shreds.
"Hey, Teef," Cloud said into the phone.
"Cloud." Tifa's voice was clipped. "Please tell me Denzel was exaggerating."
Cloud winced. He should have known Denzel would be excited to tell Tifa about his victorious battle on the mountain trail. As much as he tended to worry about Denzel when he was fighting, Tifa was even more protective.
"Um…probably…I wasn't listening to what he said," Cloud hedged.
"He said he was standing on the back of Fenrir fighting monsters while you were driving down a narrow mountain trail with no guard rail."
Cloud grimaced. Yeah, that sounded bad. He tried to do some damage control. "Tifa, I'm sure what you're picturing is much worse than it actually was. I was watching him the whole time," he defended. "I was ready to step in anytime if he couldn't handle it."
"Really? Because I would hope you were watching the road when you're driving on an icy mountain trail."
Cloud pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. He really wished he didn't suck so badly at explaining himself. "Teef, don't you remember what it was like when you were a young and capable fighter, and everyone underestimated you and tried to protect you from everything?"
"Yes, but I—"
"You still get mad when people suggest that you can't handle yourself."
"That's not the same, Cloud!"
"Yes it is, Tifa," he insisted calmly. "You were 15 when you brought a group of soldiers up a mountain trail to the reactor. You were furious when we didn't let you go inside."
"Exactly," Tifa said, exasperated. "I was young and foolish and too confident for my own good. Look what happened when I actually did go inside. I nearly died that day!"
Cloud sighed. That was probably a bad example. "Ok, look. I know you want to protect the kids forever. But we have to give them a little bit of room to make mistakes and learn from it. Denzel is strong and capable, but he needs real experience."
"But he could—"
"I swear to you, I will do everything in my power to keep him safe. Please, Tifa. Can you just trust my judgement on this?"
Tifa was quiet for a moment. "All right," she said softly. "I trust you, Cloud."
He let out a silent sigh of relief. He so rarely won an argument with Tifa. He really had no idea how he had managed that little speech, but he wasn't about to question it.
"How are things with Jameson?" he asked quietly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Denzel was still occupied. "Is he going to leave Denzel alone?"
"I—I think so. He might be trying a little harder to get at you, but—"
"That's fine," Cloud said dismissively. "I can handle him."
"Ok," Tifa said softly. "Denzel said you'd be home in a few days, right?"
"Yeah. We got stuck at the cabin a bit longer than we expected. Denzel has…well, I'll tell you about it when we get home."
"Is he—" Tifa started sharply.
"He's fine, Tifa. We'll see you soon, ok?"
"Ok," she said quietly. Then she added, "I love you."
"I know," he replied with a smirk.
"Cloooouuuud."
He laughed softly. It was a running joke between them. She knew he had a hard time expressing his feelings, and he had never forgotten her words beneath the Highwind that night at the Northern Cave. Words aren't the only way to tell someone how you feel about them. He tried to make sure she wouldn't forget how much better he was at those other ways.
"Me too, Teef," he said softly. "Bye."
Cloud hung up the phone and stared at it for a minute before sliding it into his pocket. The brief mention of the reactor had started a churning in his stomach. Memories nagged him, knocking at the door of his conscious mind. He looked over at Denzel, who had stacked the larger logs beautifully and was now sitting back and staring at it, looking puzzled.
Cloud walked over and crouched down next to him on the ground. "You need to have the kindling pieces right underneath the longer-burning logs," he said quietly, adding the shavings.
Denzel nodded, looking satisfied with the result. He looked up at Cloud. "Is everything ok with Tifa?"
"Yeah, it's fine." Cloud sent a stream of fire from his fingertips into the artfully stacked wood, eyes glued to the flames licking along the thick branches.
Denzel stood and began pulling containers from the cooler, dumping them into the little tin pans they had brought along for cooking. He returned to the fire with two of the pans, where Cloud was still staring blankly into the fire.
"Hey," Denzel nudged him. "Everything ok?"
Cloud blinked and pulled his eyes away from the mesmerizing movement of the flames. "Huh?" His eyes fell on the pans in Denzel's hands. "Oh, the grate. Sorry." He retrieved the grill tray, unfolding the legs and securing it over the precisely constructed fire. Denzel set the pans on top of the grill and left to find some logs or boulders that would be more comfortable seating than the ground.
Once they were settled with their plates of reheated food, they ate in companionable silence in the flickering light of the fire. For several minutes, the sounds of the forest settling in for the night were broken only by plastic silverware scraping against plates.
With a satisfied sigh, Denzel set aside his empty plate and leaned against a large boulder that Cloud had moved near the fire for him, stretching out his legs. His eyes traced along the silhouette of mountains against the darkening sky. Cloud knew that Denzel had rarely been far from the city limits, so it must have still been strange to experience the night sky unspoiled by ambient light, the sound of the wind dancing through the leaves, and the regular nighttime sounds that were never heard over the constants of traffic and life in the city.
To Cloud, these sounds were home. But Nibelheim isn't home anymore. The dark memories threatened to come to the surface again. He looked at Denzel across the fire: no longer a boy, but not yet a man. He felt like he had come to know Denzel much better over this trip, but how much had Denzel learned about Cloud? Denzel still knew only the sanitized, story-book version of Cloud, where there was a bad man who tried to destroy the Planet, and the good guys who had triumphed over evil.
Studying the teenager that the innocent, frightened little boy had become, Cloud knew that he couldn't protect Denzel from the truth forever. He deserved to know who Cloud really was. Before he could talk himself out of it, Cloud broke the silence. "I never got mako shots. But that doesn't mean I was never exposed to mako."
Denzel looked startled to hear him speak. He probably hadn't expected Cloud to bring up the topic on his own after the way he had reacted to his accusations on the first night. "Cloud," Denzel said uncertainly, "it's ok. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"No. It's time. I just…I have to figure out where to start." Cloud gathered his thoughts and began his story. "You already know that I left home when I was 14. I wanted to join Shinra's SOLDIER program. I wanted to be just like Sephiroth."
Denzel's eyes widened. He had only heard the name 'Sephiroth' in the context of the villain who tried to destroy the planet. The fact that Sephiroth had once been a normal man with a job and goals was something that Cloud had never been anxious to expose to Denzel, much less admit that he had ever admired him. He was a two-dimensional bad guy, and that's all there was to it. Except it wasn't. Cloud struggled to explain.
"Sephiroth was the general of Shinra's army, the original SOLDIER. I idolized him for years." He let that sink in while his memory pulled forth the long-neglected memory of a little blond boy aching to escape the confines of his small town. "It's hard to explain the way I thought of him. He was like a character from a comic book, inhumanly strong and fast and brave, but still humane and compassionate." Cloud laughed dryly. "At least, that's what the company promoters made him out to be."
In reality, the general couldn't carry on a casual conversation if his life depended on it. He could negotiate the terms of an enemy's surrender in his sleep, but when it came to normal human interaction, he had no idea how to talk or act.
Even in his own mind, Cloud didn't see this Sephiroth as the same bitter, destructive man he'd fought in recent years. This early Sephiroth was socially awkward for sure, but not cruel. The two images were impossible to reconcile. "Everything that happened later – it wasn't really his fault," Cloud said thoughtfully.
Denzel looked bewildered. "What do you mean? How could it not be his fault? He wasn't ordered to do all the stuff he did, was he?"
"No, but…well, you know all SOLDIERs are genetically modified with Jenova cells, right?" Cloud tried to explain. "Well, usually it was something they worked for, something they chose for themselves. But with Sephiroth…they put these cells in Sephiroth before he was even born. They raised him like he was a science project."
Cloud lowered his head thoughtfully, trying to sort through the disjointed emotions in his mind. There was disgust for the company who treated a child like an object; sorrow for the child himself who never knew love; awe for the man who, even after everything he had done to them, Cloud still admired; and the sharp sting of betrayal from someone he had trusted.
He lifted his eyes to the fire. "He never had a chance to be anything but what they made him," he said softly.
"But that doesn't excuse what he did!" Denzel interjected.
Lost in his own revelations, Cloud was surprised by Denzel's outburst. He studied the boy across the fire, beginning to doubt his conviction that Denzel was old enough for this. "Denzel, everything isn't always black and white. I'm not sure if… if you're ready to hear the truth."
Denzel's soft blue eyes flared in anger. "I'm not a kid anymore, Cloud!"
"No," Cloud said, more to himself than anything. "No, you're right. It's me. I don't think I'm ready for you to hear the truth."
The anger in Denzel's eyes faded, replaced with confusion. "What? What do you mean?"
Cloud shook his head. He was living a lie – a lie of omission, told with good intentions, but a lie nonetheless. Denzel deserved the truth.
"Never mind, Denz. I told you I would tell you the whole story, and I will." Cloud set his jaw and continued. "Anyway, I went to join SOLDIER and meet my hero. But I uh…" Cloud rubbed the back of his neck. After all these years, all the things he'd overcome, he still felt the sting of humiliation. "I failed the entrance exam to SOLDIER."
He sighed heavily and looked up. "So I joined the infantry instead. Sometimes we were sent as backup for missions led by SOLDIERs. That's where I met Zack." The first real ghost of a smile surfaced on Cloud's face. "At first I was a little intimidated by him. Zack was everything I wanted to be. He was the youngest first class SOLDIER ever. But once I got to know him, it was impossible not to like him."
He focused on Denzel over the fire. "That picture you drew…that was Zack. He was my best friend. The big brother I never had. He taught me how to fight. He taught me about the city. And he taught me that I shouldn't take life so seriously." A barrage of memories swept over Cloud and he closed his eyes, watching them like a film strip.
Flash! Sitting on the couch in Zack's dorm, laughing at his imitation of President Shinra's strutting walk and nasally voice
Flash! Zack standing over him with his hand out to help him up from the training room floor, patiently explaining where he'd left an opening and how to fix it
Flash! The indulgent frown on Angeal's face when he walked into the kitchen to find Zack and Cloud covered in food and wrestling on the floor, changed to shock when Zack hurled a handful of whipped cream to smack him in the face
Flash! Lying on the fake grass of the courtyard next to Zack, staring up at the sky and dreaming about their future, which always included the two of them in first class
Flash! Zack screaming his name when Cloud was dragged away in restraints….
Cloud gasped and opened his eyes, abruptly cutting off the stream of memories. That was why he didn't like to talk about Zack. The good memories never came without a price, and that price was too steep for him. The brief comfort he'd felt remembering Zack was tainted with the bitterness and fear of the worst days of his life, and he struggled to slow down his racing heart.
"Umm…Cloud? Are you ok?"
Cloud blinked rapidly and focused on the teenager across the fire. "Yeah. I just…sorry. I got lost in memories for a minute."
Denzel nodded, waiting patiently for Cloud to continue.
Cloud rubbed his eyes and tried to remember where he was going with the story. "So anyway, we were assigned this mission to investigate the Nibelheim reactor – led by General Sephiroth, First Class Zackary Fair, and two infantry." He remembered how excited Zack had been when he told him about it. Zack had convinced the director to assign Cloud as one of the infantry because he was familiar with the area and the locals, who tended to be less than welcoming of Shinra personnel.
"While we were there investigating the reactor, Sephiroth learned some things about his past – about how he had been made. He thought of himself as a monster and he just…went crazy." Cloud's face darkened. "He killed Tifa's father. He burned down Nibelheim and everyone in it. My mom was –" His breath caught as the echoes of screams – anguished, helpless, terrified – rang through his memory.
He pushed the pain out of the way with anger. "Tifa tried to confront him and he tossed her aside like she was nothing. I didn't think she would survive, but…" Cloud shook his head with a faint smile. "Well, back then I didn't realize how tough she is. Zack and I tried to stop him, too…he was completely insane and stronger than anyone could imagine."
His fingers unconsciously traced over the large scar on his torso. "We managed to stop him, but we were both badly wounded. And I thought—" Cloud laughed bitterly. "I thought, at least we would die heroes. Zack had always said we would be heroes someday. And we had stopped General Sephiroth from tearing apart Shinra…from tearing apart the whole Planet. Why wouldn't we be?"
Cloud gritted his teeth and his eyes narrowed. "Shinra came. We thought we were saved. We thought that instead of dying as heroes, we'd be celebrated while we were still alive. I was pretty delirious and I don't remember everything that happened, but I wasn't worried when they showed up, you know?" The jumble of impressions in his memory made little sense to him, even knowing what he knew now.
"The next thing I remember, I woke up on a table being examined by a man in a white coat, in more pain than I ever thought possible. He was taking notes on his clipboard and muttering like a madman, but it was ok. I figured they would give me something for the pain after he was done with the examination."
"Did they give you mako instead of painkillers?" Denzel asked, wide-eyed.
Cloud laughed humorlessly. "Not exactly. See, we thought they would be happy that we had stopped Sephiroth. We were only really thinking of the crazy person he became at the end. But it was Dr. Hojo who found us. He wasn't a medical doctor; he was a scientist – the head scientist of Shinra. He was willing to do the kind of twisted experiments that Shinra had no problems funding. Dr. Hojo had poured almost 30 years into making Sephiroth the perfect soldier. As far as he was concerned, we didn't stop a madman; we destroyed his life's work."
He hesitated then. Cloud didn't want to remember the next part. He put his head down and closed his eyes, calling on a skill he had developed over four long years of Hell. He pushed back all of his emotions, forcing them into a deep, dark well in his soul. He secured the lid and lifted his head, focusing on Denzel's blue eyes. The memories were reduced to facts, read from a report with the same detachment as the soulless lab techs Hojo had hired. His eyes were as flat as his voice as he recounted the story.
"He injected us with modified versions of the Jenova cells that he called S-cells – the same kind he had put into Sephiroth. He didn't bother to introduce the mako gradually like they do with SOLDIER candidates, though. They just submerged us in it." Without the hindrances of emotion, he recalled the acidic burn of the green liquid.
"Submerged? In pure mako?" Denzel's jaw dropped. "But…but people can't survive that! How did you…what happened to…how?"
Cloud shrugged, still detached from the swirling colors of pain. "I guess it had something to do with the S-cells, but I don't really care anymore. I survived, and that's how it got into my blood."
Without another word, he got up and started gathering the gear they'd had scattered around the camp site. Denzel gaped at him like a fish. "Wait, that's it? That can't be the end of the story."
Cloud didn't stop what he was doing. "You wanted to know why I have mako eyes. Now you know."
"Yeah but…what about…how did you get out? What happened to Zack?"
Cloud froze with his back to Denzel. His emotions pulsed, pushing at the lid of the well, but he reached out and slammed it back down in his mind. "Zack died…because he was an idiot," he said flatly. He picked up the remaining items and walked toward the tent.
"Really, Cloud?" Denzel's voice was scathing, increasing in volume and intensity before Cloud could disappear into the tent. "That's what you want to tell me about your best friend? That he was an idiot? Because for a minute there, I thought you were trying to tell me he was someone special."
The built-up emotions spewed out of the well, raking across his raw soul. "He was!" Cloud spun around to glare at Denzel. "Don't you dare talk about him like that, Denzel! You didn't know him! You don't know anything about him!"
Denzel's chin quivered, but he refused to lower his eyes. He spoke softly. "You're right. I only know what you've told me about him."
Cloud was thrown off by the quiet calm of Denzel's words, the simple truth to them. The smell of burning leather reached his nose and he looked down to see the smoke drifting up from his gloves. He dropped the supplies he'd been carrying and curled his hands into fists, pushing back the glowing red on his fingertips that he knew was hidden underneath.
He couldn't afford to lose control of his emotions, not when he didn't have complete control of the fire inside him. As if to remind him, a burning ache flared in his gut. The materia seemed to be affecting him in ways that he had yet to figure out, but he had been noticing that his emotions were more volatile and unpredictable than before. And when he lost control of his emotions, he lost control of the fire. He couldn't let that happen.
Cloud let out a shaky breath and sank down slowly at his place by the fire. As his anger dulled, his mind cleared. Denzel didn't deserve to be the target of his damaged psyche. "Ok. Ok. I'll tell you about Zack."
Denzel gave him a small smile of encouragement and nodded.
Cloud shoved his hair back with his hands. The numbing well he had constructed had exploded, and the pain of his memories burned through his eyes, but he was determined to get through this. His voice was quiet and measured. "We were stuck in Dr. Hojo's lab for…I'm not sure exactly how long, but it was more than four years."
Denzel gasped out loud and quickly clapped his hand over his mouth.
"I wasn't awake the whole time," Cloud said, rubbing his temples with his fingers. "But I was for most of it. Zack kept me sane for a while. He talked and talked, about everything and nothing at all, and I knew he was just trying to distract me, but it still helped." Zack's voice floated through his head – the joking, the mindless rambling, and finally the begging. Cloud had been retreating into his own mind to escape the pain, cutting his ties to reality, becoming less responsive day by day. That was when Zack had become desperate. He had begged Cloud to stay with him. He had sworn he would get them out of there. He had sworn they would get revenge. He had sworn that he couldn't survive in there without Cloud.
Cloud grimaced with the pain of the memory. It was the first time he had heard real fear in his friend's voice, maybe the first time in that whole nightmare that Zack had let his true feelings show. "Zack was my whole universe in that place. But I was a coward," he said bitterly. "I just disconnected from reality and left Zack to suffer alone."
The shame was overwhelming. A single tear slipped from his eye and landed on the ground, soaking in to the dirt before he was aware it had been there at all.
"Zack kept his promise, though. Somehow he broke out." Cloud's hands tightened into fists. "He should have just left me. He should have saved himself and escaped. I was just a shell, alive but not really there. There was no reason for him to drag me out of there, but he did. He carried me across two continents, and I was only slowing him down. Shinra caught up to us several times, and every time, he fought them off. He protected me and kept me safe, over and over again."
Cloud closed his eyes, digging into his deepest memories, and as always, finding only scraps. It had felt like a dream. He had seen Zack through an ocean of turbulent water, talking and gesturing and doing his ridiculous squats. At first he had just watched. He had suspected it was one of Hojo's tricks, or maybe Jenova's, and he had no desire to struggle back to the outside world.
But the longer he had watched, the more he had begun to doubt himself. He started to hear words coming through – at first just a few, and then there were whole sentences and whole conversations. It was just so perfectly Zack. He didn't believe Hojo or Jenova was capable of comprehending that kind of pure selflessness, or that either would be able to imitate the endless energy and optimism that was Zack Fair. But still, he hesitated. Even after he started to believe that he was seeing the real Zack, he hesitated. It was safe where he was. The world out there was full of pain and heartache.
But then he had remembered the fear in Zack's voice when he begged him to stay. He remembered how well Zack had been able to hide his emotions when he was trying to protect him. As he listened to Zack chattering away as if he were having a normal conversation with a coherent person, Cloud tried to imagine how Zack must really feel. The responsibility would be overwhelming, although Zack would never complain. The loneliness would be crippling. He was forced to hide from everyone, never knowing who to trust, never certain he could avoid the sprawling web of Shinra's influence. And the one person who would understand him, the one person in the world he knew he could trust, was hiding like a coward, tucked in the safety of the shell he had constructed.
Cloud was ashamed. He had been taking advantage of his best friend's sense of honor and duty, and it needed to stop. He had dived into the water, pushing and kicking his way to the surface, until the brisk fall air had assaulted his skin and he had felt himself being lifted in Zack's warm arms. Ride's over, Cloud.
In front of the campfire, Cloud finally opened his eyes, bringing himself back to the present and meeting the eyes of the boy across the campfire. Denzel had been waiting patiently, and Cloud had no idea what he could be thinking, but his young eyes held no judgement, only compassion.
Cloud swallowed hard and braced himself for the next part of the story. "We had almost reached Midgar the last time they caught up with us. Shinra had sent an entire army this time. Hundreds of men, armed with rifles and grenades. Again, Zack could have escaped on his own, but he didn't. He wouldn't. He hid me behind some rocks and went out there to face them."
Cloud had tried so hard to tell him. He wanted to tell him to run, to hide, to do something, anything other than march out there to his death. But it had been so long since he'd spoken, he couldn't remember how. He had to relearn how to move his body. He was just so tired, and moving was so much work. He really had tried, but as usual, his best wasn't good enough. He was too slow to stop Zack.
"By the time I dragged myself out there, the fight was over. He was…" Cloud's voice cracked, and a few more tears slipped unnoticed to the dry ground. He tilted his head back and stared up at the flawless night sky. "He asked me to live. That was his dying wish…for me to live for both of us. And then he was gone."
Cloud slowly lowered his head and stared into the flames, watching his best friend die all over again. The pain in his soul was still visceral and real. He had walked away, dragging the buster sword behind him, and soon had convinced himself that Zack had never existed at all. He had reconstructed his memories to be something he could live with. He blotted out the nightmares and remembered himself as he'd always wanted to be – as Zack. It was Tifa who had eventually drawn out his real memories, and Tifa who was there to help him put back the pieces of his shattered self. But a glued vase is never as flawless as the original, never as strong as it once was. A repaired vase will always be fragile.
Finally, Denzel said softly, "that doesn't sound like an idiot. It sounds very brave."
Cloud was startled by his voice. "Yeah. You're right," he said lowly. "I shouldn't have called him that. But he should have just left me. He should have given me up as a lost cause and saved himself." His voice grew rougher. "He would have stopped Sephiroth when he came back. He would have been able to protect Aerith. He would never have let so many people die, or the Planet get so destroyed."
"You don't know that," Denzel said with a frown.
Cloud scoffed, but didn't elaborate any further. A moment later, he was surprised to feel Denzel's arms around him, hugging him tightly.
"I'm glad he didn't give up on you, Cloud," Denzel whispered.
Cloud blinked rapidly, suddenly aware of the tears built up behind his eyes and slipping down his face. He wiped at them roughly, hoping Denzel hadn't noticed. He never let himself cry in front of anyone anymore, not since Hojo's scathing words had ripped through his tender young ego.
He looked down at the wavy brown hair tucked under his chin. Maybe Tifa wasn't the only glue he had. Slowly, he raised his arms and hugged Denzel back.
Denzel laid awake in his sleeping bag, staring at the canvas ceiling. Cloud was still sitting out by the fire, not moving. The shame was coming off of him in palpable waves, and Denzel just didn't understand. At first it had been hard to believe the details as Cloud filled them in like the shading of a familiar drawing. The shading was just wrong – it was like a bad remake of a great movie, where the villain turns out to be tragically misunderstood and the hero's motives impure. But in a way, this new dimension made the story more real to his more mature brain.
Sephiroth was a real person with dreams and a sense of self, which had been completely shattered in one traumatic week. It didn't make Denzel hate the man any less, but at least he understood him as a human being. And of course the mastermind-behind-the-villain had been introduced: Dr. Hojo. What kinds of horrible things had he put Cloud through over four long years? It was a nightmare, bookended on both sides by the loss of the most important people in his life.
Cloud and Tifa had both been orphaned that night in Nibelheim. The pain in Cloud's eyes, still fresh and raw, had felt like a bolt of electricity straight to Denzel's heart. His own parents had been killed when the plate over sector 7 collapsed, and it still hurt to remember them. He had never even thought about Cloud or Tifa having parents, or the fact that maybe they understood him better than he knew. Why had he never bothered to wonder about their pasts, outside of the stories that had made them famous?
He didn't become Cloud Strife, Savior of the Planet, Hero of Midgar, by coasting through the ranks of Shinra, using Mako to gain an unfair advantage. He had battled weakness and helplessness and loss. He had lived through Hell and come out the other side, stronger than he was before. As far as Denzel was concerned, that made him more of a hero, not less.
So why did Cloud carry it around like a burden of shame?
Cloud had never imagined that he'd have children. He had never wanted to. How could he possibly raise another human being to be a secure, reliable adult, when he had never felt like one himself? But Marlene and Denzel had come into his life anyway, lost souls in need of guidance. He had assumed Tifa would be the one to take care of them, the same way she took care of everyone. He had disappeared without a word to anyone when he had started seeing symptoms of Geostigma, never once thinking of how his absence would affect them – only knowing how his presence would.
Of course it was inevitable that they would see Tifa as a mother figure, but he never saw himself as anything more than a drifter in their lives. He wasn't fit to be anything more. So why was everyone so upset when he disappeared? Why did Marlene act like he was abandoning them? He wasn't supposed to be a stable or permanent part of their lives. But whether he wanted it or not, he couldn't pretend that he hadn't grown to care for them. He couldn't convince himself that their faces didn't light up when he walked through the door, or that he didn't feel lighter when he saw their smiles. And sometime, when he wasn't looking, they had come to see him like a father.
Denzel was looking less like a child every day. Cloud had started feeling like he was living a lie, letting Denzel believe the fairy tale version of him, but now he was afraid that things would never be the same again. How could he trust Cloud to protect him, knowing that he had failed the only person in his universe who had mattered to him at that time?
When Cloud finally came in that night, Denzel had fallen asleep on his sketch pad again. The lantern had been left burning and the oil was getting low. Cloud blew out the burning wick and gently pulled the sketch pad out from under Denzel's limp hand. His enhanced eyes didn't need the lantern to see what he was doing, and they picked out the details of the sketch easily.
It was another picture of Cloud with the flames in his hands, similar to the one he had seen before, but several details had been added to the sketch. Three new people had appeared behind him – Tifa, Marlene, and Denzel. Looking at them gave him a feeling of warmth and security, as if the drawing itself were radiating feelings. Cloud himself was no longer flawless, but clearly scarred and bruised. His clothes were torn and dirty. Even so, he didn't look weak or injured. He looked strong, vibrant, and fierce.
The people who stood behind him could clearly see his scars. And they still believed in him.
Day 5
"Hang on," Cloud called over his shoulder as they sped down the dusty trail.
"What do you think I've been—" Denzel's sharp retort was cut off as the bike swerved sharply to the right and he slid off the side. He braced himself to hit the ground, but an arm reached back and shoved him roughly back onto the seat.
Denzel tried to anchor himself around Cloud's waist before he slid all the way off the other side. The bike swerved in the other direction, narrowly avoiding another beast attempting to impale them on its thick horns.
Denzel laughed nervously. "That was cl—whoa!"
Up ahead, coming fast from the southwest, a pack of bandersnatches charged straight for them, on a path to intercept the speeding motorcycle. The steep side of a cliff rose up to the east, and they were running out of room to dodge the animals. Cloud held out his left fist and it began to glow red. He opened it and thrust out his arm, sending a burst of flame into the pack, cutting through the middle and turning the bulk of the animals into yelping, rolling balls of burning fur. They immediately abandoned their charge and put all their attention on subduing the flames, causing most of the remaining pack behind them to stumble over their burning brothers. Their dry, coarse hair caught immediately and they peeled off from the pack as well.
About a quarter of the animals had escaped the inferno, still undeterred in their pursuit. They were about to cut off the bike, and Fenrir had nowhere to go.
Cloud leaned forward and bore straight ahead. A hiss and a popping sound indicated that the compartments holding Tsurugi had opened, but Denzel had already tucked his head against Cloud's back, bracing for an impact. It never came. The animals in the direct line of the tires leapt up and were sliced cleanly from the air, one after the other. A shower of hot, sticky blood rained down on both of them, and a trail of limp beasts fell to the ground behind the bike.
Denzel let out a cheer, even as he tried to shield his face from the worst of the blood. "Whoohoohoo! Cloud that was so cool! You shot that fire like – AGH!" His exhilarated laugh was cut short by a sharp pain on his leg. He looked down at the teeth sunk into his calf, shaking his leg as hard as he could, but the animal refused to let go. The heel of a big black boot was hammered into its face, and the creature let out a piercing yelp as it flew back.
Cloud glanced over his shoulder at Denzel. "Are you ok?"
Denzel didn't answer.
Cloud was still trying to dodge the remainder of the bandersnatches from the pack. They were fast, and they kept up with Fenrir, leaping to attack anytime they got close enough. He struck down any who came within reach of his sword.
"Denzel! Are you ok back there?"
The only response was the sound of Skoll being unsheathed. Cloud risked a longer glance back. Denzel's eyes were glazed and bloodshot, moving randomly from side to side. Cloud swore and brought back his sword just in time to block Denzel's strike. With the force of the swing and its abrupt stop, Denzel lost his hold on the bike and flew off the back, rolling in the dirt as Cloud skidded to a stop.
The bandersnatches didn't hesitate to take advantage of their vulnerable prey. They leapt onto the boy on the ground. Cloud jumped off the bike and charged at them, but Denzel wasn't too injured to fight back. His sword swung around, knocking the beasts back enough for him to get back up to his feet.
Impressed despite himself, Cloud began helping him dispatch the remainder of the pack, keeping a second sword out to block Denzel's occasional attacks against him. Yelping and snarling filled the air and furry bodies flew in every direction. When the pack had dwindled enough that Cloud wasn't surrounded by enemies, he merged his swords again, trying to fend off both Denzel and the rest of the snatches with one hand for long enough to pull a Remedy from the supplies at his belt.
Just as he pulled out the bottle, Denzel slashed himself across the chest with his sword. He screamed and fell to the ground. Stowing the bottle, Cloud made quick work of the last few beasts and then returned to his side. Denzel's face was white, sweat beading on his face, eyes wide.
Cloud knelt on the ground by his head. His voice was calm and confident. "Denz, you've got the restore materia. Can you handle a cure or do you want me to take it?"
Denzel blinked rapidly and shook his head. "I can do it. Let me try." He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow. A faint green glow emanated from his bracer. Thin tendrils of skin from both sides of the wound reached out to form a bridge across the gaping slash, and the bleeding slowed.
Cloud examined the wound. It had only created a partial binding. "Do it again. It's not completely healed."
The green glow was slightly brighter this time. The wound sealed itself up, leaving only a faint pink line where it had been, and the blood he had already lost smeared across his chest.
Cloud held out a hand and helped him sit up. "You ok?"
Denzel nodded shakily. "I'm ok."
Cloud went to push his hair back, noticing just in time the streaks of blood that had dripped down to his gloves. He made a face and knelt on the ground to wipe the worst of it in the grass.
"Hey, Cloud?"
"Hm?" He continued wiping at the grass with his gloves.
"Did I…um…did I attack you?"
Cloud glanced up at him. "You tried."
"And then…did I hit myself?"
"Yup."
Deciding he had gotten the worst of the gore from his gloves, Cloud stood up and removed them, dropping them in the grass. He pulled the goggles off his head, searching for a clean place on his shirt to wipe them. He finally settled for the inside of the shirt, getting his hand covered in slimy blood, but the goggles more or less clean. He wiped his hands on the back of his pants, which had been mostly protected against the seat of the bike.
Denzel stared at Cloud without really absorbing what he was seeing. It was terrifying to think that for a few brief moments, he had forgotten who was the enemy. Cloud had taught him about status effects at one point in his lessons, but it had been brief. Besides that, hearing about it didn't compare at all to experiencing it. He had absolutely no idea that there was anything wrong with him until the effect had worn off. It felt as natural as anything to attack Cloud. What if he had really hurt someone? He wasn't too worried about hurting Cloud, but what if it had happened when Marlene was there? Or anyone else, really. He was strong and skilled enough now that he could accidentally hurt just about anyone if he had a sword in his hand. The thought haunted him.
Cloud finally stopped wiping his hands and looked up. Denzel's face was pale again. Cloud sat down next to him and wrapped an arm around Denzel's shoulder reassuringly.
"Hey, don't worry about it," Cloud said as he gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Bandersnatch bites cause confusion. Happens to all of us."
Denzel shrugged. "It doesn't happen to you," he mumbled.
"It has before," Cloud said seriously. "Before I found my ribbon." Denzel looked up, wondering if Cloud was about to tell him about a string of accidental murders on his conscience.
"Yeah, my instructor was really ticked," he said with a straight face. "He said it was the worst headache he'd had in years."
A laugh bubbled up out of Denzel. "A headache?"
"Well, yeah," Cloud said. "You think they give actual deadly weapons to cadets? I was pretty popular for a while after that, though. The guy was kind of a jerk."
Denzel looked at him suspiciously. "Are you sure you were actually confused?"
Cloud grinned wickedly. "I'll never tell."
Denzel laughed and stood up. He grimaced at the tacky blood drying on his skin – his own now mixed with the bandersnatch blood that had drenched them. "I don't suppose you have a travel-size shower in one of those compartments."
Cloud looked sadly at Fenrir. "Ah, no. But there's a river a few miles from here. If you can stand it for a little while longer, I can find us a place near water to stop for lunch."
Denzel wiped a large chunk of gore from the side of the bike. "At least we've already caught our lunch," he said, flicking it at Cloud.
It stuck in his blood-soaked spikes and he made a face, extracting it from his hair. "Now that you mention it, I'm not all that hungry right now." He tossed away the gore and stood up.
It was close to half an hour later before they came across the river Cloud had mentioned, and he refused to stop until they found a wide enough section of the stream with only flat terrain around it. By that time, their clothes were almost dried stiff. The sun was cooking the remaining gore, making the smell nearly unbearable. He stopped the bike and turned it off.
Denzel put his feet on solid ground and pulled at the hem of his shirt, considering how to best get it off with the least amount of nastiness getting on his face.
He heard a splash and he looked up, startled. Cloud was already in the water, all of his clothes still on.
Denzel raised his eyebrows as Cloud surfaced. "Do you always bathe with your clothes on?"
"Naw, but this right here is a high-tech shower slash washing machine in one!" Cloud sounded like an excitable late-night infomercial host. "Watch and learn." He dunked his head underwater and swam to a narrowed area of the river where the current was strongest. When he stood, the vivid red in his hair had been diluted to a muted pink. He held out his arms and twisted his body from side to side like an agitator, watching the red flowing downstream. He grinned over at Denzel. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance. You should give it a try."
Denzel laughed. He stepped in from the edge gingerly, letting the water soften his stiff pants.
Cloud scoffed. "Weren't you watching the demo? That's not how you use the product. Here, let me help you."
Before Denzel could register what was happening, he had been tackled by a flying, soaking wet body and had his head dunked under the water. He came up sputtering, at which point Cloud wrapped his arms around him and lifted his feet from the ground, swishing his body from side to side in the current.
Denzel laughed and squirmed from his grasp, attempting to dunk Cloud, but he may as well have been trying to push a tree out of the ground. Denzel circled around behind him and jumped on his back, tugging and trying to throw him off balance. Cloud raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, watching his struggles with an amused smirk.
With a huff, Denzel gave up dropped off his back, circling back around to the front. Cloud watched him warily as the boy faced him. Without warning, Denzel bent his knees and launched his arms forward and up, splashing a wave of water over Cloud's head. Cloud tried to cover his head with his arms, but all the strength in the world couldn't defend him from the non-stop barrage of splashing. Denzel continued heaping water on him until he felt a foot hook around his ankles, pulling him under.
When he popped his head back above the water, Cloud was grinning and holding up a hand. "Truce?"
Denzel grabbed the hand and let Cloud pull him to his feet. "For now," he said with a coy grin. He launched onto his back and paddled lazily downstream.
Cloud removed his gloves and swished them under the water, and then shook off the excess. He tossed them onto the shore and then unzipped his shirt and peeled it off, swishing it under water until it seemed reasonably gore-free. He wrung it out and then tossed it on the shore with his gloves. Denzel shrugged and started to copy him. He took off his boots and most of his outer layer of clothes, but he had lived all his life surrounded by people and didn't have the nerve to wander around outside completely naked.
Cloud had no such qualms, however. Once every piece of his clothing was in a wet heap on the shore, he swam with smooth strokes against the current, forgetting about the long drive they still had ahead, the troubles awaiting them back in Edge, and that other problem that he was trying hard not to think about.
In the meantime, Denzel had climbed out of the water, gathered up their wet clothes, and spread them out on a rock to dry in the sun. The warm heat on his back was soothing.
"Hey! Denzel! Come check this out!"
Denzel followed the voice around a bend in the river, to a copse of trees just on the other side of the flowing water. The area was completely in the shadows, and goosebumps broke out on his still-damp skin as he ducked into an opening in the greenery. The inside reminded him of a secret hideout he had imagined when he was younger, where he and Marlene had endless adventures in which they were always the heroes and the villains were always brought to justice.
Inside this shadowed grove was a small pond. It looked like it had been part of the river at one time, but the patch of ground connecting it had cut it off during a dry season. Now it was completely separate, a quiet little independent body of water almost completely surrounded by trees. Except it wasn't exactly quiet. Cloud was drifting near the middle and there were bubbles popping up behind his back.
"Dude! What the heck are you doing?" Denzel called, laughing.
Cloud looked at him with an expression of pure innocence. "Whatever do you mean?"
"Gods, did you really call me over here to watch you stink up the grove? I thought you were supposed to be the adult!"
Cloud grinned from his place in the middle of the pond, and the bubbles started to grow in size and intensity until they were completely surrounding him. It looked like he was being boiled in a pot of water.
"Wait a minute… are you…" Denzel poked a toe in the edge of the water. It was warm. "No way!" He plunged in the rest of the way, soothing his chills with the rapidly heating water. "Aww man this is amazing!" He stretched his body out along the gently sloping floor of the pond, letting the heat ease the ache of days spent bouncing along the uneven path and sleeping on the rocky ground.
After the water was hot enough to be almost uncomfortable, Cloud swam over and found a place next to Denzel where he could sit up, submerged to his shoulders. "Never thought we'd find our own hot springs on this trip, eh? Tifa's gonna be so jealous that she missed out."
Denzel grinned at him. "Definitely one of the perks to having superpowers." He shifted onto his side and propped his head up on his elbow, keeping his face just above the water. His eyes were eager. "So when did you figure out you could do this?"
"Hmm." Cloud scratched his head. "I guess it was a couple weeks after the accident. I grabbed Tifa's leg and she yelped. I burned her."
"Really?" Denzel asked, trying to picture it. "What happened? What were you doing?"
"Uhh…sparring."
"Sparring? You burned right through your gloves?"
"Erm, no, I wasn't wearing them." Cloud looked distracted, staring up at the trees.
"But you always wear your gloves when you're sparring."
Cloud turned to look him in the eyes. "Denzel. Don't ask questions you don't want to know the answers to."
Denzel blinked a couple times. "Oh. Right." He shook his head and forcefully redirected his thoughts. "So then what? You just started seeing what you could do?"
Cloud shrugged and settled back into the water. "More or less. First I needed to learn how to control it. I didn't know how I was doing it; it just happened when I was angry or…you know…feeling some strong emotion. I started working on it in the training room, learning how to create an actual flame and throw it and stuff. And then something weird happened."
"Weirder than making flame appear in your hands?"
"Well, maybe equally weird," Cloud grinned. "The materia inside me started to get stronger. I can cast Fira now, and I think I've almost got Firaga. I didn't think it could be leveled when it was broken, but…well, I didn't think I would be able to use it to cast, either." He pushed his wet hair back with his hands, making it stick up even more comically than usual.
"Oh, and check this out!" he blurted excitedly as he sat up. He held up his hands and a reddish pulse started from his wrists, moving up through his palms. The red glow slid up through his thumb until it reached the end, and then a tiny flame popped out and stayed lit on the tip. He did this with each finger in turn, until 10 little flames danced in front of his face. With the combination of his mad-scientist hair and burning fingertips, he truly looked like he crawled out of one of the comic books Denzel used to keep under his bed.
Denzel laughed until his stomach hurt. "What else can you do? Can you shoot streams in the air?"
"Psh. That's cake." Cloud shot a stream straight up from one hand, keeping a constant flame burning.
"That's just one stream. Can you do a bunch?"
"Oh," Cloud said. He screwed up his face in concentration and held up his right hand, moving the red glow up through his fingers until 5 little streams shot from his fingers. He waved his hand and the five streams leaned from side to side as they followed behind his moving fingers.
Denzel laughed and clapped. "Can you make shapes in the air? Like a dragon? What about between your hands?"
He made requests for Cloud and then tried to stay quiet as he watched the normally serious man screw up his face in concentration. He was pretty sure Cloud was just making the faces for his entertainment, because he was having just as much trouble trying not to laugh as he did it.
"Are your hands the only place you can send it from?"
The goofy expression slipped off Cloud's face. "Well, that's where I have the most control over the fire."
"Yeah, but what about your feet?" Denzel urged. "What if you're like…barefoot for some reason…and your hands are busy?" He giggled at the mental picture of Cloud balancing on one foot, swinging two swords and kicking fire from his other foot.
"Um, yeah, I'm sure that will happen," Cloud said with a grin. Nevertheless, he propped one calf on the opposite knee and concentrated on the toes pointing up in the air. He pursed his lips and squinted and generally just looked constipated, but the red was slowly moving up his foot. Eventually, it reached the tips and puffed out one little burst of flame. The red receded quickly as Denzel cheered.
"What else? Try something else new!" Denzel demanded.
"Like what? Elbows? Knees? Seems like more of the same thing," Cloud said with a shrug.
"What about…ooh! Can you breathe fire?" Denzel asked with a gleam in his eye.
"I don't know. Let's see," Cloud said. He sat up and a serious look came over his face, like he was actually trying to focus instead of just being goofy.
"Um, Cloud, I was just joking," Denzel said nervously. "I don't think you should really try that."
Cloud ignored him, continuing to focus. Denzel's mouth dropped as he saw the red tint shining through Cloud's neck. It sped up and out, Cloud opening his mouth just in time to spurt out a belch of flame. His eyes grew wide and he dunked his face quickly into the water with a sizzle.
"Cloud!" Denzel yelled, moving himself as quickly as possible in the water to get to Cloud's side.
But Cloud came up laughing and spitting out the water he'd plunged into too quickly. "Whoo! That was a lot faster than I expected."
Denzel felt the tension leave his body as his nervous laughter joined Cloud's. "So you can breathe fire. But…you probably shouldn't do that again."
They talked for hours. Cloud periodically swam to the center of the pond to reheat the water, and idly played with the flames as they discussed swords and fighting styles and plans for modifications to Fenrir. Denzel talked about school and friends and all the attention he had gotten after the town invasion. "Honestly, I was just getting sick of being followed everywhere I went. I pretended I had to pee like 20 times a day just so I could get a breather from the girls."
Cloud smirked. "Only girls in your fan club?"
Denzel sighed dramatically. "Well, no, but the guys just followed me in and kept asking questions. I couldn't really escape them."
"Ooh. Awkward," Cloud said sympathetically.
"Tell me about it," Denzel sighed. "I finally had to tell them about my horribly contagious disease that I was afraid of spreading to them. It didn't faze the really dedicated fans, but at least it thinned them out enough so I could breathe."
Cloud laughed out loud as Denzel told him how he had explained his disease in grisly detail to a group of clingy teenagers.
"Some of them didn't believe me, so I have this one friend who is really artistic, and I had him paint a bunch of really nasty-looking sores on me. I put flour on my face so I'd look pale and sickly all day. The next day, a handful of my followers had identical-looking sores all over. They wore them like a badge of honor to show their dedication."
Cloud laughed even harder, plunging his hands under the water with a sizzle as he struggled to get himself under control. The kid was really a gifted storyteller, and he had a contagious laugh that was enough to set Cloud off again every time he managed to calm down. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed like this.
Denzel studied his companion in the dimming sunlight. "How come you don't have that problem? You're actually, like, famous, and people don't hound you constantly."
"Mm." Cloud nodded. "Why do you think I bought Fenrir in the first place?" He smiled wryly, but Denzel had a feeling he was actually serious. "It was pretty bad in the beginning. Sometimes I told them to buzz off, but mostly I just ignored them if I couldn't escape. I think eventually most of them decided I was a jerk and left me alone. There were a few stalker-type women that couldn't take a hint, but…"
"But what?" Denzel prodded.
Cloud's eyes twinkled brighter as the sun sank below the tree line. "Tifa put the fear of Shiva in them."
Denzel's mouth dropped. "That didn't happen."
"It did." Cloud grinned. "I don't think she seriously injured anyone. Just a few broken bones, you know, little stuff like that." He scooted back to the bank and put his hands behind his head. "Besides, it's not all bad. I got the girl, didn't I?"
"You mean Tifa? What, she was attracted to your fame?" Denzel asked skeptically.
Cloud snorted. "Heck, no. She was just as annoyed by it as I was. Mostly we just got closer traveling and fighting together, but it gave me the courage to finally go for it. What about you? That girl you had a date with this week – the timing seems awfully convenient, right in the middle of your seven minutes of fame."
Denzel was glad that the light was fading. He hoped Cloud couldn't see the pink tint of his cheeks, but the way the corners of Cloud's lips curled up, it was unlikely. Denzel wrapped his arms around his knees, turning his head away bashfully. "Well, she did say that it sounded cool. So I guess it made her notice me, at least."
"So what's she like? What do you like about her?"
"Umm.." Alicia's face, which he had memorized down to the tiniest detail, materialized in Denzel's mind. "She has long black hair and the prettiest green eyes. She twirls her hair around her finger when she's nervous, and she bites her lip when she's concentrating, and she always bounces her left knee in class when we're taking a test. And she has this really dark freckle, right here." Denzel touched the apple of his cheek lightly. "And I guess I just like the way she smiles." He shrugged shyly.
"Uh huh." Cloud stared at him, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a smile.
"What?" Denzel asked, glaring back at him. "Why are you looking at me like that?" The smile widened and Denzel shoved his shoulder. "Dude! You're creeping me out!"
Cloud laughed out loud. "You've got it bad, kid."
"Oh shut up," Denzel grumbled, but he couldn't seem to wipe the goofy smile off his face, either.
"Well, I'm turning into a prune," Cloud announced. "I'm getting out." He pulled himself out of the water and stretched, totally at ease with his nudity.
"Dude!" Denzel hissed, looking away quickly. "Are you just going to wander around like that? What if someone comes along and sees you?"
Cloud laughed out loud and spread his arms wide, looking more relaxed than Denzel had seen him in a very long time. "Who's going to come along, city boy? We're in the middle of nowhere!" He ducked through the opening in the trees and disappeared.
Denzel shook his head, smiling. It had been a long time since he had seen Cloud in a playful mood and he wasn't going to be the one to spoil it. The pond was starting to get chilly though, and his hot water heater had left him, so he grudgingly got up from his comfy bed of sand.
When he got back to the campsite, Cloud was already dressed in dry clothes and rubbing his hair with a towel. There was a fire burning, but he hadn't bothered to set up camp otherwise.
"I'll get the tent," Denzel said, wrapping a towel around his shivering body. He was seriously starting to regret his decision to keep his underclothes on. The damp material was soaking through his towel and dripping water down his legs.
"Why bother?" Cloud asked. "It's a nice night. Why don't we sleep under the stars tonight?"
"Yeah? Ok," Denzel said with a smile. He grabbed his pack from Fenrir and retreated behind some trees to change out of his wet clothes. Cloud had never said anything about his shyness, and Denzel was grateful. Sometimes middle school locker room incidents really stuck with you.
Once he was in dry clothes, he returned to the campsite to find Cloud warming up their food and realized he was ravenous. They had forgotten all about lunch after spending the whole day playing in the water. Denzel felt a flutter of guilt as he sat down by the fire. "We didn't cover much ground today."
Cloud shrugged. "Yeah. You in a hurry to get back? You still have a couple days before school starts again."
"Uh, not really," Denzel said uncomfortably.
"Ohhh, I see," Cloud said, eyeing him.
"What?" Denzel asked, trying to hide his alarm. There was no way Cloud could have guessed about the sketch, was there?
Cloud crossed his arms and leaned back against the tree behind him with a smirk. "You want to get back to see Alicia."
Denzel forced a laugh. "Uh, yeah. Kinda." And it was true, wasn't it? He had no idea when or even if there would be some kind of disaster in Edge. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that the sketch hadn't come from a vision at all. He had forced it because he wanted so badly to make his ability work when he wanted it.
Suddenly, Cloud grimaced and grabbed at his stomach.
Denzel sat up. "Cloud? Are you ok?"
Cloud shook his head and leaned back again. "Yeah. Just some weird, random pain."
"Hm," Denzel said, studying him. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah," Cloud said, waving him away. He sat up and stirred the pans over the fire. "This looks warm. Ready to eat? Oh wait, stupid question," Cloud said without waiting for an answer. "You're always ready to eat."
Denzel snorted. "Like you're one to talk."
Their sleeping bags were laid out on opposite sides of the fire, but angled so that their heads were near each other. They laid on top of their respective bedding, the night warm enough that they didn't need to be covered. Cloud was on his back with his hands behind his head, staring up into the night sky. Denzel lay on his stomach with his head turned to one side, resting his cheek on his arms.
They had started off with Denzel asking Cloud about his childhood, but had gradually moved into talking about their shared past.
"Tifa says she's glad you're training me, but she always seems to find some excuse to keep me from actually fighting monsters," Denzel complained.
"Yeah, well, she worries about you," Cloud said.
"Well, it's stupid," Denzel retorted. "I mean, what's the point of even learning if she doesn't want me to use it?"
"It's not that she doesn't want you to use it," Cloud said cautiously. "It's just that she doesn't want anything to…uh…attack you back."
Denzel scoffed. "So she actually does want me to battle trees, then?"
Cloud laughed out loud. "Well no, because then you'd be attacking something that means you no harm."
"Ugh! I just can't win!" Denzel announced dramatically.
Cloud rolled over onto his stomach and rested his chin on his hands, looking at Denzel. "Denz, do you remember when you first came to live with us?"
"Yeah, kinda," Denzel said. "I mean, I remember when you found me at the church. I remember when you left us."
Cloud swallowed and looked guilty. "Um…yeah. Well, back then, you were really small and really sick. Tifa has this need to take care of everyone, you know? But no matter what she did, she couldn't make you better. We were just watching you fade away, and it was killing her that she couldn't do anything about it."
Denzel sighed. He felt a little bad, knowing that he had upset Tifa like that, but it wasn't as if he could do anything about it. "But then I got better! And she still acts like I need to be protected all the time. It's really annoying, Cloud."
Cloud gave a small smile and brushed some hair away from Denzel's eyes. "Tifa's just –"
The shrill music of Cloud's ringtone interrupted their discussion. They both sat up immediately. It was extremely late – too late for anyone to call with anything but bad news.
Cloud snatched up the phone. "Tifa?"
The noise in the background was so loud that Cloud held the phone away from his hear. Denzel could clearly hear everything coming through the phone. "Cloud!" Tifa shouted over the din. "Are you guys getting close to Edge?"
"What? Why? What's going on?" Cloud's voice was calm, but Denzel had gotten very good at reading the subtle changes in Cloud's eyes over the last week, and this one wasn't subtle. He was worried.
"There's something – I don't know what. There are monsters overrunning the town. I'm fighting off as many as I can, but…"
"How many?" Cloud asked calmly. "Is the wall completely smashed, or is there a small section that can be repaired?"
"Hundreds," Tifa said. "And…it isn't."
Cloud pushed back a mop of spikes with his hand, looking grim. But surely it was some kind of misunderstanding. Tifa wasn't making sense.
"It isn't broken anywhere," Cloud said, sounding resigned but not surprised.
"It's not," Tifa confirmed. "No one knows how they got in."
Cloud's face hardened into what Denzel liked to think of as 'commander mode'. He jumped to his feet and started rolling up his sleeping bag with one hand. "Ok. We're not close, but we'll be there as soon as we can. Try and get everyone who can't fight into the town hall. Organize anyone capable with weapons and send them out in groups. Find someone who can triage and have Marlene heal the worst cases. And call in our old crew."
"Our old—" Tifa gasped. "Cloud, it will take them at least 12 hours to get here. I'm sure once you get here, we can handle it."
Cloud didn't answer her. He handed the empty pots to Denzel. "Go fill these up in the river and dump them on the fire. We have to go." He finished packing up their supplies as Tifa connected the dots.
"You…you aren't going to be back that soon, are you?" she asked, speaking slowly.
"No. We're not. I can't drive that fast with Denzel, Teef. We're almost a full day out."
"Tifa!" Marlene's voice rang out from the background. "They're starting in on the town hall. The stupid people inside won't keep the door shut! They're complaining about it being too hot in there."
Tifa sighed audibly. It sounded like she was running. "Why is it so hard to understand that monsters are attracted to smell?"
Of course Tifa had already done most of what Cloud had thought of. He was the leader by default, but Tifa was master of organization, and she wouldn't have called for help unless she really thought that they couldn't handle it without him. The town hall had been reinforced for just such an event, but even that building could only take so much punishment. Even as she held onto the phone, they could hear snarling and screeching as her kicks and punches landed.
"I have to go. Please hurry, Cloud."
The phone clicked as it disconnected. Cloud hooked it onto the handlebars as he and Denzel climbed on Fenrir. The tires spun in the dirt as they left behind their little slice of paradise.