A/N :Many thanks to those who reviewed/alerted/favorited this story. Your appreciation is my fuel. Another chapter! I am surprised of myself. But it's probably full of mistakes. Need a beta soon. Any volunteers?

Title: Frozen Skies
Chapters: 2 of ?
Rating: M
Pairings: Sephiroth/Cloud, Zack/Aerith, and others
Warnings: AU, time travel, slash/yaoi, non-con/dub-con, and the rest...
Summary: A hero was a broken man indeed. But even in death, Cloud could not escape. Send back in time by the Planet, he could not seat back and let history repeat itself.

Disclaimer: Owns nothing.

Chapter Two

Lifestream, the continuous stream of life and creation permeated every pore of the Planet, existing without constrains of time and space. Splendid to behold, the mythical flow of phantom essence was the conscious of the Planet and the resting place of souls. While its existence always bordered on fantasy, its secrets never ceased to fascinate the mortals. The Lifestream gave life and would eventually take every one of its creation back into its hold. In the folds of the swirling green, every creation was given a taste of the unattainable notion called peace. For as long as they stayed in the gentle current, no sadness could touch them and no suffering could harm them. It was as close to utopia as one could get. Eroded by millennium of knowledge, there wasn't a definition of self in the spring of spirits. There was only the voice of the collective, a single power that stood as the truth. The souls slumbered in the embrace of the Planet, swept along by the dreams of the collective.

Cloud floated in the world of no beginning and no end, letting waves of tranquil green wash over him. Tendrils of green danced about him as his clothing and hair moved to an invisible breeze. He felt no desire to move, uncaring of where the Lifestream would take him. He was finally at peace. No pain. No war. No heartbreak. The troubles of life no longer bothered him. Idling between the states of waking and sleeping, he gave himself over to the sensation of harmony.

DEATH. DESTRUCTION.

His eyes snapped open as the Planet screamed into his head. He could feel the Gaia's energy rolling in turmoil, screaming messages without words. The collective swarmed around him, their pain reflected in turbulence. He felt the brief touch of the Planet in his mind before pictures of carnage filtered across his eye. Of the lands being destroyed. Of the world going up in flames. Of Sephiroth laughing with madness in his eyes. Each image overlapped with the next until he couldn't tell them apart. He tried to push the Planet away, to make her stop. No more. But the Planet continued on, imposing her will on him.

CALAMITY. EVENTUAL DEATH.

Cloud paled as the Lifestream gyrated with increasing urgency as Gaia pulled on its power and shaped it into something else. Even among the confusion, the Planet's intent was clear.

"No." The word left his mouth before he registered what he said. This couldn't be happening. "No. You can't. What more do you want? I fought for you and I died for you. There's nothing left for you to take anymore!"

The Planet ignored his words as she continued towards her goal. While she was an eternal thing, she knew very little of humanity. Knowing nothing of loss and regrets, she couldn't understand the hero's suicide. Endless years of existence had not granted her understanding of humans.

REBIRTH.

"No! Leave me alone!" He couldn't do it. He was not strong enough to face his failures again. Faces of people he had failed, lead to their doom, flashed through his mind. People he couldn't protect, promises he couldn't keep.

"Cloud…"

"Aeris?" The voice was so achingly familiar. A sound that he had long associated with sunlight and flower fields. A voice he didn't want to hear again. The sheer goodness of it pierced his heart like a knife.

"Cloud, I'm sorry."

He shook his head in denial. They couldn't…They wouldn't…Anger. Sadness. Hurt. Despair. The emotions tangled in his body until he felt like he would explode from the intensity of them. He finally had peace and now they wanted to rip it away.

"Forgive us."

A new voice joined the others. Stronger, masculine, and all too familiar. His eyes burned with tears but Cloud didn't cry. He hadn't cried in a long time—after all a puppet had no need for tears. "Zack…"

WEAPON. NECESSARY.

The Planet's voice hurt. Millions of minds pressed onto his own mind, telling him everything and nothing at the same time.

"No, don't leave me." He begged but received no reply from either the Planet or his friends. His broken pleads vanished in the vast emptiness of the Lifestream.

DEATH. SURVIVAL. NECESSARY. The Lifestream pulsed erratically as the Planet resumed her actions, tired of the interruption. Cloud wanted to scream his frustration at Gaia. How long must he suffer? How much more must he sacrifice? When would it be enough?

So this was the punishment for his failings. Not being able to rest. Not being able to rejoin his family. If so then he didn't have the right to complain. Cloud chuckled darkly before dissolving into harsh laughter. For him, free will was an illusion. He was nothing more than a tool. And he had long accepted his place in life.

WEAPON. REBIRTH.

From all directions, the green tendrils of the Planet's lifeblood hurried towards a single point, towards Cloud. He made no move to fight it again. Let the Planet do what she wanted. He was her puppet and all of this no longer mattered to him. Let fate play with his life as she willed.

"Forgive us." The words were full of sadness. A plead.

"There's nothing to forgive," he whispered bleakly, resigned to his fate. He would never blame his friends. If anything, it was his fault. His decisions that doomed the world.

Time seemed to stop as the Lifestream narrowed down unto a single point. The stillness was eerie, almost as if it would hold for an eternity yet break in a heartbeat. He felt the Lifestream tremble and gave a final pulse of power. It seemed like an aeon before the Lifestream exploding into a shower of green. All the life and energy transformed into a final blaze of magic.

Cloud Strife merely closed his eyes as the Planet died.

Nibelheim was situated so far in the north that there was nothing beyond it but mako reactor and wilderness. Due to its remoteness, the town was a world unto itself. With a population that reached a couple hundred at most, there was little privacy in the town. The residents strived on familiarity. Any difference was shunned and regarded with mistrust. It was a stagnant existence that denied any change.

When the lone woman came into the town with the howling wind, all eyes turned to the outsider. Gossips about the beautiful but strange Eve Strife spread like wildfire, ignited by the fact that Strife arrived with a slumbering baby in her arms.

Alone, with a child, and no husband in sight—what a scandal.

Rumor after rumor concocted about Strife's background, escalating in the way only a small town could. The populace watched, talked, and when no new gossip was forthcoming, eventually moved onto the next rumor. But the whispers never quite died down and the Strife family would forever be the subject of gossips.

The talks among town folks did not go unnoticed by Eve Strife. Despite her demurred appearance, she was shrewd and observant. She did not harbor any delusions about her situation. She was alone in this town, a stranger in a foreign place. There were no friends to support her and no family to help her. All she had was Cloud—her precious child. She chose this isolated town for a reason and she wouldn't regret her decision. She would do everything she could for Cloud.

It didn't take long for Eve to settle into a cottage at the edge of the town, brought with the meager jewelries she had with her. In this town with only a midwife and no doctor, she made her ends met by selling herb medicines. It wasn't an easy life but she didn't mind. Whenever she could, she devoted her attention to child.

Every day, she thanked Gaia for giving her such a blessing. Cloud was an angel, complete with cherubic features and lovely smile. His bright blue eyes were almost identical like hers but his blond hair was many shades lighter and much spikier. Even at such a young age, he had an uncanny ability to understand the world around him. He often behaved as if he was an adult instead of a toddler. If Eve found it strange, she didn't find any cause for worry. As his mother, she would keep him out of harm's way.

But even a mother's love could not deter a fate that was written a lifetime ago.

The first few years of Cloud's life passed in normalcy. Apart from high intelligence and maturity beyond his peers, he grew up like any child of his age. There was nothing to indicate that he was once the savior of the planet. With no apocalypse hanging over his head, he spent his childhood in relative peace.

Until the year he turned seven.

The first he dreamed, it was of flashes of silver and wild flames. He woke up with tears in his eyes and vague impression of sadness and fear. Bewildered and confused, he sat on his bed crying, not knowing who or what he was mourning. As the first rays of light stole into his room, he fell back into an uneasy slumber.

The next morning, he greeted his mother like he always did and went on with his daily routine. There wasn't a whisper about realistic dreams or phantom emotions. Young he might be, Cloud was not ignorant. He was well aware that difference was something that was looked at with suspicion. Living under scrutiny of the town, he knew how people dealt with things they didn't understand. Humans were funny that way, rejecting all they couldn't grasp with their minds yet continuing with traditions that had long lost their meaning.

It wasn't that he didn't trust his mother, but he did not wish to worry her. Even at his age, he understood that she was struggling to raise him and it was unwise to add to her burden. Thus the dreams became his secret and his secret only.

Life went on for Cloud, with continuous dreams of that other place and time plaguing his sleep. The dreams were not always of carnage and destruction. Sometimes, he dreamed of people he called friends, of laughter and flower fields. But those visions were no less painful than the nightmares. The images of happiness only emphasized that he was very much alone . . . and if the visions were to be believed, reminders of his losses.

For the longest time, he didn't want to come to terms with the fact those dreams were real. He tried to pretend they were delusions made up by his mind, fearing what acceptance would bring. Those visions of world end, of darkness sweeping over the land. But deep down, he knew the truth and the fact that he couldn't run away forever.

In the end, he had no choice but to face the truth when the eyes staring back at him from the mirror were not his own. Gone were the baby blue orbs, in its place a pair of shinning turquoise eyes stared unblinkingly at its reflection.

Eyes tainted by mako, the hated liquid that brought only destruction to his life.

It was the final nail in the coffin of his normal life. His period of denial was over. The information that was crammed into his mind would not give him rest until he did something about it. His head was full of broken and incomplete memories battling for supremacy. Who was he? What was he?

His damaged mind provided no answers.

He only knew one thing with clear certainty. No matter what, failing again would be unacceptable. While he didn't have a choice in his destiny, he could choose his own path. This time he would save everyone.

Brows creasing in concentration, Cloud contemplated his options. His main concerns were to stop ShinRa and eliminate Jenova. With ShinRa and Hojo out of his reach at the moment, he needed to start with Jenova. He shivered as he recalled the silver-haired alien that bore a superficial resemblance to humans. Inside, she was anything but a mortal. She was CALAMITY. She was the virus that infected the Planet.

If Cloud wanted to save the Planet, he needed to get rid of her first.

Altering the future was a tricky thing. There were simply too many variables. If he changed one aspect of the future, he couldn't be sure that nothing else would change. Every action he made to change the future would have a snowball effect. He must make his decisions wisely. Besides, Jenova was damned tricky to kill. Every time he thought he got rid of her, she would appear to wreak havoc. No matter how many times her body was hacked to pieces, she always managed to survive.

He was too late to prevent Hojo from using her to make Sephiroth. But he still could prevent the destruction of Nibelheim…and maybe, just maybe, he could prevent Sephiroth's descend to madness. Without to pain and fear clouding his memories, Cloud reexamined his feeling about Sephiroth. His memories of the silver-haired warrior were full of anguish but Zack's memories…

The man Zack remembered was totally different from the maniac Cloud knew. Zack had being the ex-General's friend—one of the three who could claim that title. Cloud could not remember much about the other two, only that they left ShinRa and Sephiroth. While the man was known was the Demon of Wutai, he was as human as anyone. Albeit very lacking in the social department, Sephiroth was no monster. Unlike many people in ShinRa, he cared about his SOLDIERs. He was always the first onto the battle field and the last to leave it. While he was cold to everyone, he treated his men with fairness and consideration.

Cloud couldn't reconcile the silent but honorable General with the monster that ravaged his life. The hero had killed the One-Winged Angel repeatedly and the one time he didn't…it became his hell. Possessing only pieces of memories, he couldn't tell with version of the warrior was the real one.

Looking at the memories, he realized that Sephiroth, for all of his talk of godhood, was a puppet just like Cloud. The silver-haired man had being born to be used by ShinRa. When he finally broke free from ShinRa, he fell under the control of Jenova. Sephiroth chased after freedom, but like Cloud, was forever falling short of it. If Sephiroth was a monster, Cloud just was as much of an abomination.

No, Cloud didn't hate Sephiroth. He probably never did. Every time he took his blade and stabbed it through the ex-General's body, he only felt guilt and regret. He was nothing compared to Sephiroth. He was a nobody before falling under Hojo's experiments. Only Zack's skills and Hojo's alterations allowed him to defeat Sephiroth the first few times. He could never have won by his own merit, let alone becoming the One-Winged Angel's equal.

Silently, Cloud made an oath to himself. He would save Sephiroth from himself. What the Planet said about the Silver Threat didn't matter to him. He couldn't, wouldn't, fight Sephiroth again. The ex-General deserved some happiness for what the world had put him through. Even if Cloud would never be able to find joy in this world, he could at least let others experience it. For Zack, Aeris, Sephiroth, and the others, he couldn't fail this time.

He would give everything he had to save the Planet.