Strangely enough, the next morning Cloud was not woken by his alarm. No, there was no noise at all in his dusky bedroom except for the tiniest trickle of moonlight glancing in through the curtains, which were slightly too small to fit his window.

"What time is it?" he wondered to himself, one eyelid cracking open while a shaky, uncoordinated hand reached out for his alarm clock. A soft curse reverberated around the room when an empty glass was knocked onto the floor, bouncing off the bed frame as it went. A peek over the edge of his bed was enough to assess the damages, of which there were none, and after that the blond was able to get back to the task at hand and check the alarm clock.

4:00 A.M.

That was a whole two hours before he needed to be up. What was he to do until then? Now that he was sure that there was so little time to wait until he would be getting up, heading out to the entrance of the village and hopping into that truck it was impossible to even think of sleep! The very thought of waiting so long caused Cloud to huff, toss and turn in his bed, his blankets twisting around him the more he moved about. The sheer amount of nervous, tense energy he had now was so frustrating.

Thud. "Argh!"

Cloud's movements had managed to become a bit more violent than even he had anticipated. Upturned on the floor, the blond cringed, listening out for any footsteps on the landing. The last thing he wanted to do tonight was to wake his mother or cause her any disturbances. Even if she wasn't going to be travelling across the continent like he was, the young man knew that she would be having a taxing day tomorrow as well. Besides, he had never enjoyed causing her any inconvenience, no matter how small or imagined it might be. Luckily, after a minute or so of keeping a careful ear out for any noise outside of his bedroom, it seemed to him that the coast really was clear. With that he let out a sigh of relief.

What to do now?

Restless eyes roamed his bedroom, looking for something, anything that might sate his boredom, but at first glance there seemed to be no respite. The packing was finished, there was little point in getting dressed a whole two hours before he was supposed to, and his room was almost spotless after he had packed away the few belongings that he owned. All of his thoughts were focused almost entirely on the life changing event that was to come in the near future, his chance to join the army, which meant that he couldn't really lose himself in thoughts that would provide a distraction.

"Ugh, this really is hopeless!" Cloud uttered to himself, picking himself up off the floor and slumping on the deep sill beside his bedroom window. With a careful hand he pushed the curtain to one side, listening to the smooth clinking as the hooks slid across the metal bar that held the cover there. The almost complete darkness around the town told him that it really was asleep, as even the small village pub's lights had gone out a few hours previous. They never stayed open past two so he couldn't even watch the last few dregs stumble out to go and empty their dinners into the town well. "Once I get to the big city, even at this time in the morning there'll be things to do, things to see..."

He had trailed off because even though the village didn't have much in the way of great buildings and night life, the wildlife could still catch his attention in a second with its natural beauty. In the sky a half moon was glowing, bathing the village in a sleepy, dusky light. Because he was lucky to live in one of the few areas where pollution wasn't such a big problem the glow was clearer than it would be in a lot of other towns, and as he stared out at the moon a dragon flew over one of the mountain peaks, past the orb of light, then back down into the crevices. That wasn't something he'd see too often in Midgar.

Suddenly he was stricken with a second wind of all the doubts he had pondered on over the last few weeks since he had learned that he was off to join the army. Was he cut out to leave home? After all, he was just some naïve kid who'd grown up in a backwater town. Most of the Shinra recruits came from Midgar, Junon, areas like that where people were more streetwise and had at least some knowledge of what they were getting themselves mixed up in. Cloud, however? All he'd ever done was watch the parades on T.V., listen to Sephiroth's speeches about the current Wutaian war... none of these things were actual experience. Where he lived there was just no way to get it. Even as he thought about the army he wasn't even mentioning to himself the rather obvious fact that he came from a place quite a bit further away than most recruits, they may share no customs, they certainly didn't share accents either. Even though he was used to being bullied the army was supposed to be his chance to get away from all of that. What if nothing changed at all?

No. No, he couldn't think like this. All of these doubts weren't going to keep the spiky haired blond from achieving his dreams. It would all be worth it when he became a SOLDIER First Class... hell, if he even got to meet Sephiroth, or see him with his own eyes, even from a distance, it would all be worth it. His hero... With those thoughts in mind he lifted himself from the windowsill, pulled the curtain back over so that it obscured the moon's glow, then flopped back down on his bed. Even if he couldn't sleep, he could at least make a show of pretending.

The morning air was cold and harsh, wind blowing the blond's hair into utter disarray. It never took much to get it into that state, but today was really taking the cake. Even though the air had been entirely still the night before, blustery gales were hitting the village and because Cloud had travelled to the mouth of the mountains to get picked up he no longer had the cover that the tall earth surrounding the village would provide. It was about seven in the morning, and here he was standing out in the cold alone. Earlier on he and his mother had had a fairly awkward goodbye. She had been emotional, he had been emotional, but because they didn't want to make it any more difficult than it was they had both agreed to make the whole affair as low key as possible. Getting worked up about something like that in public was embarrassing, anyway. It was nothing he couldn't deal with himself, alone.

A noise distracted the blond from his impending angst. What was that, the sputter of an engine in the distance? It certainly seemed like it! Immediately his spirits lifted, and his bag soon followed as he lifted the trunk up with both hands. As the noise became louder and louder it was confirmed that his ears had not deceived him, it really was the truck, they barely ever had any other visitations from vehicles so there wasn't much chance of it being just another passer by. This was it, his big chance, his ticket out of the sticks and into the big leagues...

"Ey, kid. You the one we supposed to be picking up?" The voice shocked Cloud, the young man barrelling backwards a few steps before looking for the source of the voice. A gruff looking man with cropped black hair was looking back at him, scratching the bristly stubble that covered his chin. Despite the crop it was obvious that his hairline was receding, the top thinning, which was just another thing that gave away the man's age. Definitely in his late forties, the blond decided, nodding to himself briefly before realising that there was an answer expected from him.

"Oh..." How had he managed to be so caught up in his own head that he'd completely missed a truck driving up to him? Wow, this was a great start. Still, the old guy driving didn't seem to mind too much. "Yeah, yeah I am. Sorry... I just need to hop in the back, right?" he asked, wanting to be absolutely sure of what he was supposed to be doing. This was the start of his experience, and even if this was just some truck driving grunt he didn't want to get off to a bad start with anybody involved with Shinra, this trip or anything like that.

"Mm. This is as far out as we're goin', but I gotta pick the rest up on the way back." Due to the fact that some drivers decided to quit after they got a certain way across the continent thanks to the long drive, along with the fact that it was usually getting into the afternoon by the time they even made it to the west if they were picking people up left and right, Shinra had decided to change the system and have the people furthest away be picked up first. Cloud had received a letter about it during one of the previous weeks as an explanation of why he was going to need to get up so early, as opposed to heading down to the edge of town at midday. At least they had thought to give him a reason.

After giving a single nod to the driver, along with a murmur of thanks, the blond hauled his trunk around to the back of the truck. For a moment the dull groan of the engine stopped and a metallic slamming sound alerted him to the fact that the driver seemed to be getting out. Hopefully the reason was to help open the hatch because he really wasn't tall enough to do it by himself. His face paled. What if that was another point against him? What if this was some kind of initial test? He couldn't open the door, he got motion sick very easily and he was going to be stuck here for hours... oh, how was he to keep up his strength?

"You okay there, kid? You're lookin' a little pale."

The voice lurched him out of his thoughts once again. The damage was probably already done in Cloud's eyes, he already looked like some oblivious twit who was scared out of his skin and couldn't even open the door of a damned truck. Oh, Gaia...

"I'm fine, thanks," the blond replied. There was no reason to go into further detail. Obviously they were both more interested in setting off so without another word he jumped up into the back of the truck, dragging his trunk with him. It took a couple of good tugs to get the - very stuffed - bag up into the interior but with one final lurch it came free, causing Cloud to stagger back slightly. Lucky for him he didn't lose his footing entirely.

With both Cloud and the luggage safely stored in the truck compartment the driver obviously saw no more reason to keep the hatch open and delay their visit, and because of that he soon found himself trapped in near darkness. There were a few small windows on the sides, but they were quite high up and allowed the light to shine down at harsh diagonal angles, allowing the little specks of dust that surrounded him to become visible in their glow. It seemed that, until they picked somebody up, the spiky haired young man's only entertainment was going to be watching said specks while he tried his best to keep the burgeoning sickness at bay.

Hours had passed. During the journey so far, only a few people had joined Cloud in the truck despite the amount of time that had inched by. The swirling sickness rising in his throat had caused him to skip his lunch, despite the fact that the blueberry pancakes that his mother had made for him would most likely be lukewarm, dry and stale by the time they finally reached their destination. There would be no rest stops. In a strange way, perhaps the denial of food was a blessing? It meant that he had no reason to crack out the food and risk the bigger, buffer looking kids around his age that had joined him in the truck making fun of him for having a lunch packed by mummy at home. Neither outcome helped his wrenching stomach.

Speaking of his travelling companions, they were an assorted bunch despite the thicker, toned stature that they shared, obviously somewhat hardened by training rather than coming to Midgar as some soft, squishy hopeful. They had a range of hair colours, red, brown, black, but no blonde. Apparently they could be quite a rare thing the closer they got to the east, natural blondes anyway. The snowier, mountainous areas tended to lend better to that hair colour and even then he'd not seen that many in Nibelheim during his life there, mainly him, his mother and perhaps one other family on the other side of the village.

There was no question that everybody was taller than him, although there was a difference between one or two that were only a few inches higher and then another who towered over him like a giant. The blond couldn't help but wonder which would be more common, and for his sake he hoped that it was the former so that he had at least slightly less of a chance to look like a complete runt.

"How could I ever look like anything but a runt compared to these guys?" he thought to himself, his mouth twitching slightly as his face took on a more forlorn expression, "I knew how to handle myself in Nibelheim, but here... am I out of my depth?"

Ever present nerves were eating away at him again, not helping his swimming, churning stomach and addled mind. The dizziness from the movement, the constant worry of sickness, both were being exacerbated by the fact that these three guys seemed to be in a whole other league to him. The blond was sabotaging himself, building everybody around him up to vastly superior status' just to bring himself down, and it sure was working. This was something that happened all the time for him. Back in the village it had taken him the better part of a year to start standing up to his bullies, to retort to the name calling and violence with a little of his own, and that was only after a stern pep talk from his mother. Oh, how he wished she were here now to impart some wisdom that might help him in the coming hours... but no such thing was to occur.

Instead, Cloud huddled up on the clanking wooden bench and swivelled to face away from the others. It was anti-social and he most likely would not make any friends by doing so, but when he was feeling terrible he felt he deserved a pass. How would he even go about talking to them anyway? It wasn't as if he was the type to have had friends, so the process of making any seemed a mystery to him. Part of him felt that he would be safer, better off if he treated everybody as a hostile until they had proven themselves otherwise. With that thought he gave a slight nod in answer to his own thoughts, all that he could muster in his condition, and closed his eyes to help ward away pain and sickness for the rest of the journey.

Second chapter, whoo. I've been working on this for a few days on and off between festivities and such. I was kind of barrelling through because I wanna get towards the more interesting stuff which is why chapters still aren't all that long (plus I have a whole load of college work that I've been neglecting to write instead). I'm hoping they're okay though! Thank you to everybody who added this story to their alerts and faves, I was quite surprised by all the attention it recieved. :)