A/N: Yay, a new chapter!

ONWARD!

The way to Cloud's place was at the heart of Eden. So close to Eden, in fact, that he lived with Eden, the fal'Cie. His door was to the left of the door to the fal'Cie.

Zack hovered in the Mako looking as graceful as anyone in crystal stasis.

"So…you think you can uh…work your magic on my boy, here, Light?"

"I think Hope should do it…" she said, honestly. "He's been healing the longest."

Hope touched the thick glass. "We have to get him out of the Mako, first," he said evenly, almost confidently.

Cloud pressed a button and the glass separated, the Mako draining. Cloud caught Zack lightly, though the raven haired boy was much bigger.

Hope first started working on removing the bullets with his small, useful fingers. "Can you stand him up?"

"Of course," Cloud said, wanting only to be helpful.

The voice that came from Hope was mixed with Alexander's as they chorused: "Raise!"

"Ouch!" Sazh yelped as Light let go of the hand she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"Sorry!" she said quickly, 'I didn't realized."

And no one but Cloud seemed to realize the lips on his.

"I've always wanted to do that," Zack stated.

"Do what?" asked everyone but Cloud and Zack.

"Nothing," the two responded.

"Am I really here? With you?" Zack asked, almost cynically. "I mean, I've dreamed of this so much, to live again, and everything…with you. But I've seen it so many times now; you can't really blame me for not believing all of this…right?"

"No, Zack, we found a cure to death…well, death of unnatural causes, that is. That snowy-haired boy saved you with magic."

"So…Materia?"

"No, heh, Zack, legitimate magic. Pulse magic, to be honest…"

"So…the PSICOM unit must be out of business, then… We don't have to be afraid of Pulsians anymore?"

"Everyone from Pulse is either dead or crystal now."

Cloud went over the basics of what the others had told him.

"And: look; my brand is gone. I don't have to do anything for him anymore," Cloud laughed.

"That's great! Especially now that you're not turning into crystal anymore…"

"But I was a crystal! It was amazing I had the best dreams of my brother and you…I turned to crystal while I was putting you in the Mako tank; that's why neither of us have aged," the spiky-haired boy explained quickly.

"So that's why you still look fourteen!"

"And why you still look sixteen," The blond finished.

"But you…you still have Mako poisoning, don't you, Cloud?…"

The blonde looked down. "I told you that would never go away…"

"Well…as long as everyone's okay… Let's have a tea party!" Zack exclaimed.

The door they walked through was filled with dolls of porcelain, lining the shelves all the way around the room and even a miniature table.

"Cloud kind of had a thing for dolls…" Zack explained.

The mentioned boy blushed. "I just wanted a friend…" Everyone looked at him funny, except for Hope, who seemed to know the tale that Cloud was going to have to explain. "Dolls were originally created for catching the souls of the dead… I thought that maybe…if I collected enough, one soul would appear for me… But that never happened… They're just décor now, to brighten up the room," everyone was still staring. "I swear, that's all they are…Eden, you guys…"

"Okay, okay," Sazh interjected. "…but what were you going to do with a dead person's soul?"

"I just wanted to talk to someone…" he answered, seeming ashamed.

Zack held him fast to his chest. "Well, now you do!"

Everyone laughed and Cloud set to work on boiling water for everyone. While all the cups were being poured, he explained systematically that "The blue box is peppermint, the green box is green tea, the red is chamomile, and the rusty one is from Pulse, made with the seeds of a fruit called 'pomegranate.'"

Everyone talked to the person beside them, everyone but Lightning and Zack drinking the Pulsian tea, settling instead for green and chamomile.

"I think we should tell them," Lightning and Hope chorused, unintentionally to their respective partners: Snow and Sazh.

All eyes were theirs.

Light went first: "Sazh and I are together," applause came from the small crowd.

Snow stood next. "Hope and I are together." Applause again.

Then, unexpectedly, Zack stood, pulling Cloud with them. "Cloudy and me are together!"

A moment. Then applause all the same.

Everyone felt relieved.

"Guess we're the odd ones out, Light. Only straights at the table," he jested.

"Yeah, I never thought any of them would come out… but, hey, we're all different; I've got to be the only Checkerboard chick in Cocoon," she laughed. Racism was actually still a big thing in Cocoon. Different kinds of people were created b the fal'Cie, and all of those groups stuck together, though all lived and interacted peacefully, it was unheard of for a faerie like Light to be with a normal looking human like Sazh.

A/N: I hope you liked it, Rain!