Lee closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, letting the smell of his surroundings enter his lungs as he concentrated. He was absolutely certain they were being followed. Unfortunately, Sergei had been the first to notice and say it, but now that Lee thought about it and searched, he could see all the signs.

"What are we gonna do?" Qurt asked, running his fingers over his gun nervously.

"We have to throw them off our trail." Sergei said, glancing at Lee.

"Why don't we leave a surprise for them on the trail they're following?" Yakov asked curiously. "It might deter them."

"As fun as it would be to have them blow themselves up by walking on a mine, I think we should try to lose them for now. We can't waste any of our ammo until we reach the next town to get a feel for what we can get there and how much more we'll need to send for." Lee spoke up.

"How will we throw them off?" Tarou asked, shuffling his cards.

"We'll split into two groups and go in opposite directions, meeting up again at a known rendezvous point." Lee instructed. "Q, Kuja and Kuta will come with me. Tarou, Sergei and Yakov will make up the second group."

"Are you sure we shouldn't set off in smaller groups? They may be able to split up as well." Sergei murmured quietly, just loud enough for Lee to hear.

"We'll do as I say and that's that." Lee snapped, then jerked his head at the twins and Q before walking away from the group.

"See you at the town, then?" Sergei asked.

"Yes, at the town." Lee repeated over his shoulder, glancing to make sure his group was following. They were.

Kuja and Kuta had pulled out a cigarette packet and Kuja was now lighting a cigarette that was positioned between his lips. He'd only just flicked the lighter on when Lee suddenly spun around.

"Kuja, spit it out." he demanded.

The twin stopped what he was doing and raised an eyebrow.

"Why?" he asked around the cigarette.

"They'll track us easier if you're dropping ash the whole way." Lee explained, narrowing his eyes at the challenging expression he was receiving from the dark-haired man.

"I don't care. I need to smoke." Kuja said, his eyes going back down to what he was doing as he flicked the lighter on again.

In the next instant, Lee had ripped a knife from his belt and lunged at Kuja, but was blocked by Kuta who struggled to hold him back.

"Give him a break!" Kuta hissed. "He can walk a different way for a while until he's finished it and then meet back with us. Then if they follow the ash they'll be led astray."

Lee gradually calmed down and put his knife back, still glaring angrily at Kuja who was glaring straight back. Usually they were fairly civilised towards each other, but Lee was feeling incredibly tense lately.

He was threatened by Sergei. The man continued to make comments about his plans and would often tell the others to do something different than what Lee had instructed in order to make their plan go smoother. Soon enough there would be a mutiny as they tried to appoint Sergei as leader.

So Lee had to prove he was better.

"Let's keep going," Lee said quietly. "And Kuja, you can walk parallel to us on that side." He pointed right and Kuja tipped his head before heading off.

"I'll go with him." Kuta murmured as he took a step backwards and then spun on his heel to walk after his twin.

Lee resumed his own walking and Qurt quickly fell in behind him, one hand on his gun as his eyes darted from side to side anxiously. He was fairly new to their group and hadn't entirely settled in, although he felt better around Lee just because the man had given him a nickname and made him feel accepted.

They walked in silence for a long while, focusing on covering distance and constantly checking to make sure they were still on course.

Then Qurt spoke.

"Can you smell smoke?" he asked.

"Yes." Lee confirmed, but didn't slow down at all.

"D'you think it's up ahead?"

"I know it is," Lee said and then pointed through some of the trees. "Look." Up ahead, in one particular spot, the trees were surrounded by what looked like mist but was identified as smoke from it's smell.

"What do you think it's from?" Qurt asked.

"That's what we're going to find out, Q." Lee grinned, speeding up as he was excited to reach the scene and find out what had happened.

When they got there, they found a large burnt-out fire which was still trailing smoke into the air, and Lee bent down to get a better look at it.

"They've left something here." Qurt said as he walked around the fire to where a bag was lying on the ground. He picked it up and pulled out what was inside before inspecting it to see if there was anything useful.

"Show me." Lee said, not looking up but trailing a finger through the black residue.

Qurt walked over and stood beside his superior, about to pass the object down when something caught his attention and he froze. His eyes widened in shock and he glanced down at Lee before looking at the object again.

"What's wrong with you?" Lee asked, standing up angrily and dusting his hands off on his pants before reaching to snatch everything from Qurt's hands.

"Sorry!" Qurt said as Lee managed to grab a photo from the objects. "Um... that's..."

Lee turned it over to look at the image and suddenly felt his blood go cold as his eyes took it in.

"He's dead." Lee whispered.

"You mean it isn't you, Lee?" Qurt asked with a frown. "For a minute there I thought you were hiding a past of being in ShinRa from us."

"But he's dead!" Lee yelled. "I killed him with my own knife! How could he be an infantryman?"

Anger boiling up inside him, Lee suddenly let the rage consume him and ripped the image up, letting out a cry of frustration as he did so. The torn bits of paper floated to the ground and Lee closed his eyes, his hands clenched into fists.

"I should have stayed to make sure he died."

"What are you talking about? Who is it?" Qurt asked, fear on his face as he watched Lee. He would hate to be on the receiving end of an anger like that.

"Little Roy," Lee said in a whisper, a smile curving his lips as a memory appeared in his mind. "My brother."

Genesis watched through the trees before turning and walking away silently. He had seen enough and knew that everything had gone according to the plan. Why Sephiroth had been hesitant at first, he still didn't know.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he quickly dialled his friend.

"Yes?"

"It's done. Now he knows." Genesis said simply.

"Nothing went wrong?" Sephiroth asked curiously.

"No. Why did you keep thinking something was going to go wrong? He saw it, freaked out, then told his companion that it was his brother Roy. Exactly what I thought would happen. What were you expecting?" Genesis frowned.

"He actually said the name Roy to his companion?" Sephiroth asked in shock.

"Yes. Now if you don't explain to me what's going on right now I'm going to hang up." Genesis threatened, slowly getting further and further away from the two rebellion soldiers.

Sephiroth breathed out slowly before saying, "You might want to get comfortable for this story, Gen."

When Kayli woke up again there were five people around her bed. Narrowing her eyes in confusion, she looked around to see exactly who was there.

Alec stood at the foot of the bed with Cloud beside him. Davis and Rex were standing on her right and on her left stood Edvard! He was holding a clipboard stiffly and reading something written on it.

"Alec, you met Eddie." Kayli grinned, pushing herself into a sitting position and then turning to face the scientist-in-training. "It's good to see you again."

"Uh, yeah." Edvard stammered, going bright red.

"You're right," Alec laughed. "He's hilarious."

"So are you okay?" Davis asked, watching her closely. She smiled at him and gave a small shrug.

"Yeah."

Then she suddenly came to the realisation that everyone around her except for Alec knew that she was a girl. How awkward.

Poor Alec.

"Should we leave the love-birds to talk privately for a bit?" Rex asked jokingly, glancing between her and Davis. Davis gave him a sharp shove in the side with his elbow and Alec coughed awkwardly while Cloud and Edvard had no apparent reaction.

"Rex, if you keep that up-"

"Okay! I'm sorry." Rex said quickly.

"You should be." Kayli frowned at him and then turned back to Davis again.

"You gonna be okay to get out of here now?" Davis asked, glancing at Edvard briefly before back at Kayli.

"Well I feel perfectly fine so why not? But of course, we should ask my doctor. Are you being my doctor for today, Edvard?" Kayli asked, having turned her attention back to him again.

"Um yeah," Edvard swallowed and nodded. "Hojo suggested doing some training as a doctor to help with my scientific abilities."

"That's great!" Kayli said enthusiastically. "So am I free to go?"

"Well yes, since there's nothing wrong with you. Your fainting was not caused by any lack of oxygen but instead of distress, so as long as you feel that you're fine now and won't go into shock again you can leave." Edvard explained.

Kayli chewed on her lip nervously as she realised everyone was going to wonder what had freaked her out so bad to make her faint.

"Alright, let's go." she finally said, moving to the right and pausing as Davis stepped back before swinging her legs off the bed and standing up. Now that Edvard has spoken, she was also remembering what it was Sephiroth had said to her.

"Do we need to talk?" Davis whispered to her as they began walking to the door.

"Maybe." Kayli shivered and realised she was still in her swimming clothes. "How long was I unconscious?"

"Well swimming ended ten minutes ago." Davis explained for her.

"Great. Okay, I guess I'll meet you in guns soon. I have to grab my clothes from the-"

Davis pushed on her shoulders to spin her around and pointed back at the end of the bed she had been sleeping on, where her bag of things sat.

"Sorry, forgot to tell you." he said with a grin.

"Ah, thanks." Kayli laughed, walking over and picking it up. The two of them then left the infirmary to find the the others waiting outside and then they all walked towards guns, while Kayli tried to pull her infantry uniform on as they went.

"You are nuts, Roy." Rex announced after a few minutes as Kayli was hopping down the hallway trying to pull her boots on.

"Shut. Up!" Kayli managed to snap in between hops. She then had the hard task of trying to tie the laces while hopping and let out a loud groan, giving up. Her laces clicked quietly on the floor as she walked.

"Better luck next time?" Davis said with a chuckle.

"Thanks." Kayli rolled her eyes.

Continuing their way to guns, Kayli only tied her shoelaces when they were sitting down listening to their instructor yack about something which was apparently 'really important' for them all to know.

It was a huge relief to get out of that class. Cloud still believed that their guns instructor had it out for him, despite the fact that no one else could see any evidence for that during their lessons. Davis still loved the class because of his fascination with guns, and everyone else was the same. Although, Alec was having a bit of trouble surviving under his workload.

"Davis," Kayli whispered as they headed back to their room to dump stuff before going to get lunch. "I need to tell Alec."

Davis started in shock, eyebrows raised as he looked over at her. "I thought you were going to say something completely different," he laughed lightly. "So don't worry about my surprise."

"Oh, well, I'll talk to you about that... later." Kayli shrugged. "But I don't want to lie to Alec anymore and I know he won't tell anyone."

"Okay." Davis nodded.

"That's all you have to say?" Kayli asked weakly, looking up at him for help.

"I'm sorry, what do you want me to say? If he's your best friends brother maybe you should tell him. He'd probably appreciate it." Davis elaborated.

"Yeah, that's what I was thinking." Kayli sighed.

With a laugh, Davis slung an arm around her shoulders. "Why did you tell me, then? Just go right on up and tell him!"

"No, I have to get him alone!" Kayli protested.

"Don't freak him out! Just-"

"What on earth are you two talking about now?" Rex exclaimed, spinning around and staring at Davis and Kayli, who froze like deer caught in headlights. "Honestly, can't you whisper mushy things to each other when we're not around?"

Alec turned away from the scene and hurriedly took the last few steps to the room before going inside.

"If only to stop Alec from almost dying every time Rex says something like that, you need to tell him." Davis whispered, making Kayli smile.

"I agree."

"Feel like sharing?" Rex snapped.

"Don't be silly, I'm not sharing Davis with you." Kayli joked before grabbing Davis' arm and dragging him into their room.

Alec looked up before quickly looking down again and busying himself with rummaging through his bag – but it was obvious he wasn't actually looking for anything.

"Alec, I have to tell you something." Kayli said quickly, knowing that if she didn't burst it out right away she'd never say it.

"You know," Alec said, straightening up. "I'm cool with it, okay? It's none of my business anyway. You can-"

"I'm Kayli."

That definitely stopped Alec from saying whatever else he was going to say. He blinked a few times as if trying to figure out what had just happened and then frowned, tilting his head to the side in utter confusion.

"Huh!"

"I'm pretending to be a guy so that I don't get kicked out of ShinRa." Kayli explained a bit more, not wanting to overwhelm the poor boy with information but knowing that he couldn't survive with just two words.

"What? That's insane!" he suddenly exploded.

Rex and Cloud finally walked into the room and were just putting their things on their own beds normally before they realised something was happening and they stopped, looking over.

"Did you all know?" Alec snapped, turning to them. "That Roy is actually Kayli?"

Rex's face paled as he shot a glance over at Cloud. Unfortunately, he didn't know that the blond knew now, and was quite shocked to see Cloud looking impossibly calm faced with the situation.

"What?" Cloud asked, looking over at him.

"You know?" Rex gasped.

"Uh, yeah. It was pretty obvious after a while." Cloud shrugged.

"Great, okay. So you all do know." Alex groaned, putting his head in his hands. "And you only felt like telling me now?"

"Well, you're my best friends brother... I figured that-"

"Wait! That can't be possible! Ages ago when we just came back from Costa del Sol and I was going to see Kayli in the infirmary you were in your room!" Alec exclaimed, eyes wide with pride.

"And you took the stairs because I called Se-omeone and asked them to knock out the elevators. Then they came back on so I could go up to the infirmary before you and that's how I did it." Kayli said.

"Serious?" Alec stage-whispered.

"Yup."

"What about in the helicopter? You couldn't have been in two places at once!" Alec accused.

"No, and I wasn't. I have a wig for whenever I want to be Kayli again and we had a SOLDIER flown in the night before going back who then wore my wig and pretended to be me on the helicopter. It was easy since he just had to sit there, rugged up."

There was silence for a while.

Alec was clearly trying to understand everything that had happened and Kayli almost felt bad for him, except it was so amusing.

"In case you were wondering, Kayli and I are going out." Davis piped up, grinning cheekily.

"Okay, I feel as though my brain is going to explode." Alec said slowly.

"When were you in Costa del Sol?" Rex asked curiously.

With a groan, Kayli grabbed Davis' arm again and dragged him out of the room, deciding to let everyone else cool down for a while.

Besides, it was about time she finished telling Davis about Liam.

He deserved to know.