Warning: did I say that Cloud had a potty mouth? Yeah, well. Cloud has a potty mouth here….

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LEFT BEHIND


Don't you stay dead?

June 17 – 10 PM – Midgar Slums


Cloud had his sword split as he slammed the door open. It felt strange leading the charge with two armed Turks at his back and he was getting a really really bad vibe from this place.

There had been a yell and it was ahead of schedule for him breaking down the door, but that yell sure as hell didn't sound good as it was followed by a think thump.

A woman was staggering towards a short spear that was perched on the end of the bed. She must be that Lira. A young man was crumbled against a shattered wall; he figured that was this Lore even though he couldn't see his face that was buried under a damaged looking arm.

They must have had a falling out. Lore didn't look like he was getting up from where he lay on the floor. She threw him good and hard. Okay, she was strong. He got that but not as strong as him.

He scanned the rest of the room quickly. His eyes flitting onto Reno was leaning against a far wall, sporting a new haircut and looking like he was bawling his eyes out. He wasn't moving or talking. He looked like he was tied up pretty good and pretty damaged as well. He looked like he took a bunch of damage.

It was the boy in the bed that startled him the most. They told him there was a kid in here. Lira's kid.

They should have told him more.

The silver haired boy that looked a little dazed and his green eyes turned right at him.

That was a vital piece of information that they left out!

He just about threw his sword at the boy. Those green eyes startled him and he had gripped his sword tighter as he looked at him.

"What the fuck is this?" He bellowed as he looked around the room. "Can't he stay dead?" The piece of information that he left out. The piece that Tseng was holding back was damn important in his mind. He did point his sword at the boy and watched him cringe a bit. Surprisingly, he didn't feel bad about the fear that the boy had for him.

He turned his attention back to the woman that was supposed to be the big threat but looked like she could barely walk and there was blood streaming from a cut on her pale damaged neck.

The woman got a hold of the spear but she was shaking so badly remain standing. This was the terror that gave Tseng a black eye and blew a hole into ShinRa's new building? She hardly looked threatening. "Stay away from my son!!" Her voice was full of fury but she fell to her knees on the floor. She was defiantly a spitfire, if in attitude alone. She threw her spear. Cloud hit it aside as she fell to her knees with gasping breath. The spear nearly hit Rude as he was walking into the room. Rude was focusing on Reno who looked like he was starting to hyperventilate.

The woman knelt there for a moment gasping for breath and holding a bloody point on her damaged throat. He couldn't help but notice that her eyes had that glow; the glow that you get from mako. He narrowed his eyes at her. There was madness in her eyes that he was familiar with. It was the same type of madness that he saw in Sephiroth as he threw him into the depths of the earth. He wondered if she was going to start ranting, but she crumpled to the floor in a disgraceful heap.

"You needed me for this?" he grumbled and looked at the boy who was shivering on the bed. It was very anticlimactic after all the build up they gave this woman as a great warrior. The woman was sick. He could see that she had more than just madness wrong with her, not that he should really care, as long as it didn't affect him anymore than it already had.

He noted the broken syringe that was lying on the floor and the familiar blue hue of a painkiller. Yeah, powerful stuff that only really worked if you were mako affected. It was hard stuff to come buy but they obviously had connections to get the powerful drug.

Tseng went to the man on the floor who groaned loudly at the strange touch.

Rude was untying Reno who looked like he was bawling silently. The loudmouth was being awful quiet for a change.

Cloud just stared at the crumpled woman and rotated the unused sword in his hand. He watched as Reeve had a few of his grunts come in and restrain the unconscious woman.

Cloud turned his attention to the boy that was on the bed and couldn't help but frown.

Cloud looked at the scared green-eyed boy that looked like Sephiroth. A mini-Sephiroth. The boy looked pale and scared. He was shaking and staring right at him. It gave him the creeps. He thought he was done with all that. Done with all this! Being dragged into ShinRa and WRO operations! DONE, DAMNIT! It was supposed to be done with! He had done his time with this and all he wanted to have a normal life and everyone conspired against him in achieving this.

People were talking in his ear through the ear piece. He wasn't paying attention to it. It was unimportant banter. He was still thinking about what he was going to do about the mini-Sephiroth that was staring at him with big tear filled green eyes.

"Mom?" the boy whispered as he looked at the slumped figure of his mother on the floor. They had her cuffed and rolled over now. He could see how sick she was and it sent shivers down his spine. He could see that she wasn't just mad, there was so much more wrong with her. He doubted that anything could cure her.

The boy made a small sound. Cloud twisted his sword in his hand and the boy's eyes darted right at him. Startled eyes "Are you going to help my mother? She is quite sick" the boy asked.

Cloud blinked. What kind of questions is that to come out of kid? He didn't answer as they lifted with woman in a harsh manner and carried her out of the room; to a most likely a cage was awaiting her.

"They'll do what they can," he muttered. His voice sounding thick at talking to the kid. The boy's voice, thankfully, was nothing like Sephiroth, but then, he was still a boy and his voice had yet to change. He had almost had forgotten the timber of the man's voice but now he was certain that his dreams would be plagued again with him.

The boy blinked as he watched his mother being dragged out of the room. He looked like he was going to cry but sniffed hard and took a big deep breath. The boy looked directly at him. There was intensity in his eyes that made him shiver and gripped his sword tighter. There were more people in the room now and they all seemed to be scared to go near the boy.

He knew he was part of the reason. He was standing close to the bed and he knew that he was looking at the boy with an intensity that he didn't really deserve. But then, the boy looked like Sephiroth and that was a nerve wracking attention grabber. The man had been dead for quite a while now, but, he found ways to terrorize the world (and him) even in death.

And everyone in the room knew who the boy's father was.

"Do you know my father?" the boy asked as if sensing the peoples thoughts in the room.

Cloud frowned. "I don't know." He didn't want to admit that Sephiroth had a son. Sephiroth? It is the only answer that he had, but he wasn't going to say it. It was obvious, but…

"They say I look quite a bit like him, even though no one will tell me what his name was," the boy whispered and started to wheeze. Some people in medical uniforms approached the boy and there was someone yelling at him in the ear piece.

The boy could be his clone, as far as Cloud was concerned. It would not be the first time that there were clones of SOLDIERS.

Was he a different type of remnant?

Of course, he had never seen a child remnant or clone, but there was always a first time.


Safe

June 18 – Medical Center - Room 1


Reno smirked as he looked at the needle in his arm that was giving him the wonderful ~wonderful~ drugs that were making him feel so ~so~ much better. He was hardly aware of the doctors who had poked prodded and ran him through some initial medical tests. He could hardly feel anything as they plied him with attentions. He liked the numbness.

He was feeling so much better now. He was glad that he was able to stop crying and he was so glad that he wasn't in pain anymore. He was free of the crazy brother and sister and in a nice clean and warm room. A very nice warm room!

And the drugs were good. He didn't feel any pain! After the 3 weeks of almost constant pain, he felt so… so… refreshed!

"How are you doing partner?"

He looked over and realized that Rude was in the room. His partner. He was looking down at him with a strange look on his face.

It took Reno a moment to realize that Rude was worried about him.

He opened his mouth but nothing came out of it.

He still couldn't talk.

His throat was damaged. How many times did she put her hands on his throat to shut him up? How many times did she squeeze it so that he nearly blacked out from lack of oxygen? How often did she make him scream and plead with her, even when he no longer had a voice?

He started to feel the tears coming again and even with the drugs that were being pumped into his system, the pain seemed to be returning with a vengeance. Rude touched his shoulder and he knew that he was only trying to comfort him, but he didn't want to be touched. He flinched and Rude pulled his hand away from him.

"Do you want anything?"

Reno shook his head and sank in the blankets. He was cold again and started to shiver. It was like being in the basement again, where no matter what Lore had given him, he couldn't get warm.

A woman injected something into his IV bag and gave him a look that he didn't want. He didn't want to be pitied. He was Reno of the Turks, not some blubbering idiot that was broken by some backwater mountain town militia morons.

It must have been a sedative because he found his silent sobs slowing down. Rude was touching his hand in a tentative way with a concerned look that he could see… hey, he wasn't wearing his sunglasses. He was grateful for that. He hated sunglasses now. He didn't like the surprises that appeared under glasses.

To Be Continued….


Next chapter: GUILT & MEMORY &TREATMENT

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