Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no money from this work. Anything recognizable to the Final Fantasy VII series and its associated parts belongs to Square Enix and affiliated companies.

Green Dreams

Chapter Two: Do You Believe in Materia?

The first day was over and Cloud was wide-awake. The barracks were silent save for the steady breathing of the sleeping cadets. Their days were filled with exhaustive exercise and information intake. The months of training as a recruit at Shinra were for solidifying the basics. Only after getting into SOLDIER did the truly extensive training really begin. Zack had told stories of it, and Cloud had longed for the kind of one-on-one training.

Cloud had always secretly hoped Zack might be his teacher for the buster sword. He'd especially longed for it after Zack's death, mourning a combined mentor and friend. Zack had eventually inadvertently become that, but it was not the way Cloud had wanted it to be.

Remembering Zack's untimely death in such clarity reminded Cloud of what he didn't remember. Consciously, many names, faces, and minor events had long been lost, but as Cloud met those ghosts again they came back with astounding force. He assumed that after absorbing parts of Zack and confusing their separate lives, and then after the trauma from Hojo, Nibelheim, and then Sephiroth, Cloud's mind had simply pushed these seemingly irrelevant things aside. Now it was all coming back—along with a splitting migraine.

Cloud had forgotten what a headache felt like. Mako prevented most ailments.

The day continued to loop in his head while his temples throbbed to the tune of his heartbeat. It was impossible to sleep after the craziness of a day spent reliving his life in Shinra. Before the Nibelheim Incident. Before everything.

Once he'd gathered his wits that morning he'd been sick in the bathroom, unable to vomit because he'd had no food in his stomach though it still convulsed painfully. Cloud was thankful the others had already left as he stumbled out. He consciously avoided the mirror as he left the bathroom. He didn't want to face the inevitable sight of his youth.

His first class of the day—once he'd found it and gotten thoroughly chastised for being late—had been completely forgotten almost as soon as relieved it. His mind was stuck repeating what incidents he knew were his and which were Zack's, and what facts of his life in Shinra he could remember.

Shinra was a highly organized, efficient, and militaristic system that ran well but rigidly. There was a set curriculum in each class, alphabetically assigned seating, a standard code of punishment for disobedience, and all of it enforced, which was easily the most exceptional thing about it. It was a strict regime meant to turn out SOLDIERs (or at least army troopers) like an assembly line, and it was actually quite successful. If cadets couldn't keep up with the program, they were kicked out point-blank. When you signed the contract to join the SOLDIER program, the promise was to join the regulation army if you couldn't cut it—the fate of most cadets including Cloud.

That being said, Cloud had been one of the few students that actually tried, and he'd been bullied badly for it (though he couldn't remember anything specific, he just knew he had), and his grades hadn't reflected his motivation. He'd been the runt of the class, and it showed. Even with a good grade on written exams, the physical tests were what the military was about, and Cloud had failed at that spectacularly.

Unfortunately, failure now meant more than just the humiliation of underpaying, grueling work in the regular army. And as Cloud zoned out to the droning of the teacher, he could envision it perfectly:

There was Sephiroth, the wild halo of his hair wreathing him while standing on a gory battlefield triumphant; Zack's buster sword laying in the dust on the cliff where he died; Hojo parading the battlefield victoriously, as though he had single-handedly won the war; AVALANCHE in their homes with their friends and family, eyes glazed in death; the Planet dying and Aeris' flower garden withering with it; and Cloud, in all of this, lying at the bottom of Aeris' lake, unable to get up because the water was everywhere and he didn't have the strength to fight it.

The bell rang then, jerking Cloud and his peers back to the present.

The present was almost as dreamlike as that nightmare had been though. Walking through the halls of Shinra, Cloud couldn't deny how real it felt and how he'd been suffering a dizzying amount of déjà vu all day. The people, the classrooms, the routine, it was very familiar and all the more irritating because of it.

The second class of the morning was theory, essentially just another lecture class and had almost no meaning in SOLDIER and virtually no use outside of it. Cloud had intended to go even knowing that, and had tailed the other boys there because he was only half-sure where he was going, but then at the other end of the hall approached a SOLDIER.

Zack.

Just the sight was enough to make Cloud stumble, but this wasn't the dirty, messy, haggard Zack who hid exhaustion behind a smile in the back of a yellow truck. It was Zack Fair looking like the First Class SOLDIER he was, with a modified uniform, boots shined, hair in every direction, and a smooth, confident stride as he talked easily to the SOLDIER next to him. He had a real smile on his face and the distinctive glowing eyes of all SOLDIERs, though on Zack it wasn't intimidating. In fact, friendly interest was obvious in the way he looked at the cadets walking by, many of whom were looking right back at him in awe, Cloud included.

First Class SOLDIERs were easy to spot because they had the freedom to wear whatever they wanted. Zack usually went with a customized uniform, removing the sleeves, foregoing the helmet, and changing the material of the clothing to suit his needs, though he stuck with the black color (Cloud barely remembered how viciously Zack had complained about the Second Class purple). Despite that, Zack was a well-known face around Shinra because of his charisma and friendliness.

Cloud tensed up more and more with every step Zack took closer. Just seeing his old friend so carefree and happy was as almost painful, because Cloud knew it didn't last. But right now he looked so alive, so much realer than he did in Cloud's memories. The urge to reach out and touch the SOLDIER was stronger than anything he'd ever felt before, but Cloud clenched his teeth, pulled on that iron will, and looked away.

Zack still had that spiked thorn-bush hair, and it was midnight black though shorter than Cloud remembered it. The other cadets' looks of envy were nothing compared to the way Cloud felt. The blond didn't see Zack the way the other boys did, not just as an amazing SOLDIER they admired. Cloud saw a million images of Zack all at once: his goofy smile; his face set in concentration as he swung the buster sword; how big and heavy his hands were when they mussed up Cloud's hair; Zack in the pick-up truck, fuzzy around the edges but smiling all the while; Zack shouting something, concern and worry in his voice but his words indistinct; and Zack's face, peaceful in death.

The double vision was powerful, but that last image of Zack's bloodied face so utterly relaxed, the lines of stress Cloud hadn't been able to see until they were gone, it was haunting. Moreover, it was prophetic. Could he save Zack? Sephiroth?

Those words were ringing in his ears so loud that Cloud didn't realize he had stopped walking until someone bumped his shoulder hard enough to make him stumble a step forward. "Keep walking, Strife," sneered Reno, the red-haired Turk-to-be. Cloud stood frozen as the younger visage of Reno laughed in his face and walked away.

It had been too much. Overwhelmed, Cloud skipped his next class to be alone. He escaped to the far side of the training fields, looking for the most privacy he could find. There was a little spot of grass on the farthest side behind a shed that he headed to almost without thinking. He'd escaped there before, he knew in his bones.

Most of the fields were tough sand and dirt taken from the desert surrounding Midgar and ideal for the intense running and exercises cadets and SOLDIERs did. Not quite jogging but hurriedly walking, Cloud abandoned any idea of secrecy, as the open fields didn't offer shelter from prying eyes. Finally on the soft grass in the back corner, behind a maintenance shed that would hide him from prying eyes, he collapsed on his back to stare up into the polluted sky, willing away tears. He, the great warrior who took down Shinra's General and saved the world, was on the verge of crying. So much emotion, more than Cloud could ever remember feeling, was hitting him all at once. Zack, Reno, SOLDIER, the helplessness, the anger, the fear…

Lying on that field, Cloud could see every bad outcome in his probable future it seemed. It felt like there were only a handful of good ends and an infinite number of bad. Worse than that though, his chances of success in saving anyone seemed to grow slimmer with every second.

What Cloud hadn't been able to see while lying there looking at the sky and begging the Planet to bring him back to a life he had at least been able to live, was Zack's eyes on him. After walking by the cadets, Zack had headed up several floors to retrieve some files from another office. On his way out he'd passed a window looking out at the fields and spotted Cloud's unmistakable hair rushing through the fields. Zack stopped short, knowing full well the other cadets had been heading to class, and watched the blond scurry behind the shed, no doubt to hide.

Zack, as Lieutenant General of the SOLDIER division of the army, had more free time than other SOLDIERs because he wasn't as constrained by training regiments, and if he didn't, he made more free time for himself. Zack wasn't lazy when it came to sword fighting and training, but he did manage to evade as much paperwork as possible. He found various excuses to get out of it, some more ridiculous than others. One legitimate excuse he used though was visiting the cadets to encourage them in their training. Seeing a First Class SOLDIER at all, especially with Zack's reputation and his 300lbs buster sword, tended to do that without much effort.

Zack enjoyed those visits, but no one had quite stuck out in a group more than the blond boy with a chocobo's haircut. The first day Zack saw him had been the first day for the autumn group of cadets to start learning basic sword-fighting techniques. They had been handed out the wooden practice swords when Zack slipped in the backdoor and hid in the corner. The First zeroed in almost automatically on the blond on the end, his hair a beacon. The way he stood relative to the other boys made him seem set apart from the group, which had caught Zack's eye. Zack was, self-admittedly, a sucker for the underdog and pariah cliché. Sephiroth seemed to think him some kind of idealist.

One of the instructors had eventually noticed Zack lurking in the back of the room, so he came out of the corner of the room. He made sure to move around the line behind the cadets—just to make them sweat a little for fun—thereby coming up and around right next to the blond on the end. In passing him, Zack could feel the boy's tension peak, his hand trembling around the wooden sword. Zack, trying to be comforting, put a hand on his shoulder briefly, and met the bright, wide blue eyes with a smile. He kept going around then, making a mental note to keep an eye on him.

Zack had kept that promise to himself, though it had been difficult at times. The boy struggled in some things and did average in others, but excelled in little. Zack's heart went out to him. He could tell the blond tried hard, harder than most of the other boys, but he just seemed to fall behind the others, the runt of the litter. It didn't help that he hadn't seemed to make any friends from what few times Zack had seen him.

The First turned away from the window, smiling slightly to himself. Runt or not, Cloud didn't look like the sort to give-up, and Zack silently willed him to believe in hard work overcoming all obstacles, because Zack certainly did. He remembered a day when all he'd wanted to be was a hero. He'd grown from that goal, but he hoped Cloud Strife had something he yearned to do too.

Cloud rolled over on his creaky mattress to lie flat on his back. He examined the lines of the bunk above him, and the nails screwed into the wood, and wondered how many people had lain on this bed before him. How many after?

The bunk above and to his right groaned ominously as Dan turned over in his sleep. Cloud didn't turn his head or move, and the boy's breathing evened out in a few moments.

As nice as Dan Gavish was to him, being bunkmates and all, the boy had more clouds and fluff between his ears than most people thought Cloud did. He tended to forget the little things in favor of what held his attention, and Cloud had always ended up a little thing to Dan. The blond was too quiet for him, too mellow and unresponsive to garner much attention. To Dan, and undoubtedly the rest of the barracks, Cloud was some one-dimensional cadet with a funny name and hair.

Because of this and Cloud's general loner nature, he typically sat alone in the canteen eating the questionable tasting and textured meals Shinra called food. The crowds of people in this cafeteria were mostly cadets, with a smattering of employees and a small number of SOLDIERs who happened to be on this side of the compound. Cloud sat alone, as he had throughout his time as a recruit, and it didn't bother him; he was grateful in fact. He preferred anonymity.

After lunch there were two more periods, all hands-on work with materia. Dan was easily the most enthusiastic of the class, though the others were looking more awake as they stood in a line in the large gym. Dan was the most adept with materia, managing to produce more magic than anyone else in the class, but that wasn't saying much, as Cloud quickly realized.

"Wake-up ladies! I get you after lunch every Monday, and you all stuff yourselves and come here asleep!" Instructor Hade was undoubtedly the loudest instructor Cloud had ever had. He beat the conditioning coach with volume to spare. The worst part of Instructor Hade's bellowing was that the materia practice gyms were made of metal, and the high ceilings for lighting magic echoed and amplified his voice. He was often drowned out by his own echoes, which made it difficult to understand him.

"Since none of you ladies can use even a little magic," Dan whimpered a bit but did not assert himself, "I'll run over this for the last time!" The person next to Cloud took an unconscious step back as the instructor leaned dangerously forward. Hade made the same explanation every week, nearly word-for-word, and Cloud could see Reno out of the corner of his eye starting to mouth along, a cocky look on his face the blond recognized from years later. "Using materia requires a part of the mind you don't normally use! It requires will and the raw energy inside you you've never used before. Some of you may never use it at the rate you're going, and you'll never be SOLDIER if you can't do magic!" People rolled their eyes as Hade kept going for several more minutes essentially repeating the same mantra, before finally letting them go to practice.

They were moved into spots along the walls, coated in protective paints and made of reinforced metal meant to withstand the extreme temperatures of magical attacks. Cloud managed to be right next to the door since he was at the end of the line like always. Old armguards and bangles were handed out, many dented and reeking of dried sweat. Cloud held his between two fingers almost afraid to put it on. He was capable of using the fire materia they were now handing out without it, but he didn't want to risk exposing himself. He was still figuring things out.

Gingerly he slipped the faded iron armguard over his hand and past his wrist. The fire materia was handed to him, and he slotted it with ease, the only good thing about this equipment having been used so much. Hade took his positions in the center of the room and explained the exercise. They were to attempt to produce a flame, ideally long enough to touch the wall. The concept behind this was to later mold that tongue into a ball and create an explosion away from the user. The cadets however, could usually get a couple of sparks or at least make the materia glow and heat up if they tried hard enough. Dan could get a little flame about the half the length of his hand out of the materia.

Cloud hadn't had a problem with materia after mako-exposure. Mako created a deeper connection with the part of the mind that activated materia, as materia was primarily made of condensed natural mako. After all the mako he had been in with Hojo, Cloud could have used Comet2 twice and still remain on his feet.

The ability to use materia without mako injections, however, was somewhat more difficult and took talent and practice. It tended to "click" with some people. Barret had never really gotten the hang of it while Red XIII and Aeris had excelled. Yuffie was adept at just about anything she was given.

The hair on Cloud's neck prickled. Somebody was either staring at him or coming towards him, he couldn't tell which. He didn't want to turn his head and possibly meet Reno's eyes, but the feeling wasn't going away.

Cloud must have taken too long to think about it, because Instructor Hade informed Cloud from about two inches from his ear that, "daydreaming won't make materia work!"

The sudden voice in his sensitive ear startled Cloud so badly that he reflexively jumped, his hand slipping into his left sleeve for the spare knife he kept there only to meet air. He fumbled with his hand in his sleeve, realizing a moment too late that he was completely unarmed save for the fire materia. Hade was just lucky Cloud hadn't thought to use it—he might be a pile of ash if he were.

It must have been dumb luck that Hade was a magic-user and a poor hand-to-hand fighter because he either didn't notice or didn't comprehend Cloud's reaction. However, he did notice the confused look on Cloud's face though and mistook it for stupidity. "I said daydreaming won't make materia work!" Something wet touched Cloud's face, and he resisted the urge to wipe the spit away rudely. When Cloud nodded mutely, Hade marched off, duty done. Cloud rubbed the spittle off mutinously and turned back to the wall, just stopping himself from rolling his eyes. Even if he were technically sixteen years old, he wouldn't give in to such childish moves.

Readjusting the armguard, Cloud focused back on the class. Using materia was also about confidence. Most talents or skills worked that way in general. Probably one of the greatest problems with the cadets was that they believed they couldn't use materia, and so they didn't. Dan had managed a lick of flame, and several had glowing balls, but otherwise there was no real magic to be seen.

Cloud glanced down at the quietly green ball in the only slot of the armguard. Establishing a flame would be simple, except toning it down would take a lot of control. If Dan got barely anything, Cloud should have almost nothing. All he had to do was use a tiny amount of energy and maintain complete focus so he didn't do anything more. If he could make the materia glow, that should be enough.

It was hard to judge how much energy to put in, and to Cloud's horror what he thought was a small amount proved to be far too much. The materia in his armguard flared up and burned with heat he could feel through the metal—proof that it was cheap—and suddenly flames shot out of his extended hand in one long stream. In a matter of seconds the thinner, less-reinforced metal of the door that his hand had been vaguely pointing at had been burnt until it melted away, leaving white-hot edges that smoldered. The flame had been so long and so hot that there was a distinct hole in the door that Cloud could see right through.

Cloud was probably the most surprised person in the room. He had never been particularly brilliant with materia, but melting objects was usually a Fire3—or Fire2 if you were Aeris—kind of power. Cloud looked down at the materia numbly and wondered if he'd misread the level.

The room buzzed with talk as the cadet next to Cloud examined the hole. It was easily as wide as his spread hand. The other cadets were muttering about it and wondering just how Cloud did it, their voices rising to the ceiling so Cloud felt like he was standing in an auditorium full of people and not a class of thirty. Instructor Hade cut into the noise and slapped a heavy hand on Cloud's shoulder, praising him at the top of his lungs as he did so.

Cloud was too shocked to register the praise or the suspicion. He looked down at his hand, not a burn or blister on it, then at the materia, which cheerfully winked a Fire1 materia level at him. His first day and he'd made a spectacle of himself already.

Cloud put his hands behind his head on the pillow and thought it over. He'd been going through various theories in his head to explain the materia incident for most of the day, but most of them required a real stretch of imagination. Perhaps he had some trace mako in his system. Or he'd been so messed up with everything that happened, that he'd used a lot more MP than he thought. He hadn't felt that depleted though, but maybe this body just didn't know how to tell yet.

Either way, Cloud firmly thought, it was a one-time event. When he would fail to reproduce similar outcomes in later classes and got a better handle of his own personal control, everyone would forget about it.

It was a freak accident caused by the stress. That was the only thing that made sense.

Support Materia class was better at least. Instructor Hade has already informed the teacher of Cloud's feat, so no one expected anything of him. By the end of class Cloud had gotten the hang of exerting absolutely no energy and screwing up his face like he expected something to happen.

To Cloud's silent amusement, people had taken the initiative to try harder. He supposed they figured that if some nobody like him could melt a metal door then surely they could detoxify a rat.

At dinner, Cloud contemplated every possible reason for the materia incident. He was just getting on to any possible defects in the materia itself when he stopped mid-thought. Someone was alarmingly close to his right side. He whipped around fast, forcing down the automatic need to strike first.

It was only Reno sneaking up on him. The redhead was just a couple of paces away, and he looked mildly surprised at how jumpy Cloud was. Still, now that he had Cloud's attention he sidled in a little closer. The blond could just barely hear some of the redhead's friends guffawing a couple tables over.

"Go ahead and see if a magic trick'll get you into SOLDIER," he said, goading Cloud and reading his sixteen-year old self like a book. "Magic corps isn't where the glory is, ya know." Reno laughed loudly then made a face at his friend, who mimicked it back at him.

Cloud had known somehow that he'd met Reno before AVALANCHE, but the memories had been fuzzy at best. Looking back on some of those conversations as he lay in bed, he realized Reno had definitely recognized him and had been subtly making fun of him, bringing back episodes from their shared cadet days. AVALANCHE and Cloud had either misinterpreted or ignored those taunts.

Reno must have known Cloud wasn't the SOLDIER he and Shinra had thought himself to be, but he hadn't said anything. Maybe he took perverse pleasure in Cloud's lie? But he had implied it whenever they'd run into each other, though Cloud had been perfectly blind to it. The redhead must have thought Cloud was a rock since he hadn't risen to the bait.

Cloud shifted in the bunk trying to find a vaguely comfortable position, thinking that he must have unnerved the redhead back then without even trying.

Reno had clearly been a bit of bully when they were cadets, Cloud mused as Reno's friends at the next table over shouted something to their friend. Cloud had failed the exam, but the Turks must have picked up Reno sometime around then because he didn't remember Reno's outcome at all. In Cloud's future the boy had changed from the teenager he was here, but not that much.

Cloud had forgotten him, probably because Zack hadn't been bullied as a recruit. Still, it was perversely nice to see a familiar face, even if it was currently smugly laughing at him. With each time Reno struck out at Cloud, the blond could see some of the alternate Reno; the loyalty, the depth, the intelligence that the cadets and Cloud hadn't seen before he'd joined the Turks. It was something no one had seen before Tseng. The Turks had become a family for Reno. Cloud hadn't really understood that until he'd started working a bit for Neo-Shinra. The way Reno clung to his remaining Turks and the familiarity of Shinra spoke of a deeper connection, the kind AVALANCHE had.

Cloud reflected on that relationship for a second too long perhaps. The lack of reaction on Cloud's part was disconcerting for Reno. The blond was usually worth it for the clenched fist, whitening lips, and red face. The fact that Cloud didn't tattle to anyone was a bonus too. This completely blank Cloud, in fact, the blond was almost ignoring him, was unsettling and different. Something else was on Cloud's mind.

Reno secretly wondered if something had happened, and if so he wanted to know what. Reno's naturally nosy nature had gotten him in and out of trouble all his life. He had lived in the slums digging up information, particularly on the history of pre-Shinra times—a dangerous and difficult thing to get your hands on. It had been fascinating, but when Reno came of age he went to join Shinra because he had aspirations no gang was going to help him reach. Not to mention it put him in a good position to dig a little more into the empire.

He looked once more over at Cloud, who was spacing out still and looking utterly distracted. He would riffle through the blond's things later to see if he could find anything.

Cloud had left dinner early, barely eating anything, to hide away on his bed and hope for sleep. Of course, he'd ended up ruminating on the day, and if he could make any more mistakes than he already had. If he woke up tomorrow in his cottage outside Midgar then what happened wouldn't matter. But if he didn't…

The most important thing for Cloud to do would be to stop Nibelheim from ever happening. If it could be stopped, then the events it set in motion would be stopped, and the root of the problem solved. To do this, however, Cloud needed to go to Nibelheim. From there, he could destroy the books that Sephiroth would read, possibly kill Jenova if he was strong enough, get Vincent, and thereby end things.

Admittedly, SOLDIER wasn't a necessity. He could easily drop out of the recruitment program, defect from the regular army, and make his way over there on foot, but Cloud didn't want that. He felt selfish for thinking it, but he hadn't been selfish in a long time. This was another chance at a dream he'd long since given up on. If he got into SOLDIER, he would be closer to Zack and Sephiroth, and he'd have the benefits of that training and… mako to bolster him.

Sure, running around the world killing monsters would get him back into the swing of it in no time, but mako enhancement was unmatched, and the personalized training of SOLDIER would be far better than anything he could pick up in the wilderness. It was better to have the greatest strength he could achieve too, because even if Jenova was comatose in Nibelheim, who knew what she was capable of?

Of course, he had to consider failure too. If he failed the SOLDIER Exam again, then he would be in the regulation army and would have to wait for the inevitable mission to Nibelheim to actually do something. He'd probably also have to deal with the disappointment of never achieving his childhood dream of his twice. If he then dropped out of the army then he'd be a deserter, and he'd have to deal with the backlash from that.

Then of course, the ultimate failure: if he somehow managed to screw up, whether he was killed or permanently injured by a monster or something else happened, then it would be over. Sephiroth would probably run around the world at Jenova's beck and call, Zack might save someone else from Hojo—and that shot a sharp pain through Cloud's heart—and in the end…

Cloud shook his head roughly and sat up, closed his eyes and did one of Tifa's breathing exercises. There was no chance he could let history repeat itself or insecurities get in his way. Sephiroth and Zack needed this second chance—they needed Cloud to succeed.

Cloud needed himself to succeed. He'd probably lose his mind reliving everything the way it had gone before.

Eventually he fell asleep, but it was a fitful rest. The blond had lived alone for so many years that all the breathing and movement around him made his disturbed his sleep, especially after living with monsters lurking outside his house. He woke early in the morning to full-body flashes of mako-induced pain and a great agony on his left arm at the elbow joint. The vein there was stark against his skin.

He bit his lip until it had faded to manageable levels, focusing on one point of the far wall and nothing else. The morning hadn't come yet and no one stirred. Alone, Cloud nursed his still aching arm and tried to find the foggy realm of sleep.