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 Eight: Valentine's Trigger

His eyes burned and moved frantically beneath their lids. Constricted. His lungs couldn't take in air. He clawed desperately at the blanket, begging and snarling in turns as he fought the covers and finally threw them off.

Cloud sat up in bed panting, his chest on fire and his forehead matted with sweat. Unconsciously he glanced down at the curve of his left elbow, but unmarred flesh was all he saw. No pinprick of blood. No visible blue vein or bruises from straps holding him down. His felt a shudder run up his spine as he thought back to those nightmarish years of imprisonment. He banished the memories before that could take form. A dream. It had all been a dream.

His skin itched and burned though, the way it had after any kind of mako exposure. Every nerve felt raw, and it left his skin tingling and highly sensitive. The coarseness of his covers irritated him beyond belief and he pushed the last part covering his legs to the floor with relief. Cloud scooted to the edge of his bunk carefully, trying not to aggravate his overly sensitized body. He hunched over with his head in his hands just breathing quietly and unclenching his fists in his hair. Vividly violent. That was how his dream was.

Vivid, violent, green.

He looked up from his bunk and stood up. His skin was cooling down already and he was beginning to feel chilled. In fact, so cold it was like his pants were-

His pants!

The covers were whipped up from the floor and around his waist in a flash. Horrified, the silence lingered as Cloud stood as stilly as possible, thanking the Planet for old habits of waking up before dawn. His face immediately flushed red as he realized that last night he'd been on autopilot, like he was back in his home above Midgar. It hadn't mattered there if he were nude; he hadn't been sharing a room with seven other people.

He stood as still as a stature, taking measure of the room. No one stirred but the gentle breathing of the other occupants in the room. The air in the bunker was stagnant and empty as Cloud took in deep, controlled breaths.

He wasn't the only one taking deep breaths.

Cloud could hear the stilted breathing of someone who was awake, who held in the air too long and exhaled too quickly. His sharp eyes darted around the room, inspecting each bunk to see where that person was facing. All but one had the calm ambience of sleep. Dan's eyelids were twitching awkwardly as he fought to remain relaxed. The boy's bunk was right above Cloud's, but when Cloud had stepped away from his bed he'd left himself open for anyone in the room to see. The boy could easily look down at the flustered Cloud.

Slowly, as though afraid the very sound of his eyelids opening would startle Cloud, Dan peeked over the top of his blanket. His curious gaze met the flustered blue eyes of the blond a bunk below him. Cloud flushed immediately, realizing he'd been caught. He was embarrassed by his nakedness, but he was reacting so strongly too because of that leftover shaky fear from the nightmare.

Dan's face though morphed into a smile, and the other cadet turned over in his bunk to face the wall, obviously giving Cloud some privacy. The blond watched the giggling Dan, wondering what Dan must be thinking. Most guys here would consider nightmares childish because they'd never had a real one as far as Cloud was concerned. Did Dan feel the same? Or did he maybe think Cloud had…

Cloud could feel just a little more red burn in his cheeks when he thought of it. They were teenage boys after all… nocturnal… he couldn't even think the words—were perfectly natural.

It didn't matter, the blond thought, resolutely trying to power through the initial embarrassment. "This never leaves your mouth," he told the kid. He tried to sound threatening, or at least stern, but his voice caught halfway through, and he knew he sounded like a desperate fool. Dan's head nodded, but his shoulders continue to shake even harder than before.

Dan wasn't a kid of malice; in fact, he probably thought this was a joke, Cloud reassured himself. This was the kind of things friends laughed about after all—there had been similar moments with AVALANCHE. You didn't travel with a group of people for months without having some awkward moments. It felt strange to consider Dan in light of that. Cloud hadn't had any friends in Shinra before, and yet now he might even have two. He half-smiled at the thought unconsciously, before he went to get dressed. More sleep was out of the question.

Because of the holiday on Friday, classes had been shifted around during the later part of the week. The normal Wednesday routine was scrapped and instead replaced with Friday's.

The cadets were taken outside to the shooting range with targets at varying distances across the field. The closest was fifty yards away and they gradually grew further away until the last target could be seen three hundred yards down. The air was slightly cooler today but Cloud still wore a t-shirt. The curve of his left elbow stung at any touch, and he decided it was better to just leave it be rather than aggravate it with wearing a long sleeved jacket.

"You ready?" Reno sidled in next to Cloud as the boys milled about while the instructors talked a little ways away.

"Yeah."

"These guns are such crap here. You should see them down below. Double-barrel shotguns, automatic pistols, foot-long barrels for revolvers, even x-ray scopes, everything a man could ever need. I've even seen a guy with a gun for an arm. Fucking awesome." Cloud nodded at Reno and the redhead grinned back at him. "You're a sword-guy. I like my guns as much as the next guy, but something like a dagger is more my style."

Cloud considered mentioning a nightstick, but thought better of it. Reno would probably find it on his own anyway, and nightsticks weren't very common weapons. Knowing anything about them was probably a little strange, especially for a mountain boy, not to mention Cloud was in no rush to start getting hit by one of them should Reno decide to "test it out".

The instructors broke apart and started to shout at the cadets who reorganized into their line. One trainer came around with a box handing out M16 rifles. They were long and made of black metal, easy to handle but on the heavier side. Cloud had worked with these before because they were standard issue in the army. But even those ones had been a better quality than the ones the cadets were given to practice with. The one he was handed had a dented grip and stained metal. Some of the black paint had worn off from too many fingers and he was sure the barrel wasn't quite straight.

He let it dangle at his side by the fraying shoulder strap as the next instructor came around with bullets already packed into a magazine. These bullets were for practice only and made of old rubber so they smelled like burnt tires. The rubber was supposed to prevent any kind of unnecessary pain or death if it managed to hit somebody, but they still got lodged under the skin at times and hurt like hell to remove. The soap-tipped ones were better, those just caused huge welts when they hit, but those were the ones the SOLDIERs practiced with. Cloud attached the magazine to the gun as the others did the same, clicking it into place.

The instructors backed off to the sides as cadets grouped into threes and stood before a target. He paired up with Dan and Reno as they were the closest to him and stood off the side casually. Dan was among the first group of cadets to go, and he pulled on his earmuffs with determination.

The first round of shots was fired at a standing position with the rifle settled into the crook of their shoulders. Dan flinched and blinked as he fired, twisting his elbow oddly to account for the recoil. Cloud had done that when he was a cadet too, but Vincent had quickly pounded it out of him.

It was soon his turn, so Cloud didn't follow that train of thought for too long. The magazine cartridges held thirty bullets, so he had thirty tries to hit dead center.

When he had been in cadet training, Cloud's aim had been awful. He couldn't have hit Shinra HQ if he tried. When Vincent joined AVALANCHE, the caped man had taken him aside to teach him properly. Even though Cloud normally used a sword with AVALANCHE, there had been instances where a gun was much more useful. Cloud was thankful for the help because he'd had some near misses with Yuffie. Her agile and quick movements in battle would have been his downfall with a gun. Cloud had hardly been able to shoot straight, let alone at an enemy while Yuffie was throwing things and doing cartwheels and back-flips around the battlefield. He had probably had a higher chance of hitting her than one of the Weapons.

This time around the ex-Turk hadn't taught Cloud, so his shot would have to be horrible. Unlike with sword-fighting though, Cloud thought this might actually be fun.

He took aim as seriously as he dared. Fifty yards wasn't all that far and he knew he could probably hit it without too much thought. For now though, he'd need to miss.

He settled into the stance, just leaving one foot off a little, and fired. As expected it skidded past the target. He took aim and tried again. As he continued to fire, it got easier and easier to make a believable miss. He clipped the target a number of times and even hit the outer rim twice, but otherwise his shots were abysmal. Vincent would be rolling in his coffin.

Cloud was almost smiling by the twentieth shot, but when the closest instructor rounded on him, Cloud knew he needed to make it look like he'd been taught something. Just as the Third Class drew close, Cloud fired a direct hit. Reno, who so far had been making jokes and sarcastic comments about Cloud's poor accuracy, whooped loudly. Dan applauded and a younger Cloud would have stifled a shy smile. Now Cloud just wanted to smirk as he fired another shot, glancing off the center just a bit. The instructor frowned at the lack of bullets in the target and gave Cloud a beady-eyed glare, but didn't comment as he walked past. The last couple of shots were fired, and then Cloud stepped back to watch Reno.

Reno almost strutted to the spot. If there was one weapon he knew how to use, it was a gun. Standard in the slums if you wanted to live, and they came pretty cheap and were versatile. Many basic weapons under the plate were relatively easy to come by and affordable with the right connections. The redhead lazily cocked the rifle on his shoulder and fired. Dead center.

Reno saw Dan sullenly look away out of the corner of his eye, and Cloud seemed to be zoning out. Reno took advantage of Cloud's distraction to stick his tongue out at the sulking Dan. Reno took aim again before Dan could retaliate, and fired almost mechanically. He would do several shots at once, then relax and take it up again. They didn't teach cadets to fire anything other than a double-tap, but Reno had found that even the monsters in the slums could sometimes need a good five or six shots before they went down. Reno paused again, and glanced back to give another nasty look at Dan for kicks, catching a glance at Cloud as he did so.

The blond was good. Even as he missed, his brow hadn't creased with frustration, and he hadn't even mumbled a curse or so much as grunted in annoyance. Reno might have been inclined to think Cloud was just stoic about it, if he had been inclined to ignore one of the most basic principles to firing a gun: recoil.

Most new gun users had difficulty taking recoil. Reno had seen newbies on the streets get smacked in the forehead with their own elongated pistols and almost kill themselves with grenade launchers. The cadets here weren't that much better, and many were rubbing bruised shoulders where the M16 had slammed back into them unexpectedly. They tried to teach the trainees how to handle it, but it mostly took experience and learning how to adjust for the weight of the gun and ammunition to get better at it. Cloud, though his accuracy said otherwise, took the recoil smoothly. He caught the backlash automatically, shifting his weight to accommodate for it almost unconsciously. Reno had noticed, even as he guffawed at Cloud's atrocious aim.

He fired his last shot as Dan took up the spot again, and Reno made sure to drop the gun into Dan's hands just to scare him a little. The blond was still staring off into the distance, and Reno weighed asking Cloud about his little show now under cover of all the discharging weapons, but eventually decided not to. Better to make a list and corner the blond properly.

Cloud slowly ate his lunch as he rolled around ideas about Vincent in his mind. The Turk would probably be the only AVALANCHE member Cloud could turn to who wouldn't think he'd really gone off the deep end this time. And Vincent was nothing if not capable of keeping a secret.

While shooting at the range, Cloud had entertained ideas of how to get Vincent out of his prison. The man would probably jump at any chance to take out Hojo and help Sephiroth, so it stood to reason that he should be Cloud's first real ally. Maybe the first person he could tell about the future he'd lived. Vincent didn't judge. It was an element of his character that Cloud always found comforting. The man had his own demons to deal with, and gave smart advice only when asked. Otherwise, he kept his opinion to himself.

Cloud fought down a smile at some of the positively outrageous ideas he'd had. Red XIII was possibly in the labs somewhere, and if Cloud could get down there then he could send the lion out for him. Cosmo Canyon was just a little south of Nibelheim, so he might be able to convince Red XIII to do him a little favor.

That however, was just about as crazy as asking Aeris or as laughable as asking Vincent's old Turk partner, Verdot, to go. Cloud could envision himself marching into the Turks' offices and telling the head of the division his "deceased" partner was sleeping in a coffin under an abandoned mansion in Nibelheim. If they didn't blow off his head, they'd think Cloud had gone crazy. Cloud would think he'd gone crazy.

Nevertheless, the thought of reaching out to someone and telling the truth was one of relief. The farce was hard to hold up by himself, especially with so many eyes and ears constantly watching him. Cloud's eyes flicked to Reno quickly before looking away. Reno was probably just as astute as Zack, as experience had taught him, and unfortunately he spent a lot more time with the redhead than he did the First.

What Cloud really needed was a confidant and someone to bounce his ideas on. With AVALANCHE things had always been done roughly be consensus, and Cloud preferred leading with the group—he was no authoritarian who decided what was best for all. Unfortunately without any allies there was no one to help him make the decisions that could affect the whole Planet. It was an intimidating thought, and made Vincent's rock-like composure all the more appealing.

Reno noticed how zoned-out Cloud was again today and poked him in the arm with his fork. The blond did that fairly often, considerably more than he used to, and it was a very curious thing. Before he could even get the words out to ask what he was thinking about, Dan threw in his own comment instead. "You falling asleep Cloud? Just didn't sleep well?"

Cloud's face colored a very faint red as Reno glanced at him. The blond's eyes turned back to his plate, and he stared steadfastly at it as his face quickly regained its natural color.

Reno looked between Dan and Cloud briefly. Cloud's face was blank again, but Dan's had a cheeky grin on it. Reno narrowed his eyes suspiciously at their inside joke, but Dan just grinned harder and Cloud looked away awkwardly.

The redhead looked between the two of them, sizing them up.

Sex partners?

No. Cloud was a virgin through and through. He'd proven that the first day he walked through the Shinra doors. He'd been the shyest and quietest kid there no matter how defensive and angry he looked. Reno knew that type—fighting to keep the bullies away before they honed in on the weak prey. No matter how much he had changed in a week or so, Cloud hadn't slept with a soul. Reno would have known.

And Dan was a prude. Even though Reno knew the guy had to be gay, there was no way he'd ever admit it. Or act on it.

Reno didn't say a word about any of it as he went back to his half-eaten lunch.

The last class of the day was easily one of the most fun during the week, which was probably why it was normally on Friday afternoons. Cloud arched his back a bit to stretch it out. Some of his vertebra popped as his whole body tensed then relaxed again.

Friday's schedule had the best session for last and cadets were grinning in excitement. The weather was good too, which made the relative mood even higher. This particular class occurred no matter what the circumstances: rain, dust storm, fog, anything. Everything, according to the instructors, could and would happen out in the field, so the cadets had better get used to it here. Though they mumbled and grumbled, plenty of boys enjoyed scrabbling through the mud.

They were out on a different training field this time, one set back against some of the weapons sheds and garages for the military vehicles. Boulders and overturned cars were strewn about in muddy banks and between sparsely set groves of trees. It was one of the most basic training courses in the military.

The M16s and rubber bullets were handed out again and the cadets were split up all over the course. In the center of the field stood a group of Third Class SOLDIER instructors with shields the size of bowler hats. They were the targets for this course. First cadet to get close enough to fire a direct hit on the shield won. However, the SOLDIERs were also armed with pellet guns and if they caught anyone moving, they were welcome to fire.

The SOLDIERs' grins said they absolutely relished this chance.

Cloud dropped to his stomach as the whistle was blown. They had to crawl and scramble through the mud and around obstacles to get to a range close enough to shoot. The field was several hundreds yards long and most cadets couldn't aim straight from fifty yards away. The starting line for the groups of cadets was about four hundred yards away, a small ocean when dealing with such a small target.

Above the chaos of the mock battle, unknown to Cloud's knowledge, Zack and Sephiroth stood inside one of the lower lounge levels of the training building that was set closer to the fields. This one had a pool table, and at Zack's insistence, they were down there enjoying their lunch. The General hated to eat in the cafeteria with all the staring SOLDIER Seconds and Thirds anyway, so he didn't mind too much.

Zack grinned as he pointed down to the field several stories below. "Seph, check it out! I think that's Cloud!"

The General sighed but moved over to the window. Zack would happily abandon their pool game to watch his new favorite cadet. Sephiroth stood by the tall window in the lounge and looked down upon the open field. Sure enough, a little blond cadet was peering around a boulder at the circle of four instructors. His hair was distinctive enough to tell it was Strife.

"Look at Cloud go!" Cloud left the shelter of the boulder as another cadet closer in opened fire. The boy hardly got two shots, all of which were totally off anyway, before his shoulder was struck by a returning shot. The blond used a tree to shield himself as a couple more warning shots went off. Then he hit the ground again to move closer.

Sephiroth moved closer to the window to look out. On the other side of the course was a small thicket of cadets. Two of them had moved forward, one of which was crouched on bended knees shuffling slowly across the field. In front of him was a larger and bulkier boy who had clearly been tricked or forced into being the other boy's shield. The two were headed towards a car lying on its side, effectively creating a five-foot high wall of protection from bullets. For some inexplicable reason both boys thought none of the SOLDIERs in the circle would spot them as they shuffled slowly through open field. Sephiroth almost frowned at the idiocy.

"Human body shields won't work in the exam." He gestured to the group that was now under fire. A suspicious looking redhead slinked behind the car in the mayhem as the others ran.

The two commanding officers watched the session continue on. Cloud moved slowly but with more caution than most, but in the end he lost when someone beat him to it. It was one of the boys who had used the human shields. He had climbed into a tree and seemed to be giving orders to the people on the ground. Probably promising to cover them, Zack figured. As the others got picked off as they slithered closer on their bellies, the one in the tree took aim and fired at the center circle. He won, but his "squadron" lost almost all its men.

Zack smiled down at Cloud, who was probably dismayed at being so close. Cloud was by far a better SOLDIER than the man who sacrificed his companions, and Zack knew it showed. Honor in battle was respected in SOLDIER. The man that used his comrades selfishly wasn't welcome.

Inside SOLDIER itself the elite squads had a kind of fraternal bond that banded them together. SOLDIERs that worked only for themselves, no matter how good, were frowned upon. It always became apparent too because SOLDIERs worked in small platoons. Any man who couldn't work with the team could face a lot of trouble. Cloud wouldn't have a problem there, Zack thought proudly. The kid had it made.

Sephiroth turned away as the practice ended, thinking along the same lines as Zack, though not as glowingly. There were always bad apples in the cadet groups, and Sephiroth was rather thankful he had the authority to make sure none of them got into SOLDIER. Unfortunately, that authority also meant he had a lot of papers to sign and busywork to get done. Zack cleared up his own mess and followed Sephiroth back outside to the main Headquarters. Privately he volunteered that he would keep the General updated on Strife's progress. Cloud had real potential, and he wouldn't let Sephiroth forget that.

Thursday seemed to come and go in a blur. Cloud's mind had grown preoccupied with thoughts of the slums, of meeting Aeris, and he hadn't been able to properly focus on much else. No one really picked up on it though since everyone was too concerned with their own plans to give him much thought. He preferred it that way.

Reno was equally as fidgety. As a cadet, there weren't a lot of chances to really go under the plate. Free time was usually sparse, so chances like tomorrow were rare. Weekends were generally tied up in extra sessions with instructors, short "missions" which were mostly errands within the compound, and if a cadet was lucky, a trip outside Midgar. It was likely that Reno missed some of the activity and atmosphere of the slums. All this structure and rigid order was probably getting to him. As for Dan, he hardly seemed any different. He came from a small town outside Kalm, not too far from the Chocobo Farm, but far enough that he probably hadn't seen the parade before, and that's what he was most looking forward to.

While the other cadets were excited for the next day, Cloud had been both anticipating and dreading his evening lesson. In the end though, it hadn't been that eventful. As the session wore down, Cloud was even enjoying it. Zack was more relaxed and cheerful than the previous one, and seemed a little more willing to ignore his suspicions for the time. Cloud was relieved at this change of heart, but it also piqued his interest. He wondered just what put Zack in such a good mood.

Zack showed Cloud some quick flexes he could practice until Tuesday. The SOLDIER planned to show him some new techniques, but he needed to be more supple and flexible to perform them. As he ran through the various positions, most stressing legs and calves, Cloud had a pretty good idea of what Zack wanted to show him, so the blond ran through the motions eagerly. This particular move, a sidekick followed up with a quick slash of the sword, was terribly useful with a regular sword. Cloud hadn't really needed it for the Buster Sword—it was a little too unwieldy for this technique—but a regular sword made it a mandatory move. It was also something cadets didn't touch on, and Cloud felt more than ready to "learn" it.

The session closed with Zack laughing at Cloud's abysmal flexibility. The blond hadn't been particularly agile as a kid, and in AVALANCHE all the women and even Vincent surpassed him there. He was probably better off than most cadets, but still very far behind SOLDIER.

As he opened the door to his bunker and began to methodically remove his clothes for bed, he mentally added flexibility stretches to his morning routine. Already his body was getting used to functioning on few hours of sleep. The change was difficult, but with mako injections as a SOLDIER any side effects would be erased. Cloud wasn't worried.