Warnings: Cloud practices his seduction techniques... he's good too. If you don't like explicit M/M sex, PM me and I'll send you an abridged version.

Chapter 44 : Something Good

Nightfall came late this far north but the General halted them in plenty of time to set up camp and eat a hot meal. Vincent decided to join them for supper. His transformation into Galian had left the gunman feeling shaky and out of control. The others, having a better understanding of his need to keep control after seeing Hellmasker, helped by picking or digging out any berry, plant or root that held even the slightest chance of being edible and presenting it to Zack for approval. They found enough so that the SOLDIER could expand basic MREs into a decent-sized, but equally unappetizing, hash stew thingy. They chewed with diligence, but not enjoyment.

Once the food was finished and the camping area cleaned up, the General followed through on his earlier threat and had them all out practicing with their new materia. He stood by Yazoo as his young brother shot an inoffensive rock, blasting it into shards with only a couple casts. He couldn't understand where the power had come from. He even tried closing his eyes to get a better feel of the energies passing through his clone. There was nothing to support the level of power Yazoo's materia was displaying.

"May I see it," he finally asked, holding out his hand. Yazoo swallowed and nodded once. He lifted his right arm, placed his left hand over it, and caught the globe as it was pushed out through his skin and his coat.

"Okay, that's even more disturbing in reverse," Zack said, wincing away from it.

"Hmm," Sephiroth said. He took the green orb. It didn't feel Mastered. He used the Bolt and made a low-powered blast that barely darkened the tough, scrubby grass—which was just as it should've been. He held out the globe to the group's second best magic caster. "Ms. Lockhart, if you would." So Tifa had a try. She cast with the same low-powered result. "Hmm," the General repeated before handing the materia back to Yazoo.

"Try holding it in your hand, Yazoo." Cloud suggested. The youth flipped his hair out of his face with a practiced motion and, lifting the arm to eye height, focussed his mind on the power contained in the living stone.

The blast was weak, not even as strong as Sephiroth's had been.

"So it's something about being absorbed into the body that boosted up the power," Cloud said.

"Makes sense," Zack said, standing back with his arms crossed, "Materia is just another form of the Lifestream which is, um, made up of..." he tried to remember Dr. Imeera's lecture, "spirit energy. Which is in all of us, right?" There were nods all around and, without another word, that was the end of it. Even Tseng seemed to accept the mutation. Zack decided that it was because they could consider it a quirk, like the SOLDIER's wings or Vincent's other forms. At least that's what he'd think until it came back to bite them in the ass.

Yazoo let the materia sink back into his body as just about everyone looked the other way feeling squeamish, and went back to practicing his control under Sephiroth and Tifa's patient guidance until the weak northern sun finally dipped into the horizon. Then everyone except Vincent crawled into the tent, lying close to each other to stay warm, and they all allowed the day to fall away.

Red eyes looked up at the addition to the night sky. It was travelling through Odin, breaking the line of the god's upraised sword. Soon it would cut Shiva in half. Vincent refused to believe it was an omen but he hoped Sephiroth was right about them having twenty days. He had a hopeless feeling that they'd need every second.

The moon was as high in the sky as it was going to go. Dawn was already a gleam on the horizon but then, at this time of year and in this location, it never went too far away. Cloud woke up surrounded by the team but alone. He put his hand on the empty spot where Sephiroth should've been. 'Not again.' He focussed on the connection—Jenova's connection—that he had with his General. He huffed a silent cry of relief. Sephiroth hadn't gone far.

Using all the advantages Hojo's twisted experiments had given him, the blond crawled silently out from under the group blanket and to the entrance of the tent. A quick look at the other occupants showed two sets of glowing blue eyes looking at him; one the deep blue of twilight, and the other the blue-green of a mountain lake. Cloud could almost feel the nudge that ran through the alien cells; a nudge from Zack to Yazoo, telling him to go back to sleep. A moment's hesitation then the glow disappeared as the silver-haired youth closed his eyes. He got a wink from his friend before those eyes closed too. It was a subtle encouragement but Cloud was grateful for it.

When Cloud stepped out of the tent, he looked around and spotted Vincent, sitting by the remains of the campfire in his favourite pose of one leg up with an arm draped over it. Red eyes turned his way, their glow dim compared to the mako burn of those infected with Jenova's virus. A solemn nod of acknowledgment and red eyes turned back to watching the play of the stars, as near as Cloud could figure.

He wondered what the ex-Turk saw in them. Did they reveal the ex-Turk's future, or his past? Cloud knew the man had been an experiment almost longer than he'd been alive; twenty years or more, until Hellmasker had taught even Hojo to be cautious. After that, the torturers had all left him alone to do whatever he'd wanted and, apparently, what he'd wanted was to spend the next ten years hiding from his past and what he'd done—what he'd become. Then they had pulled him and all his parts out of his coffin in Nibelheim. Did he regret it? Did Vincent regret being reborn into a world that had forgotten him, that had moved on without him; that was close to destroying itself? Or was the affection of a certain dark-eyed Nibelheimer enough compensation?

Cloud had been dead. Not as dead as the ex-Turk but nearly, for most of two years. As far as he was concerned, it was worth being alive, here, now, when he knew there was a green-eyed warrior wanting to be with him. Then there was the blue-eyed nutjob with whom he would share the rest of his life in some fashion. He was worth it too.

The soldier put Vincent's brooding out of his mind, and his heart, and felt his way over the hill to the next rise where Sephiroth gleamed in the moonlight. He wasn't wearing his coat. "What are you doing out here, Sir?" he asked.

"You know, you can call me Sephiroth now," the General replied, not answering the question.

Cloud smiled, "I'll work on that, Sir." The he sat down next to the Demon of Wutai, sitting on the long coat so he was close enough to touch shoulders. "So, whatcha doing out here, Sir?"

Sephiroth snorted. He held up the Aero materia he'd recovered from the underground city, left in the puddle that had been Kadaj, his clone. "Testing something out." He placed the orb on his arm pushing it lightly, just enough to create an indent. Cloud could feel him focussing, relaxing, releasing, but the glowing green ball stayed on the outside of the swordsman's arm. "I felt it going into Yazoo's body. It wasn't even an effort yet, no matter what I try, I can't even come close to doing what he did." There was a wistful echo in the General's voice. "You'd think, if he was grown from my cells, that we would share the same abilities."

Cloud looked up in surprise. "Why would you think that? I mean, you're the one who told me that all the Firsts display a range of mutations, not just a single one." Sephiroth hummed non-committedly so Cloud continued, "And we were just talking this morning about Yazoo not having wings and how Hojo probably changed the Jenova formula trying to get the results he wanted. The absorption things could be the mutation they, the clones, received instead of wings." He leaned over to look up into shining green eyes. "Makes sense, right?"

"Hmm," the General hummed again.

Cloud smiled in triumph. "I'm totally right. You just don't want to admit it."

"I can see that you have been spending far too much time in Zackary's company," Sephiroth sighed a complaint but Cloud could see the small curl in those long lips. His breath caught. He knew why he'd followed the General out into the cold, cold night.

"Is this a 'better opportunity', Sir?" he asked, feeling his body heat with the thought of those lips on his—on any part of his body—warm and soft and liquid. "It'll be at least a couple more hours before the others get up."

Green eyes glowed down at him, pupils so dilated that they were bright, narrow strips. "Vincent's just over that hill."

"He can't see us," Cloud argued.

"He will probably hear us, however," the General rebutted.

"He can ignore us," the Corporal whispered, leaning closer. Living in army camps had taught the blond soldier how to ignore lots of personal things; it was often the only privacy any of the grunts got.

Again that small smile flirted around the edges of the wide, elegant mouth. Sephiroth's lids drooped in growing arousal. "Indeed he can," he murmured before giving in to temptation. It was a gentle kiss but not tentative. They both knew where they were going but weren't in any particular rush to get there. Not this time.

Cloud had to stretch a little to meet the Silver General. He liked the sensation: of being small, of having to work for what he wanted, of mixing physical pleasure with hints of physical pain, but mostly he enjoyed the slowness of it. They had time, was what they were saying, with their lips and their tongues, as they explored each other's dark surfaces. They had time, but as the kiss went on Cloud realized he didn't want to wait much longer to feel those lips on other places; specifically on his chest, on his nipples already hard and sensitive under the ribbed SOLDIER shirt. He pulled back, panting and aching. He took off the tunic, baring himself to the moon, making an offering of his body to his lover.

"Cloud," the General breathed, "My beautiful, amazing, Cloud." A shaky hand came up to stroke over skin robbed of its colour by the moon. Their skin was the same colour in the thin northern night. Fingernails scratched a path, brought the lost colour back and made the blond gasp out a hungry sound before he caught it again, muffled it in his throat.

Sephiroth watched that pale column move convulsively. It was slim and strong just like the man himself and it was his. With his own predatory sound he leaned forward, biting his claim into flesh, and Cloud surrendered. He wrapped his arms around that wide back and pulled the General down on top of him as he collapsed. He buried his hands in that long hair and covered them with it, and he writhed with the strength of his wanting.

Teeth nipped at his collarbone, pulled at the thin covering of flesh over ribs, sidetracked to gather up a mouthful of bicep which was hardly more giving than the skin over Cloud's torso. Sephiroth's mouth could only explore so much, but he had hands and they wanted to touch, and stroke, and occasionally, to dig in and squeeze. Then Sephiroth made broad swipes with his tongue. He watched the blond's moist skin pebble in the cold, only to blow warm breath over it. The contrast made Cloud's skin feel like it was burning and the blond's muffled noises became words, "Oh my gods. Oh fuck. Gods!" he muttered, "Please Sir," he moaned.

Sephiroth looked up from where he was exploring the hills and valleys of the Corporal's stomach. "You really should learn to call me 'Sephiroth' in situations like these," he purred and dragged a single fingernail under the low waistband.

Cloud swallowed. "I'll see what I can do," he gasped, "Sir."

"Defiant little Cloud," the silver-haired warrior cooed in approval even as he slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, undid the button and opened up Cloud's pants. He nudged the loosened waistband down just a little, just until the crease between hip and belly was revealed. He looked up at the Corporal and smiled a joyously evil little smile. Then he latched on with teeth and lips. He sucked on the skin and the bone until the little blond was whimpering and clutching at his hair. He worked the tendon and the muscle until a dark spot bloomed on the mountain boy's pale, pale skin.

Cloud stared blindly up at the moon, washed out in the almost-dawn. It was so quiet here that they could've been on that moon, only the two of them. He had fistfuls of hair held close to his face so he could breathe in the scent of his General. It was wrapped around the fingers he was biting on in a failed attempt to keep quiet. "Please, Sir," he begged as long fingers pulled down the zipper of his pants, so close to where he wanted them to be but not close enough. All his nerves were alive. It was so much, too much. He wanted—gods—did he want. He growled low in his throat.

Sephiroth chuckled, backing away. He pressed hands through cloth into long thigh muscles, running fingers over tendons, almost light enough to tickle... almost, until he reached the end of his small lover. "You didn't wear your boots, Corporal," he accused, lifting a small bare foot as proof. He waited until Cloud started to speak before he squeezed it, massaging the sole forcefully and hitting all its sensitive nerve bundles, bringing them to roaring life. Cloud half-screamed, arching off the ground.

The General smiled, feral and triumphant.

He looked up. The blond had squirmed hard enough to pull his pants partly off and the General could see the tip of Cloud's erect penis straining to escape his standard-issue briefs. "Really, Cloud," he chided, flicking a fingertip at the stretched cotton, "Is that how you prepare yourself to take advantage of your opportunities?" Cloud panted wordlessly, unable to respond. In punishment, Sephiroth leaned over and bit the tendons lining the top of the foot he still held. He scraped his teeth across the skin. Cloud hadn't released his fistfuls of hair, and the position pulled the long strands out straight from the roots. It was a light pain, inconsequential when compared to how the blond reacted to the vicious, yet tender, caress.

"Fucking hells, Sir!" he gasped. He couldn't, not anymore. He needed it, something. Gods. He lowered his silver-coated hand to the gap in his pants.

"I don't think so, Corporal." The General rose up and stopped him from reaching his goal. Cloud looked over his body at him and his eyes were glowing bright enough to rival the stars. The dark pupils, wide, cat-eye slits, demanded more of what the silver-haired warrior had been giving him.

Sephiroth dropped the small foot onto the ground. He urged Cloud to lift his hips and tugged down his pants. He didn't tear them off but he didn't drag it out either. His own control was becoming shaky and it didn't help when Cloud took to squirming and wriggling in order to get his pants off quicker, but Sephiroth still managed to ease them down steady, so that the rough fabric could scratch over too sensitive skin.

The ugly cotton underwear... those he ripped off.

He also slid off his own pants in one quick and easy motion. He dropped to his knees between Cloud's spread legs. The Corporal was rubbing his hands over his own chest, letting the silver strands catch on distended nipples, but when Sephiroth leaned over him, the blond let go of the hair to grab onto the body. Slim, muscular legs lifted to clasp him at his waist, squeezing him, pulling him in.

"You realize, Cloud, that we have no lubricant," the General pointed out.

"Side pocket… on the right," Cloud pointed at his pants.

Sephiroth twisted and grabbed the clothing. A quick search and he had the tube in his hand. "Well, well," he smiled, "I guess you were prepared after all." He squeezed out a liberal amount of the cool gel.

"Yes, Sir," Cloud responded. His voice was slurred. "As ordered, Sir." He'd lifted his legs and braced his feet wide on the ground, opening himself up for what he wanted, had to have. Sephiroth leaned over the smaller body, made so appealingly vulnerable. While one hand stretched and moistened his lover, he used his other hand and his mouth to add dark slashes of colour. Smooth skin and scarred were both treated to the same loving. It felt like worship.

"Do you want this, Cloud?"

Gasping, panting, the Corporal struggled to make words, "S–sir. Yes, Sir." Formula words, words he could say in his sleep but they wouldn't get him what he needed. "Now, Sir," he spat out, "Now, please."

Sephiroth nearly delayed longer but decided that it was too close to punishing himself. This was what he wanted and he didn't want to wait either. He lifted Cloud's strong legs and wrapped them around his waist, "Hold on, Cloud," he encouraged. He guided his erection to the small entrance and pushed. He was rewarded by a high, keening sound as the blond tightened his legs and tried to pull himself up, to bury Sephiroth deeper. "Shh, shh," he soothed, rocking himself in.

Cloud didn't feel soothed. He felt great, like he was coming home, but he was electrified not pacified. This was infinitely gentler than what they'd done back in the Cetran ruins but, somehow, it felt even more intense. He lifted his head and nipped at whatever part of the General's body was in front of him. Nipped and licked and gasped and pleaded and allowed sensations and emotions to overwhelm him. It helped that he was surrounded by Sephiroth. He could hear him; the harsh breathing, the low murmured encouragement. He could smell him; the acid-sharp tang of mako-infused sweat, the sweet freshness of the long hair. Most of all Cloud could feel him; moving over him, inside him; touching him with lips and hands. It didn't take long for everything to condense into a line of heat down his spine. When the heat ignited into a fireball, Cloud burned with it.

"Yes, Cloud, my beautiful soldier, surrender to it… to me," Sephiroth murmured, keeping his eyes open by force of will only, keeping his focus on his smaller lover, enjoying every twitch, every 'O' of passion, every drop of sweat he'd induced in the man.

"Sephiroth!" the Corporal gasped, still convulsing, "Sir… Gods"

Everything in the silver warrior stilled, frozen for a moment by the depths of Cloud's surrender, before he too expanded and convulsed. He curled over the smaller soldier, not to protect, but because he couldn't help it. Cloud wrapped strong limbs around his silver-haired lover and held on tight. It was his turn to murmur soothing nonsense, to take care of him and bring Sephiroth down as gently as the General had taken him up.

There were disadvantages to having been turned into genetically-altered mutant freaks, but this—being able to lay naked on the frozen ground in the chilly wind without worry—wasn't one of them. They stayed entwined, whispering nothing, just holding each other, as the early summer sun pushed the last of the dark out of the sky and the rest of the camp began to stir. Only then did they let each other go to clean up, (Cloud had a small box of unscented moist towelettes of which the General approved) and get dressed. They didn't hold hands, they didn't even bump shoulders. They didn't need to; their Jenova connection ran thick with satisfaction and contentment... and satiation. Cloud knew that Zack, and probably Yazoo, would be able to pick it up as soon as they walked into camp—hells, they could probably feel it from here—but he couldn't bring himself to care.

Ever since he'd come back from the Lifestream he'd been filled with... with a bubble or maybe not a bubble because they popped too easily and Cloud didn't want this to burst, but it was a solid core of... of rightness. As if this was where he was supposed to be, with the people he should be with, doing exactly what he needed to be doing. He'd never felt this way in his life before. Although what he could remember of the time before the lab, that short space of time with Zack and Sephiroth in Nibelheim, that almost came close. Except that was a really bad comparison considering what had come after. Plus he'd almost died that time too. The attack by Genesis Rhapsodis at the reactor had put him on the ground and half buried him. He'd been lucky that Tifa had been carrying some small potions or he'd have been dead and there wouldn't have been a SOLDIER waiting in the Lifestream to send him back.

And he really must be spending too much time with Zack because, just like that, he remembered the message he was supposed to pass on and knew who it was from. That kind of random thought pattern was Zack's thing, not his. He was methodical, logical, and cautious. His mind didn't jump from flower to sunbeam to tree top. Except it just had…

Zack's Angeal. Otherwise known as General Angeal Hewley, the Dark General to match the Silver and the Crimson.

Cloud looked up at his lover. General Hewley's one-time friend, who'd been betrayed and left behind by Hewley and Rhapsodis way back. He thought of Zack, how he'd cried the night he'd brought him home from the bar, reliving the moment in Modeoheim when his mentor, his hero, had forced the dark-haired First to kill him. He was the guy who had pushed Cloud out of the white.

It wasn't something he could blurt out in front everyone, so he kept quiet when Zack looked at him and grinned, smug and teasing. He said nothing while they ate and packed up. He waited until the march had strung them out in little clumps; the three of them in front followed by Tifa and Yazoo then by Tseng and Vincent, as usual. Then he told them. Sephiroth's face hardened into the frozen mask Cloud remembered from all the marketing posters ShinRa used to put out. Zack's face turned grim and sad and a little angry, and then the big First turned away and walked apart for a while.

Cloud looked at the General anxiously, "I couldn't not say anything. Not after promising."

Acid green eyes looked down at him and some of the frost melted away. "I understand, Cloud. Just give him a moment," Sephiroth said meaning give them some time to wrap their heads around it. He could do that.

So they walked north in silence, following Gaia's exposed backbone. They shifted around a bit, walking beside someone different every once in a while; although Yazoo never walked with Tseng, not even as a trio, and Zack stayed off to the side by himself. The First's whole posture yelled out 'dealing with big shit here—stay away,' so they did. When a couple flying caterpillar things popped out of the ground Sephiroth didn't even have a chance to identify them before Zack obliterated them—and it was 'obliterate'. There wasn't enough left of the creatures for the General to identify.

Eventually, the dark-haired SOLDIER came up beside Cloud. Vincent, the blond's current marching buddy, eased back and away, grateful for the excuse to walk by himself again.

Zack waited until Sephiroth was with them. "Sorry sucks, especially when it's too late to fucking change anything," he started with, "but, after seeing the things Hojo created in the lab… I can understand what Angeal was afraid of becoming." The big First ran a hand through his hair. "Mindless and vicious… shit…" He looked away to the snow-covered mountains. "So, I can get that… that turning into something like that. He couldn't've dealt with it, couldn't live with the idea of it." Zack paused, his whole face tight. "but he wasn't there when he asked me to... when I… killed him."

Another pause as Tseng walked past them. Zack swallowed, teeth clenching, keeping the words in until the Turk was past. Then he turned and looked at the General. His blue eyes, always bright, were radiant with the strength of his emotions.

"You said, you told me, that Angeal's griffin was still hanging around Aerith, protecting her," he demanded. Sephiroth nodded. "Fuck, man, he wasn't even close to being a monster. He just fucking gave up. Bastard," the last word was muttered so quiet that even Cloud had trouble hearing it.

"It could've happened," Sephiroth calmly pointed out.

The SOLDIER scowled back. "Don't ever ask me to kill you to prevent something that fucking could happen. I won't do it. Not again." He looked away, face fixed in hard lines and Cloud was reminded that his big, goofy friend was a very, very deadly man. "The day you don't ask me to kill you… then I'll know it's time." He turned back to them, glaring, "but you had better be a 'kill everyone and destroy the world' type monster—I'm talking total apocalypse here—so I'll know…" Zack choked, swallowed, continued, "I'll know, that I'm doing the right thing at the right time, and not–" a deep breath, "not always looking back wondering 'what if', you know?"

"Of course, Zackary," Sephiroth said. Cloud just nodded.

"Good. Right," Zack nodded in return, looking away once again. "I'll work on, y'know, forgiveness. Maybe I'll be able to do it by the time I see him in the Lifestream." He smiled but it was forced.

"Hopefully, that will be far in the future," Sephiroth responded dryly and pried out a hoarse chuckle from his SiC.

"Yeah, no kidding. Maybe two lifetimes." A nervous hand ran through his hair then over his face, "Fuck."

The General waved them into motion, unwilling to let the others get too far ahead. Cloud fell in on the other side of Zack making the First feel a little herded. He looked like he was going to stalk off to brood some more but, with a sly sideways look, Sephiroth said, "While you're in a forgiving mood, I have something to discuss. You recently gave a lecture on the advantages of having all your 'emotionally painful discussions' within a short space of each other."

Zack's eyes widened and his cheeks turned red. "Where did you hear that? You weren't even fucking there."

"But I know someone who was." Sephiroth ignored Zack's muttered 'Tifa' although his sculpted lips quirked up. "The point is you have just completed one… EPD, "the General picked out the letters carefully, "Do you feel up to having another?"

"Who with?" he asked suspiciously.

"Tseng," Sephiroth replied.

Zack stared at him for a long moment, eyes wide in disbelief. "He used us as fucking bargaining chips to get you to sign on with ShinRa. If you hadn't agreed, do you think that bastard would've told you, would've helped you, get us out? We would still be rotting away in those fucking tubes." He braced his hands on his hips, leaning forward aggressively. "Three years we were in that hell hole and he knew and did nothing.

Sephiroth was already shaking his head, "There was nothing he could've done, not while Rupert ShinRa was president. He wasn't lying about that." Zack tilted his head in a question. "Did you think I wouldn't ask him why you treat him as if he's a contagion? And did you think that I wouldn't notice that he doesn't exist for you outside of what's absolutely necessary to complete the mission? He hurt you, caused someone you care about to be hurt, and you can't forgive him and you won't trust him." Acid green eyes filled with fondness and understanding met bright blue. "You can be very easy to read."

Zack looked away first. "It's not that easy."

"No," the General agreed, "but it is necessary. We are a small team up against a massive force. It is, literally, the fight of our lives and there is no room for excessive mistrust."

Zack crossed his arms, blocking out the General even though he knew it was true. He shifted his weight, looking at Cloud to gauge his reaction. Cloud gave a little half shrug telling Zack that he wasn't getting involved, not yet, maybe not ever.

"Perhaps this will help," Sephiroth pulled the SOLDIER's attention back to him. "When Genesis and I arrived at Fort Condor there were ShinRa agents all over the town. Word would've reached Turk headquarters within the hour. It is, maybe, a four hour flight from Midgar to Fort Condor. They could've had an attack force flown down before nightfall. They didn't." He paused to see if his SiC understood the import of that. Zack was frowning, thinking—reconsidering.

"They wanted the world to know you were still alive—you and Genesis." Sephiroth nodded. "Why?"

"I think, and they will never say, that Veld decided it was time for a change in leadership. Things happened in the year I was dead that forced him to rethink the future. His daughter… I don't know what happened but he was forced to hunt her. Apparently it changed him."

"One incident," Zack scoffed. "There's no way you can say the Turk's are all benevolence and charity."

Sephiroth couldn't disagree so he redirected. "He was in your house." Blue eyes looked at him, "In your kitchen, in the very heart of you. You must still trust him at some level or else you wouldn't have let him in so far."

"Are you making it an order?" Zack asked stubbornly, arms folded across his chest. Cloud whacked him on the back of the head.

"Quit being a dork, Zack," he said. "You can kill him later if he deserves it but, right now, the General's right; we need this team to be smooth together." Zack refolded his arms defiantly but Cloud wasn't finished. "Do you think he's going to shoot us in the back?" Zack shrugged a little; he didn't believe it. Cloud easily understood everything his friend didn't say. "Then go let him know you're not going to chop off his head because, I'm with the General here, it sometimes seems like you're just waiting for the excuse."

They walked silently for a while, Zack caged between them. The big First had his arms wrapped tight around himself. The wind sighed over the flatlands rustling branches just barely budded. It was the only sound aside from the conversations of the others and some distant bird call.

"Fine," Zack finally spat out. "I'll talk to him; give him another chance to explain his side." Sephiroth looked at him, one eyebrow raised. The First rolled his eyes, "And I promise I'll actually listen to him."

"Thank you, Zackary," the General soothed.

"Fucking politics," the SOLDIER muttered in response before moving out from between his friends. To the surprise of neither of them, Zack didn't go to Tseng right away, but shifted over to keep the brooding ex-Turk silent company.

"How long do you think it'll take him?" Cloud asked.

"He would find it easier if it had just been him," Sephiroth answered, "but you were also hurt and that he'll find harder to forgive."