15. Gravity

"You all right?"

A déjà vu. Aerith's voice was the first to pull him out from unconsciousness, again. Cloud forced open his eyes, but had to close them again hastily; the after-image of a bright glow in the sky – the sun – rang loud against his eyelids. There was a sun, which meant that there was a sky – ashen blue, slightly gray – which meant that they were now outside.

Cloud remembered everything suddenly, like a switch being turned on. He sat up quickly, head ringing, and opened his eyes again. The guards. Cait Sith. Blood. Lots of blood, someone's dying green eyes – dead – all of this was becoming too familiar too quickly.

Cloud looked around himself. The land was bare under a high sky. Lots of sand, rocks, and scattered buildings here and there that were a little too far away from each other, standing separately, all of them. But there was a large wire fence surrounding the whole patch of land, stretching out left and right, bigger than his eyes could see.

"Where are we?"

"A desert prison," Cait Sith answered. So he hadn't died, after all. "Corel Prison. And, by the way, Cloud, thank you. You saved me."

"How'd you know my name?"

"Aerith told me."

The toy cat looked a little sheepish, even though his expression didn't (couldn't) change much. Cloud stared at him for a moment, feeling the distant thud against his skull. It was fading fast, as all injuries did for SOLDIERS, but he thought he still felt blood particles rushing in the wrong direction.

"Don't thank me," he eventually said, turning away. "Didn't mean to."

"Oh, but…" Cait Sith paused. "Wait, what do you mean, didn't mean to?"

"It means –"

"It means that Cloud is such a good person," Aerith said, smiling sweetly at Cait Sith. If toy cats could blush, Cloud thought, Cait Sith would be blushing right now. "That he saved you without thinking about it."

"Oh," Cait Sith started bouncing again. "Wow – you're amazing, Cloud!"

A wind carried a swirl of sand around his ankles and wrists. Some got tangled in Aerith's hair.

"So, a desert prison?" Cloud asked, before Cait Sith could continue with his awkward praises.

"Yes. It's a natural prison in the middle of the desert. It's completely surrounded by quicksand –I heard that once you get inside, you never get out."

Cloud thought it was odd how Cait Sith said all that with the same cheerful voice; maybe because he was a machine, but he thought there was something else. An intent, almost, of a test. Cait Sith was testing him – but for what?

"Well," Cloud shifted, blinking out sand-tears. "I hope you heard wrong, then."

It was hot here, too; shouldn't be, in December, but heat crawled up in mirage-shapes and messed with his eyes. The silence stretched, while Aerith sat with her head resting on her knees, and Cait Sith scuttled around them like an over-anxious child.

And then he saw a group of people coming their way, from afar. Cloud narrowed his eyes; the sun was burrowing in his head, blocking the view, elongating shadows. Then he recognized a smaller shadow, nimble feet sliding across the desert sand and the unmistakable red, fiery tail.

"Is that Red XIII?" Aerith said beside him, sounding incredulous.

"I think so."

The shadows got bigger. He recognized the others too, Tifa's quick strides, Yuffie dragging her feet like the heat was grabbing her ankles in a physical force. Cloud didn't know what they were doing here, but Aerith had seen them too (so it wasn't a desert mirage), so he waited. No Barret, though. This thought was nagging at him for something, but he couldn't figure out why.

"Fancy meetin' you here, Cloud! Aerith!" Yuffie said, as soon as they were near enough to hear. Aerith smiled, as if they had really accidentally run across each other in a local flower market.

"How did you end up here?" Cloud asked Tifa, who was looking at Cait Sith with wide, wondering eyes. Cait Sith was – he was squirming half-hidden behind his back, as if he was embarrassed. Cloud sighed.

"Oh, that's Cait Sith. He followed us."

As soon as he made the introduction, Cait Sith jumped out from behind him and squeaked – in a voice not unlike the ringing, ruthless sunlight. "Good to meet you, ladies! I am world's best fortune telling machine!"

Yuffie snorted.

"To answer your question," Tifa said, tearing her eyes from Cait Sith. "The guards came looking for us. Someone had seen us with you guys, and they figured we were accomplices."

"Oh," Cloud thought the color of the desert sand was dizzying, dancing in differing shades of orange and brown. He closed his eyes for a second. "Did you explain… that we're not actually… I mean, we didn't …"

"We tried," Red XIII said. "But they did not listen."

"So is it true?" Tifa said, anxious. "They said that the people were all shot by –" She didn't dare finish the question. Cloud hesitated, and the short silence was a crushing weight. Tifa's face fell.

"Where's Barret?" Cloud eventually said. Nobody answered.

The security guards at the amusement park came at him suddenly, abruptly, and the next thing he knew: he was strolling around in the dirty heat of some desert prison. Figures.

It was only after some time that Barret heard the whispers among his fellow inmates (who didn't come near him, wise guys). Apparently there was a whole bunch of new inmates, three girls and a blond boy, and who else could it be but his own damn group? Barret wanted to sigh. How they'd made it here was beyond him. Barret had left them even before they went inside the amusement park, so they couldn't have pegged them as his accomplices… but if anyone could get into trouble in such short time, it was Cloud. Barret walked a little bit faster. He'd have to take care of his business before they all got too involved. And then – and then he will think about everything else later.

This prison wasn't like normal prison. It was more like a big town, only all the townspeople were criminals. There were houses and even jobs, and everything. Even a few families here and there. A lot of the folks were here for life, but they weren't so torn about it either. A lot of them had nowhere else to go. Except for the heat, and the fact that you couldn't travel anywhere else, it was as decent place as any.

And there was a hierarchy, like any group of people had. The top man was called Boss. He ruled this little world, so he heard, and he ruled by fear. It was this Boss that Barret was interested in. He had spotted him in the amusement park, followed him and seen what he'd done. And if it were anyone else – but it wasn't, and he had business to settle. He had a nagging guilt about Cloud – maybe someone had seen Barret with them, and they were here because of him. But still; this had to be done. And apparently the Boss knew the way out of this prison, seeing how he was in the park, so Barret would get them out later, too. Later.

But he figured that he would have to talk to them first, now that they were here. They weren't hard to spot; hell, with that golden hair sticking out like that –

They were under a tree-shadow in the middle of nowhere, probably near where they first came in. Barret walked over to them quickly, and before anyone had anything to say, "You gotta stay out of this one," he told them. He expected a disapproving frown from Cloud, an attempt at persuasion from Tifa, but what answered him was something unexpected.

"Just hold on for a second!" Said an unfamiliar, squeaky voice. "We just want to talk!"

Barret squinted his eyes at the thing that spoke. It looked like a cat – but it was talking, and floating a few centimeters above the ground.

"An' who the hell are you?"

"I'm Cait Sith," the cat started, but Barret just shook his head. He wasn't interested.

"Whatever," he said. "Just wanted to say that. Just… don't want none of ya to get involved."

There. He'd said it. He watched them a little to see if that had sunk in. For a while nobody said anything; until Aerith started to laugh, a soft chuckle, that got them all thrown because Barret expected a reproach and everyone else expected – he didn't know what they expected, actually. They had all been looking at him funny, come to think of it.

And Aerith explained her laughter, saying, "That's Cloud's line, though. It's too dangerous and I can't get you involved." Her imitation of Cloud was (strangely enough) pretty similar, which left Tifa sputtering and Yuffie giggling.

"Yeah," Cloud said frowning a little confusedly. "We're already involved in this, like it or not."

"Just tell us what's going on," Tifa said, all trace of laughter gone.

Barret was cornered; there was no way out now. Not if they came at him like this.

"We know that wasn't you," Aerith said suddenly. "Who shot everyone like that."

And then Barret knew why they'd all looked at him funny, when he first came in. They must have heard that the culprit was a man with a gun-arm, and who else did they know that had a gun for an arm? Their suspicions were reasonable.

Aerith had spoken with conviction, a mysterious authority, but not everybody seemed so convinced. Yuffie was eying him with open distrust. Tifa looked like she wanted to be sure, but she was cautious enough not to be. Cloud was – who knew what Cloud was thinking, but he was waiting; now Barret would have to tell them. Tell them everything.

In a way, though, he was relieved. He laughed, suddenly, feeling a little tired.

"No," he said. "That's another… another man that got a gun grafted into one of his arms."

Half-truths were lies, too. He'd told half the story to them earlier. Now for the rest, "It was four years ago."

Barret remembered; he was on his way home from visiting his friend out of town, with Dyne. The three of them had been tight ever since they were tiny boys, always planned to get out the coal mining town when they got old and all that. Of course, Coates had been the only one with the guts enough to actually do that. And now he was married to an accountant girl in Midgar.

"Midgar! Can you believe that, Dyne? Coates, that old fool!" Barret laughed, and Dyne chuckled too.

"Oh, I feel sorry for that nice young lady already."

"She seem nice, don't she? Wonder what she saw in him…"

Dyne was just about to say something that surely would have knocked Barret out laughing, because he was funny like that, but he never got the chance to find out. The village headman was running towards them. Something on his face made Barret forget everything else; the panic, the urgency, the tragedy. Dyne stiffened beside him too.

"What's wrong?" Dyne asked first. The headman was shouting, old as he was and out of breath.

"Barret! Dyne! Come quick! The village's being attacked! It's Shinra soldiers…"

"What?" Barret went cold. Then he saw the flames and the smokes; why he hadn't before, he didn't know. Because the smoke was everywhere. Or maybe the old man had brought it with him – or maybe he thought he saw – "What the hell happened?" Barret asked, even as he started running. He could hear Dyne following closely behind. Every thought was crushed inside his head, in an explosion like volcano. The old man never had a chance to answer.

Guns fired; they had to duck. One look and Barret knew it was hopeless. The Shinra soldiers, crowding in the middle of the town like a swarm of cockroaches; they were outnumbered, as well as hopelessly out-powered. Barret and Dyne didn't even have weapons.

"What the hell you doin'?" Barret yelled at the soldiers, but none of them answered. Of course they didn't. Dyne tugged at him suddenly, with such force, and Barret felt the breath leave him in a gulp. The gunshots; right over their heads, drumming and poking inside his ears.

"Dyne –"

Something was wrong. They had ducked in time, but Dyne kept falling. Barret saw with horror that behind them was a cliff, its fences destroyed by gunshots. The old man was lying dead somewhere to the left, he didn't know when that had happened, and now Dyne was falling too.

Barret reached out his right hand and grabbed Dyne's left. He had to flatten himself on the ground, and he felt rocks scratch his side and stomach, drawing blood.

"Dyne, hang on!" He yelled. But even then the gunshots were getting closer. The small rocks beside where he lay flickered and sparked when they hit. It was a miracle that he hadn't been shot (although he might have, he could hardly feel for every sense was in his right arm) already. "Listen to me, you're comin' back to the village, you hear? You… Eleanor and Marlene… they're waiting…" Barret didn't know what he was saying. He was chanting, almost, praying, though he'd never seriously believed in God. He didn't care what happened to himself, the stupid fool who'd ruined everything for the village, but Dyne had to live. But now the bullets had gotten too close.

One hit his right hand, another hit Dyne's left. Searing pain blinded him for a second; he didn't like to think he'd let go but he did – he must have. The last he saw of Dyne through blurry eyes was his confused face, like he didn't really get what was happening, which was up and which down. Blood from his left arm sprouted and dotted the air like damn flower petals – Barret rolled over to avoid another shower of bullets, and there was only one thought ringing in his head.

Whoever had done this was going to pay. With blood. Like damn flower petals, if he could.

"From then on, my right arm was useless. I threw away my artificial arm and got this gun grafted in instead," Barret lifted his gun-arm. It was a giant thing; at first, almost too heavy to walk straight, mighty and awkward. But he'd born it like he'd sworn to born revenge, the sin, and those things were heavy anyway. "So," Barret continued. He hardly knew what he was saying anymore. "Got a new right arm to get revenge on the Shinra. They took everything away."

"What – what happened to Dyne?" Tifa asked, carefully. Barret had never told this story to Tifa, as long as they'd known each other and as much as he was grateful to her.

"I always figured he'd – you know, that fall, he couldn't have survived. But then, a few years back, I met my Doc again and he says – he says there was another man who got the same operation as me. But his was the left arm."

"And does that mean that Dyne was the one who killed everyone like that?" Red XIII said, not wasting any time. Barret flinched, felt like he had to get indignant on Dyne's behalf.

Except, it was probably true.

"We… we don't know anythin' for certain," he said instead. "I just gotta make sure. And I gotta apologize to Dyne, and…"

"And what if he was the one?" Cloud asked. Barret couldn't make out what he was thinking. "The one who'd done it all. What will you do, then?"

There was a short silence. Then, finally, "I gotta do what I gotta do."

"Well," Cloud shook his head, looking a little – Barret didn't know what, sad, or amused, even. "I can't let you go alone."

Barret frowned. "Like hell you can't. You can't order me around."

"You can't stop us either, though!" Yuffie said. "If we follow you, I mean. You can't shoot us down or somethin'." Then, seeing Barret's expression, she added a little hesitantly, "Right?"

"Why you wanna tag along for?" Barret growled. "I gotta talk to Dyne, and it ain't none of yer businesses."

"We won't get in the way," Aerith chimed in, and Barret couldn't say anything bad to her face (who could?), and maybe she knew that.

"If you die on me," Cloud said suddenly. "I'll have nightmares."

This was so unexpected that Barret couldn't help snorting a laughter, although Cloud's face remained impassive. But then, the boy never smiled. "The hell you will."

"I will," Cloud said, with conviction. Barret was at a loss for words.

And finally he just shrugged and nodded. If they said they won't interfere, they won't.

Cloud wondered if he really would have nightmares, if Barret died. His nights were all accounted for anyway, so maybe not. But then, that was what he'd told Barret, so maybe he would take up a silent place in his nightmares, staring reproachfully, adding weight to his sins and regrets. He wouldn't feel it for how heavy it was already, though.

"Dyne, is that you?" Barret was asking now. The rest of them stood far back, so as not to interfere, but if Dyne – if that was him – started shooting, they would be close enough to save a life or two. They were far enough away that they couldn't even hear what they were saying. Except for Cloud, of course, who couldn't help but hear, with his Mako-enhanced senses. He looked at the man leaning against the wired fence; eyes narrow and wild, long and messy auburn hair. White as a ghost, with a tinge of gray in his skin.

"Now that's a voice I haven't heard in years," Dyne said. He turned his head slowly and squinted to focus his eyes on Barret. There was something off about the way he was casting his looks all around. Then he started forward, slowly and a little wobbly, but Barret didn't flinch.

"Listen, Dyne –" Barret took a step forward. There was a gunshot; Cloud saw Tifa almost run out, but it was only a warning shot, near Barret's feet. Barret had to stop. He stared at the dissipating smoke of gunshot in front of him.

"What's that?" Dyne spat, a mad glint in his eyes. "I hear her voice."

The look; Sephiroth – the thing was, with madness like theirs, everyone else had to pay the price as well.

"Whose voice?" Barret asked.

"I hear her voice. Eleanor," Dyne murmured. Cloud almost didn't hear it, but then he shook his head and looked at Barret straight. "Beggin' me not to hate your rotten guts. That's why I didn't hunt you down. And now I'm tellin' you, Barret –" He was almost laughing, crying, shaking his head and the gun in his arm looked too unstable, too ready to go off. "To get the hell out, before I decide to ignore my dead wife."

"I know I was stupid," Barret started, slowly. Cloud couldn't see his face. "An' I ain't askin' you to forgive me. But – but what're you doin' here? Why'd you kill all those people that ain't even involved? Why?"

"Why?" Dyne snorted. But that glint was gone – or Cloud was simply too far away to see – and his eyes had returned to dull brown, searching, wandering. "The hell you care for? Are the people killed gonna understand why? Hell, I don't care what the reason is!"

"Dyne –"

"What's left is a world," Dyne raised his voice, hysterical and mad, and the others could probably hear it now too. Cloud saw Aerith sitting forward, completely still, the expression on her face unreadable. "A world – of despair, and emptiness. Destroy everything. What difference does it make? I got nothing left in his world. Corel, Eleanor, Marlene…"

"Wait, Dyne," Barret had to yell a little bit too, to be heard over Dyne's voice. "Marlene's still alive!"

That stopped Dyne. Barret took a cautious step forward.

"I went back into the town. Then I found Marlene… She's in Midgar nw. Let's go see her together, alright?"

"She's alive?" Dyne blinked, dazed. His gun-arm dropped and hung limp by his side.

Barret stepped a little bit closer. But then, without a warning, Dyne started firing; the gunshots shook the ground, and Barret leapt back, barely avoiding being shot. The shots left a smoking chain on the sand between them, almost like a border. The firing stopped, and they looked at each other.

"It wasn't just my arm," Dyne said. "Back then. I lost something irreplaceable. I don't know where I went wrong."

"Dyne, I – I don't know either, man," Barret said, voice thick. "Is this the only way?"

"I told you I wanted to destroy everything," Dyne said, nodding to himself like it was a satisfying explanation. "This crazy world. Myself."

Barret swallowed. "An' what about Marlene? What's gonna happen to her?"

"She doesn't know me anyway," Dyne said, smiled. "Doesn't remember me, she was so small." Then Dyne fell two, three steps behind. He was standing dangerously close to the edge of the cliff now. Barret made to get to him, but Dyne held up his hand. "And what's more, Barret," another step back. Barret seemed to be paralyzed, and the rest of them were, too; they could only watch. "These hands are a little too stained to carry Marlene anymore."

He grabbed something from his neck, a necklace with a small silver pendant, and tossed it to Barret. He stumbled some more, in the process. Now his left foot was halfway in the air.

Barret caught the pendant and stared at it; Cloud couldn't see the picture inside from here, but he could guess.

"Dyne," Barret said. Dyne shook his head.

"How old his Marlene now, Barret?"

"She's four. Four years old, Dyne."

"Give that pendant to her," Dyne said. Barret nodded. "And find Old Man Mars. He'll take you up to the Saucer. Tell him Dyne sent you. If he doesn't believe that, show him the pendant."

Before Barret could answer, or do anything (though there was nothing he could have done), Dyne had stepped backwards, decisive and purposeful. His foot stepped on air; his body seemed to be flying, for a second, and then he fell backwards. Gravity grabbed hold of him and Cloud thought it must be quite fast, how a human body falls.

Oh my God... I just looked at my previous chapters and realized that the paragraph-dividing thingy (I was using a single hyphen) DOES NOT SHOW UP IN ! Meaning no paragraph divisions at all! And that is just not cool. I don't know how you stood that, the few people who have been kind enough to follow this story. So I fixed everything now. I guess this is why people have beta readers and stuff... probably a lot of grammar & spelling errors too :(

And I'm sorry that the update is getting late again. If there are people who continue to read my story despite all that, thanks a lot, guys! I actually haven't played the game (at the time there was no PC version) but wanted to know Cloud's story so bad that I watched hours of that... little blocky people moving about and saying things like "Hee hee hee". And I wanted to write a novel version of the story (which I fell in love with nonetheless) for anyone out there like me.

I don't know where all that babbling came from. Shock, I guess. Well - thank you for reading, and enjoy!