28. Lost and Found

The doctor and the people of the town treated her like a widow. She denied it every time, it never made it past her lips. She didn't know how it would feel. She had never had a husband, and he had never died (he still breathed and ate and drank. His eyes blinked and sometimes followed a butterfly, but more often lost in the sky).

In any case, he wasn't her husband.

- L.

Tifa stopped counting after the first week. It felt too much like counting off the days to die, and in a way it was. Tifa was waiting for something but didn't know what she was waiting for, and it might as well have been death. She didn't know how many days had passed when the others finally visited her. They looked different, more haggard. Tifa asked about the outside world like it mattered to her still.

"It's chaos. Everyone's panicking." Yuffie stuck out her tongue as she flopped down next to Cloud, on his bed. The mattress shook widely but Cloud didn't even blink. "Heya, Cloud. How've you been?" She said, casually, like it was a conversation. Cloud didn't answer.

"He's still the same. The doctor says we have to be patient," Tifa said. Yuffie made a face that was half a smile, half a frown.

"We'll be patient, then," Barret said. He felt too big inside this too-small white room. Tifa had never felt uncomfortable in his company before; now she averted her eyes, his machine-arm incongruous among the white sheets and the medicines.

"This room's too small." Cid complained as he walked in, Vincent in tow. Nanaki, with Cait Sith sitting on top of his head like a crown, slipped in through the legs.

"It's hot in here." Barret said and got up. The stool creaked as if in relief. "I'm goin' out."

"We can't stay long, either," Cid said. Tifa nodded, quickly, the one thing she can do. Wait and understand.

"I know. You got the whole world to worry about. Don't worry about us."

"How are you doing?" It was Vincent.

"I'm okay," she said, and wished it to be true. "Just a little tired."

"Take it easy, Tifa. We don't want you to…" Cid clapped his hand on Tifa's shoulder. At least – he tried to.

The end of his sentence was swallowed by a sudden noise from the outside, or the inside, Tifa couldn't tell. She heard a shriek from Yuffie. The ground started to shake like it was spitting out everything underneath. Cid tumbled down to the ground. Tifa grabbed Cloud, tore the needle out of him before the bed rolled over and it ripped his skin. Yuffie fell off the bed and hit her shoulder. A monitor was falling on top of her, but Vincent grabbed her out of the way. Glass shattered on the spot she'd just been.

"What's going on?" Yuffie shouted.

"The hell would I…"

"They're coming."

At first she thought she didn't recognize the voice, because it'd been such a long time. It didn't matter, though. She would recognize him anywhere. Tifa looked at Cloud, grabbed him tight, the white hospital robe wrinkling under her fingers.

"What did you say, Cloud?"

But Cloud closed his eyes then, like he was going to bed after a tiring day, and the ground shook violently again.

"You and Cloud stay here, We'll go see what's going on." Cid said, flew out of the room before she could give him an answer. Yuffie and Vincent exchanged a look and followed him out. Vincent's red cloak shimmered in a flash before it was completely out of sight, and Tifa suddenly thought that it looked like a goodbye. She held on closer to Cloud.

"It's the Lifestream." The low purr of Nanaki's voice.

"What?" She asked, hoping her voice sounded steady enough.

"The Lifestream, it's gushing up from below the surface. I can smell it." With a hiss, he leapt out of the room and left Tifa alone with Cloud. Everything standing had fallen and crashed, but the room kept shaking. And there was the noise.

It was a crack; Tifa recognized it with sickening clarity. She'd been raised to associate it with only one thing – death. It was the sound of the weight breaking, something big ready to fall. A landslide; those were deadly in the steep mountains of Nibelheim. The ceiling – Tifa didn't have to look up to see it. She had no time.

"We have to get out of here." Tifa picked up the wheelchair that had fallen sideways on the floor, its wheels spinning wildly. She rolled it closer to the bed. Cloud was unconscious, heavy, and she was slipping.

Another crack. Cloud's head rolled back and she was pushing the chair now, as fast as she could, while the ground still shook and her teeth with it every time a particularly strong turmoil hit the air. Every step was a shock to her leg, muscles clenching fast and furious. She didn't have to open the door – it was torn open, along with half the wall of the waiting room. Tifa saw clear blue sky through the broken walls. Everything beneath was shaking but the sky was so serene, the huge meteor hanging from it like just another fixture in the picture. Tifa kept pushing, hearing the cracks become longer and wider. Most of her friends were on the ground trying to get up, except for Vincent. His crimson eyes met hers. Is this goodbye, then, she thought as she tried to move faster, tried to run.

"No –" Vincent's eyes were wide. "Stay there, Tifa!"

"But the ceiling –"

Tifa didn't get to explain the rest of it. They were finally out of the broken door of the clinic, but it wasn't hard ground that was waiting for them. A crack – a much bigger one – had opened up just in front of the building. Something fast and strong coursed through it like blood in a vein. It was – it was the Lifestream.

Her heart leaped to her throat as she floundered in the air to get a grasp of something, anything. She lost the grip on the wheelchair, and Cloud fell from it like a paper doll. But she was falling, too, her heart leaping into her throat, and the last she saw was the uncontaminated shine of the green Mako, sprinkled with life born from death, and she'd never really found green a pretty color like blue or white, but this was strangely beautiful.

- L.

Tifa isn't exactly sure what the Lifestream is, how it works.

She's never paid much attention in her science classes. She thinks it might be everything, now, as she feels her consciousness touching those of the thousand others, those that have died, have not been born yet. They whisper something to her. In the Lifestream, her body ceases to matter. And it's true – she thinks, regretfully – her physical form has probably already melted. It is like acid, Mako this strong. A small amount can make SOLDIERS lift a bus with their hands. A lot of exposure kills the brain, slowly and painfully, like it has done with Cloud.

Cloud, where is Cloud?

Tifa tries to look but it is impossible without eyes to see. Falling into the Lifestream, it kills. Disintegrates. Yet her mind remains. She thinks she feels a familiar voice amongst the thousand whispers. She thinks it might be telling her, to stop worrying, that everything will be okay.

She can't stop worrying when she can't see Cloud. He's sick, she tries to speak without tongues. He needs my help. I need him.

It strikes her that she never even got to say goodbye. She could have, all those times alone with Cloud in the clinic, but she didn't. She was waiting for him, like she always does. She cannot stop waiting. She cannot forgive herself. She wishes to see Cloud now, to tell him that she's sorry. To tell him the one thing she's never told herself. She is brave about a lot of things, but not when it comes to losing Cloud. She doesn't know when he's become such an important part of her life like that. It doesn't seem fair that she had other friends and he didn't, and yet – he means so much more to her than she will ever mean to him. She longs to see Cloud and tell him those things, although he will probably never hear her.

And suddenly, a blink and she sees him.

- L.

They were standing on a pillar of some sort. It was very dark. Cloud was sitting not far from where Tifa found herself suddenly standing. She blinked. Eyes, legs, arms. There was no feeling, no temperature on her skin. She guessed she must still be inside the Lifestream. This was, probably, all an illusion. Something of a mind. Didn't mean it wasn't real, she decided. Anyway, Cloud was here.

"Cloud?" She called out carefully. Her voice worked fine too. Cloud didn't answer but he stood up slowly. Tifa suddenly noticed that the pillar had become a small clearing and that the blackness around them had melted to form trees. Strong, straight trees that shot up to the sky and refused to bend. Trees of Nibelheim. They stood so dense, close to each other. Ahead of Cloud there were three narrow paths. She couldn't see where they led.

"It's your mind, isn't it?" Tifa suddenly realized. "We're in your mind."

It must be the Lifestream, mingling their consciousness together. Cloud turned around. For a moment she was scared of that lost expression on his face. She'd seen it enough times recently, had grown to fear it like Meteor and the end of the world. Probably more. But then his face fell, into a more familiar rigid lines and a slight twist of his eyebrow. He looked confused, but not about where he was.

"Tifa?" He said.

She had thought she would never hear his voice again. The feeling was overwhelming, almost physical in this place where she had no body.

"Yeah, Cloud. It's me. I'm here to help." She knew as she spoke; about why she was here, about why – who. "You're searching, aren't you? Searching for yourself. I can help too."

After a long time, Cloud nodded slowly.

"Where should we start, then? Here?" Tifa made her way to the path on the far left. The road was unpaved, bumpy and wet with rain. She knew where it was. The trees surrounding it loomed above them like silent guards. She'd always felt protected by them.

"The gates of Nibelheim." Cloud said as he walked past her down into the path. Tifa followed, a little dazed. Cloud's memory – for she assumed that was what it was – was intricate to a tiny white flower growing by the foot of the old worn-out sign that read Welcome to Nibelheim. The smell was suddenly there, too, a mixture of rain and dirt.

"Five years ago. Sephiroth passed through these gates." Cloud was saying. "And that's how it all started."

"Yeah," Tifa took a breath. "Let's go have a look."

- L.

"How does it feel?"

Tifa remembered Sephiroth to be cold, his body lean as a weapon. It might just have been the image formed afterwards, though, because the man in Cloud's memory was different from how she remembered him. Sephiroth was standing by the Nibelheim sign, brushing the dirt off the m at the end. The rain still lingered in condensed drops in the air and soaked in the wood. He didn't seem to mind.

"What?" Came Cloud's voice. Tifa turned around. In his memory, he was wearing the same black suit that Tifa had gotten used to. First class SOLDIER. A knot in her heart clenched tighter as she watched.

"It's your first time back to your hometown in a long time, right?" Sephiroth's voice was as deep as she remembered, shattering the molecules in the air around. He didn't seem to be mocking, though. Tifa was surprised at the curiosity behind his voice.

"I'm not really sure." Memory-Cloud shrugged indifferently. Sephiroth regarded him for a moment longer. "You know," Cloud added a little uncertainly.

"I wouldn't know. I don't have a hometown." Sephiroth said. Cloud scratched his head, something she'd never seen him do before. It looked like someone else. His face scrunched up in an expression between curiosity and caution.

"Um, how 'bout your parents? Where do they… live?"

"My mother was called Jenova, I hear." Sephiroth said. Tifa flinched at the familiar name. She was watching this all like the first scene of a film she knew the ending of. It was much more normal than she would have thought, though.

"You hear? You mean…" Cloud rubbed his palm over the back of his head, looking nervous. It didn't kill the curiosity in his eyes, though, and that – that looked familiar enough.

"She died right after she gave birth to me. My father…" He hesitated. Then, to her surprise, a laugh. It wasn't a proper laugh, a chuckle of self-deprecation rather than mirth, but it was a laugh. "I don't know why I'm telling you this. Let's go."

She watched as Sephiroth started walking into the familiar dirt road into the main square of the town. She could see the town well between the trees, and Billy's grocery store behind it.

Memory-Cloud stepped up, walked past her. She looked at the well again.

"No, wait." Tifa grabbed his arm. She'd half-expected her hand to go right through, but the flesh beneath her palm was solid and warm, surprisingly real. Memory-Cloud turned his head and looked at her. He did not seem particularly surprised. Tifa gulped down her fear and wet her lips.

"No, Cloud." She said again. She looked to where Sephiroth had walked to, but the long silver hair had disappeared. There was only Cloud, and then there was Tifa.

"I've been… hiding it for some time, afraid that if I told you… something terrible might happen." The confession came like a fall, an endless fall into the waterfall. "But I'm not going to hide anything anymore." Something hot pricked at her eyes, but it was ridiculous that she should cry. Memory-Cloud looked at her, expressionless like she'd seen him for the most of the last months. His memory world was silent.

"You… you weren't here, Cloud. I… You didn't come to Nibelheim five years ago." Tifa said, took a breath. "I waited but, but you never came. It was only Sephiroth and another… another SOLDIER." She couldn't remember his name right now, but it didn't matter. "But it wasn't you."

She was almost afraid to meet his eyes, see his expression, but when she did she found it strangely peaceful. Like it was something he'd been waiting to hear all this time. She did not understand.

"I never came?" He asked, just as calmly. "Then why do I have the memory?"

- L.

The next memory was of the well that night. Thousands of stars filling up the heaven. In Cloud's memory, the wall of the well was bigger than it should have been and the night colder than she remembered, but the stars were the same. Maybe they were both remembering it wrong. All the same, it was important that they both did. Sephiroth had said that Cloud had made up his memories by listening to Tifa's stories. For one horrid second it seemed all too plausible, because Cloud really hadn't remembered until she said… but no, she did not remember talking about the stars. So many stars, almost ready to rain down.

As she watched, little Cloud shot up his head at the exact same time young Tifa came running down. Their eyes met. Tifa watched her past self brush the long hair off her face.

"Sorry I'm late. Couldn't get out fast enough."

"That's okay." Cloud shrugged. "I was just freezing to death, that's all."

Tifa remembered laughing the same way she did now, in Cloud's memory. Her dress looked more beautiful than she remembered, folds falling onto each other like water.

She remembered the conversation too well. She had played it in her mind over and over again, trying to make herself sick. Trying to remember, trying to forget. She now watched for any differences, any fakes like the one with Sephiroth and the other SOLDIER, but couldn't find any.

"That night the stars were gorgeous," Tifa said to the little Cloud who was swinging his legs back and forth. He looked down at the ground, then at the sky. "I remember it too. That's why I believe you're real. Cloud from Nibelheim. My friend." Tifa sat down on the other side of Cloud, watching the stars like she had done that night. Cloud was so small sitting like this. The little ponytail he'd worn dangled with his body. The sparkling blue of his eyes was untainted by any other color, not green, and not even gray.

"But you don't believe in yourself. The memories are not enough." Tifa said softly. Little Cloud turned his head. Their eyes met and Tifa was surprised because there was just so much hope in them. She hadn't known it at the time.

"I can't trust my memories." The boy said quietly, almost a whisper. His voice was not yet deep, a trace of childhood still laced.

"I say something, but then I'm scared you won't remember." Tifa told him. She couldn't look away from his eyes. She remembered how she used to search for the sky in them. "But you say something, and if I remember it too, then we'll know it's our memory. That it's real. Isn't that enough?" She took a breath. "Tell me, Cloud. Why'd you want to join SOLDIER?"

A slow grin spread across the little boy's face. How she'd missed that grin. There were times when she had resigned to never seeing it again.

"You know why." Cloud said. "I was sick of all that. School. Kids."

"They bullied you." Tifa felt like being brave. Today was the day to end all secrets. What does it matter, she thought, she had probably already died. Her body had disintegrated and melted into the Lifestream. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop it."

"There was nothing you could have done." Cloud said. He didn't sound like he was forgiving her, but like there was nothing to forgive. "And I wanted to be strong. So that no one… so that someone…"

"All that time you were acting like it didn't matter to you one way or another." Tifa said. Cloud looked at her with what felt like amusement.

"You were easy to lie to," the little boy said, and Tifa felt like laughing.

"But I remember. Do you remember?" She asked. Cloud nodded.

"Everything. That time Johnny pushed me into the river."

"It was Johnny?" Tifa had never known. "You even remember something I don't, Cloud," she looked into the boy's eyes again. They had the heaven and the stars in them. "If we have the same memory… how could you have been made five years ago?"

"It's time to go back." Cloud whispered. The imagined – or real, she could not tell – world shifted around them and there was a second of void. The whiteness melted into green, then the smell came first. A sickening stench of Mako reeking out from the air around them. Tifa looked around. The little boy wasn't there anymore. There was a little girl, though, and the body of her father lying cold on the ground. Tifa recognized the brown beard and the calluses on his limp hands. She recognized the dark brown hair of the girl as she ran up the stairs, to where a man stood with his back turned. She knew what happened next. It looked feeble, standing outside her own body like this, her tiny self no more than a fly in Sephiroth's mind. He did not even have to turn around. Young Tifa fell down the stairs, the sound of a bone cracking, with a bleeding gush on her side. The fire would be cracking all around the surface above, burning everything she knew to ashes. The inside of the reactor was untouched like a sanctum, but she could still feel the flames. The memory come to life –

"But this is your memory." Tifa choked. Cloud was suddenly there, looking much like she remembered. Older, sadder. He turned his head. The Mako reflected green lights on the side of his face.

"I know," he said. Just then, a man came crashing down from inside a separate chamber that Sephiroth had disappeared to, the one that had a sign that read JENOVA. The black-haired SOLDIER. He crashed, hard, on the top of the stairs and slid down the rest. A normal human being wouldn't have survived it, and the SOLDIER looked dead for a minute. The reactor was eerily silent compared to the outside world. Her own breathing was barely audible, thin slices of air escaping her raw throat. After a while the SOLDIER gulped, sputtered out a breath and his back began to heave. Like he had broken his windpipe from the fall and they had just attached themselves together. Someone ran to him as Tifa watched in horrified silence. A young infantryman, still with his mask on.

"Zack."

It wasn't the infantryman. Tifa looked at the memory – hallucination – of the older Cloud beside her. He was staring at the man, eyes wide. The memories came back to her, too. Zack. She remembered the name now. More importantly, "You remembered."

Cloud didn't answer. The memory of Zack was now pushing the hilt of his sword toward the infantryman. With a thump of her heart, she realized where she'd seen the sword, why it looked so familiar. She did not know much about swords, but the one that Zack pushed into the palms of the infantryman was so big, it looked too heavy for just one man to carry.

With another thump, Zack opened half of his eyes and mouth. blood was running down his chin but he managed to push the words out. That was when Tifa knew.

"Cloud," Zack said, something like diamond glistening through the half-opened eyes. "Finish… Sephiroth."

"It was you." Tifa whispered. The infantryman took off his mask. "That's what happened."

"Hold on, Zack." Cloud, younger than the one standing beside her and older than the one sitting by the well, whispered to the SOLDIER. He grabbed the sword and got up. The metal swayed a little bit but he managed to hold it up. He ran to the chamber. The memory ended.

"What…" Tifa shook her head as the vision changed again. The smell came first, again, but a different one. Of rain mixed with dirt, of tress vibrating with droplets of water, of water steeped heavily into the air. A truck was rolling on a dirt road, a plastic tarp covering the heads of the people sitting at the back. Raindrops made dull sounds as they hit the plastic. Sephiroth sat in the corner, leafing through a bunch of papers. He looked bored, or maybe content, his long sword resting against the cab window. The tip of the sword stuck out from under the tent and cut the raindrops in halves. They bled water along the glistening edge of the sword.

Zack and Cloud were sitting on the other end. Cloud as she'd never seen; a sixteen-year-old Cloud. She often imagined how he would have looked at sixteen. He was wearing a light blue infantryman's outfit rather than the black one she'd gotten used to, but the face was as she'd imagined. At sixteen, dancing between innocence and maturity, his pale skin looked out of place amongst the sharp ends of swords and the heavy guns scattered on the floor. He had his body turned to the outside, gripping the edge and staring out at the rain. Zack was cleaning his gun with a cloth, leaning against the panels. He glanced at Cloud.

"You okay, Cloud?"

"What?" Cloud turned, startled. He blinked a few times and looked away. "Oh. Yeah, just…"

"Lost in your dream world?" Zack guessed, chuckling. He seemed to find Cloud amusing.

"Carsick." Cloud said and leaned further out into the rain. A few drops caught his hair and bounced off again.

"Yeah?" Zack's expression shifted, a crease between his brows. Tifa remembered he looked rather scary when he wasn't laughing or smiling. It was the sharp edges of his blue eyes, and the x-shaped scar just beside the left one. But then he grinned again and his entire face crumbled into something warmer, something kinder. He patted Cloud's shoulder. "Hang in there, we're almost there."

"How far?"

"Ten minutes. Maybe less." It was Sephiroth who answered. Cloud avoided the general's stare, but Zack's grin got bigger.

"Yeah, see?"

"Can I ask you a favor, Zack?" Cloud slumped against the panel and stretched out his legs. He still looked a little sick, but not because of the moving car.

"What?"

"When we get to Nibelheim… and someone asks about me," Cloud paused, as if he was trying to choose the words carefully. "You know, anyone. Just in case. Will you say you don't know?"

"But," Zack looked confused. He put the gun down, cocked his head like a curious dog. "You'll be right there. Won't they recognize you?"

Tifa could see Sephiroth look up at that, his expression unreadable, but memory-Cloud didn't notice.

"Not with the mask on." Cloud said. Zack scratched the back of his head.

"Okay…? But why?"

"It's just…" Cloud hesitated. He finally seemed to realize that the general was listening to their conversation. "Nothing," he hastily concluded. Zack's eyebrows shot up but he didn't push.

"Don't worry," he said instead, cheerfully. "I'll be such a good actor, even you'll start to think that I don't know you. Cloud? Who's that? Such a weird name." He mimicked a dumb voice, theatrically scrunching up his face. That drew a laughter from Cloud. The sound mingled with the pouring rain and dissolved into the road they were leaving behind.

A blink, and Tifa was back in the black abyss with the older Cloud. She looked at his face and tried to find the remains of the laughter in the carved lines of his face.

"So that's it," Tifa said.

"That's it," Cloud said, and he looked relieved. Tifa couldn't think of anything else to say. It seemed appropriate enough, as natural as any, so she walked over and hugged him. Cloud didn't move.

"I was embarrassed." He said down her hair. "I told you I'd come back as a SOLDIER. But I wasn't."

"It's okay. It would've been okay." She pulled away. She was probably imagining it, because she didn't think she had a body anymore, but Cloud felt warm. Alive.

"Hey, I remember you saying that," Tifa laughed a little. It was ridiculously easy. "That you'd come back as a SOLDIER. He's lying, Cloud. You're not… you weren't constructed five years ago."

"He might have made you think…" Cloud frowned. Tifa shook her head to shut him up.

"What does it matter? You remember, I remember. I believe." She said.

After what felt like a long time, Cloud nodded. He was looking at Tifa and she could see every freckle on his face, across the pale skin. She could see herself in his eyes.

"Me too."

"It's a shame we only got to figure it out right before we died." Tifa said. It didn't feel weird saying it, and she wasn't really afraid. Maybe it was something about this place in-between, or maybe it was that Cloud was with her.

"What do you mean?" Cloud blinked. Tifa had forgotten that Cloud hadn't been in a great shape before the fall. He probably didn't remember.

"We fell," she sighed. "Into the Lifestream. Our bodies are probably dead now."

Cloud raised his eyebrows. If anything, he looked a little amused, and Tifa was going to ask about that when someone said, "Not really," and then the warmth came to embrace them again. She felt tingling in her non-existent body until it was, it was there again. A rush of green came to meet them. She heard thousands of whispers, some her name, some she recognized. And she knew,

"Aerith," Tifa said. Amongst the voices and the swirl of green life, she thought she saw a smile.

- L.

When she opened her eyes, she was dripping something like water and her vision blurred and focused on a face, looking down at her.

"Good to see you," she grinned slowly. Cloud let out a relieved sigh.

"You okay?"

"Hey, Tifa! You awright?" It was Barret. Tifa turned her head to see that she was still in Mideel, the sun setting in brilliant red, the crack in the ground somehow mended again. Cloud was also dripping something like water, and it reminded her of that time he climbed through her window in the middle of January.

"I didn't really find you," she said to Cloud. He was holding her arms. His hands were slippery, but warm. "You found yourself on your own."

Cloud shook his head, but she didn't know what it meant. He looked calm, though. Tifa slowly relaxed into a sleep.

- L.

Cloud took a breath. He felt the air molecules entering his body, blood circulating his veins in a silent thump, thump. It had been a long time.

"I'm sorry," he said.

They were on an airship that apparently Cid had stolen from Shinra – or was it the other way around? The details were a little hard to understand, with everyone shouting out their stories at the same time. The important thing was that they were all here now. Cloud dropped his head. "I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything." Nanaki purred. He had his paws on Cloud's boots. The fake SOLDIER's boots and the fake SOLDIER's uniform. His memories were still a little messed up, but he did faintly recall Zack muttering something about drenched clothes and Mako stinks.

"All you've been doing is apologizing." Yuffie said cheerfully. She thumped Cloud on his back. "I'm just glad you're back with us."

"Still," Cloud glanced at Barret. "I do need to explain a few things."

"Would be helpful." Barret grunted. The Highwind gently rubbed against the air, the engine running smooth like a cat.

"Well, I'm not a SOLDIER. For one." Cloud started slowly. He could feel everyone listening, even though he wasn't looking at any of them. He was trying his best to be honest this time. It could all have been another lie, but he hung onto the words that Tifa had said – I believe.

"They wouldn't have me. I wasn't old enough and I wasn't strong enough. I became an infantryman instead. I became friends with…"

Ditto Nibelheim, the voice. The grin, the laughter. We're friends, right? Cloud's head still hurt when he thought about him. It was like fighting another wall. Deeper, stronger, different somehow. Because it was put up by a different person?

"… Zack, and five years ago, we came to Nibelheim with Sephiroth to inspect a reactor failure. Sephiroth went mad. I managed to throw him into the Mako and I thought he was dead… everyone thought he was dead." Cloud flinched at the memory. Of the long masamune running through his chest, of thinking of death and rage and Zack's last words. Of Tifa lying still on the ground. He still didn't know how he'd done it.

"And then I would have died, probably, but Hojo took me and Zack. He… we were,"

Are you okay? We can get out. Words meant to reassure. Zack hadn't been affected too much. Cloud's head had been constantly swimming with the infuse of too much Mako and wrong energy.

Let's get out. Feeding time. He'd always promised. In the end he did. He could have left Cloud, probably would have lived and escaped to Midgar, but Zack wasn't that kind of a guy. In the end he died for someone who couldn't even remember – not until now.

"Hojo's plan to clone Sephiroth wasn't too complicated." He heard himself explaining. His voice sounded calm enough. "It was just the same procedure they used to create SOLDIER, though none of them had really known. Injecting Jenova cells. That's why I'm physically built like a first class SOLDIER. He overdosed, though, I think. I was a failure."

" … And then what? What happened?" Nanaki leaned forward. Cloud shook his head.

"I think Zack broke us out, but it's still hazy. I'm still… messed up."

"Yeah," Barret rolled his eyes. "As if that's news. Ain't no difference from before." That drew a chuckle from Cid. Cloud had to agree.

"So, what're you gonna do now?" Cait Sith asked. He was sitting on Nanaki's head, like that was his new home. Home. His gaze flickered to the window behind Cait Sith, at the sky and the giant meteor hanging dangerously close. It was like an ugly cancer in the spotless blue of the sky.

"I guess we fight." Cloud said. Tifa smiled.

"Oh, I like the sound of that." Cid said cheerfully as he chewed on the end of his unlit cigarette. "So where to, leader?"

Cloud thought it sounded strange, leader, considering he was a nobody who had been pretending to be someone he wasn't, living in his own illusion. But he would have to think about that some other time.

"From what you tell me, Shinra is gathering Huge Materia to blow up the Meteor." Cloud said carefully. "Is that right?"

"Yeah, and we've agreed to agree that it's a bad idea." Yuffie supplied. "It's gonna blow up Meteor, sure, but like, half the planet with it."

"How could they be so dimwitted?" Nanaki seemed truly puzzled.

"And the debris," Cloud said. "The debris from the Meteor will still hurt a lot of people."

"It may be dimwitted," Vincent said. "But it's what they could think of. In the end, is it not better to save at least half of the planet?"

"There has to be another way." Yuffie pouted, sitting back on the sofa. "So pessimistic, Vince."

"Pragmatic. Don't call me that."

Cloud felt strangely like laughing. In the middle of the end of the world, when he didn't even know who he was, this felt normal.

"There's an underwater reactor in Junon." Cait Sith said suddenly. He'd been quiet, like he'd been listening to a conversation that wasn't happening here. He probably had. It occurred to Cloud that Cait Sith had been a Shinra spy, last time he checked. Cloud didn't know what kind of expression he had on his face, but Vincent seemed to be reading his mind.

"Don't worry, Cloud." He said, glancing at Cait Sith. "You can trust him. We've established that."

"How?"

"Don't ask." Barret grunted.

"Yeah… I'm sorta like your spy now." Cait Sith assured him. "So, anyway, there's an underwater reactor in Junon and as far as I can see, that's the only one left."

"What'd you want to do?" Cid said. He was sitting behind the control panel, leaning back with his legs up between the buttons. He seemed particularly eager to avoid making any kind of decision. Cloud frowned.

"He been the temporary leader, while you were gone." Barret whispered loudly.

"I ain't bad at it!" Cid protested. "Just, tired of making decisions, all."

"No, he wasn't terrible." Yuffie said generously. Cid eyed her suspiciously.

"Well, then, we'll go to Junon. We should get to that Huge Materia before Shinra does." At Vincent's questioning look, Cloud explained. "I don't know, yet, if we should let Shinra get on with their plan. Maybe there's another way, maybe there isn't. But let's leave it as the last resort. And let's see if we can find any other ways."

Vincent nodded. "Sounds reasonable."

Even though he said it like he knew what he meant, Cloud wasn't sure if there would be another way, and if he'd end up being responsible for the destruction of half the planet. But still, he had to try. He wished Aerith was here. He wished Zack was here. Two people he would have trusted with everything, his life, his soul, this planet. Two people he'd seen dead. That he might as well have killed. Cloud closed his eyes. He hoped he'd be able to find some kind of penance, someday.

"To Junon it is!" Cid said brightly as the airship made a sharp turn. Yuffie made a sound between a yelp and a groan.