Cloud shifted as he entered reality again, his eyes stinging as he focused through their blur. He felt the cool wetness of tears on his cheeks. Understandable. The sting was similar to when soap ran into his eyes, only it somehow felt deeper, felt like the sting was stretching through his optic nerves to fasten its claws in his brain. Perhaps it was the light. It seemed too bright. Why couldn't they turn down the light? Sharp smells pierced his nose, followed by other muted, moldy smells and something deeply metallic

As he took in all the vivid stimuli, a figure nearby slowly came into focus. Long brown hair. Deep red eyes. But it was all still blurry at the edges and fading in and out of focus. The haze from his long sleep still curled around his mind, but the fact that Tifa had become blurred in his vision alarmed him. She couldn't lose her clarity, he wouldn't be able to handle it. He shifted into a more upright position, trying to blink the blur out of his eyes. His body felt stiff and weak; how long had he been asleep?

He focused on Tifa again and was relieved to see her free of the blur. Her red eyes were bright and focused on him, hope, relief, and excitement flickering in their depths. Her smile sent him a little shiver of excitement and he felt himself begin to return one. But, how should he? How would he have done it before?

Uncertain, he tapped into his patched persona, drawing on confidence. The confidence was a giant part of the persona; it filled in all the cracks, coated the minor fragments of old personality that floated in his mind. He felt it bubble up and sent Tifa a smile brimming with that confidence. "Miss me?" he asked. As he spoke, Tifa's hopeful expression was replaced by a more guarded one. Cloud felt a troubled feeling faintly ripple through the haze. Had he done something wrong?

A warmth surrounding his hands slipped away, leaving them exposed to the cool air, and he realized she had been holding his hands in her own. "It's good to see you awake," she said quietly. She gave him another small smile, and Cloud twitched the corner of his mouth in reply. Something in her smile seemed forced.

A slight commotion of feet tapping on the hallway tile distracted him. The loud taps of heels hurt his ears, but he heard the more muffled pad of worn boots past the taps. Another boy his age walked into the room, several nurses behind him. The boy's violet eyes widened under his spiked black hair. "He's awake!"

The boy ran up to his bedside, and before Cloud could react, he wrapped his long arms around him, giving him a heartfelt bear hug. The nurses smiled to each other and backed up to wait by the far wall. The boy pulled away and smiled at him. "It's great to see you awake again, man." He laughed and gently cuffed Cloud's shoulder with a fist. "You really worried us."

Cloud eyed him warily. Who was this kid?

The other boy's smile fell slightly under Cloud's stare. "So… how are you feeling?"

Cloud didn't answer, instead opting to keep staring at the other teen. Something was being blocked by the haze in his mind, banging against it and shouting to him. What was it about this guy? There was something about him…

The other boy glanced at Tifa, who shrugged to him. He looked back at Cloud. "I guess you're not… feeling the best?"

Tifa leaned into Cloud's line of sight, strands of her long hair falling from behind her ear and brushing against his hand. Their tickling touch drew his attention to her. "Tell us how you're feeling, Cloud," she gently prompted. One of the nurses moved forward from where she had watched the whole scene.

"Let me handle this, you two," she said, her voice used to issuing commands. She moved forward and pulled a penlight from one of her uniform's pockets. Before Cloud could flinch away, she reached toward his face and held an eyelid open with one hand while flashing the light into his exposed eye. She switched to the other eye and let him go for a brief second to put away the penlight before feeling under his jaws, pressing with her fingertips. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead to check his temperature. Cloud pulled away and let out a long breath through his nose, angry at having his space invaded.

The nurse either took no notice or just chose not to react. Instead, she went over to a machine next to Cloud's bed and hit a button. After a moment of whirring, a long sheet of paper covered in graphs and writing slowly began to feed out. The nurse tore the paper from the machine roll and glanced through all the information. She handed one of the other nurses the long sheet. "Give that to Daniels and have him look through it. You," she pointed to the other nurse. "Go alert Dr. Hojo."

As the other nurses hurried out into the hall, she walked over to the foot of Cloud's bed. Tifa and the other boy stepped out of her way, and Cloud eyed her warily, waiting for her to encroach on his personal space again. She patted his foot. "Well, you don't have a fever. Your lymph nodes are slightly enlarged, so we can assume your body is still fighting the mako, but that's perfectly normal at this point. You don't show any signs of shock, but…" She glanced at the other boy. "Your reaction to this boy is rather surprising. I suppose waking up after a long sleep and being given so much attention can be a shock in itself." She turned and started to walk out the door. Just before she stepped out, she turned to him. "I'll be back briefly," she said before disappearing out the door.

Silence filled the room in her absence. As the other two teens tried to find something to say, Cloud listened to the dull taps of the nurse's shoes. She had stopped walking. If he had to guess, he would say she was at most about fifteen feet down the hall. What was she waiting for? Before he could wonder about it, the black haired boy stepped forward.

"What's up with you, Cloud?" he asked cautiously. When Cloud didn't answer, he pressed a little harder. "You seem really tense. Does the mako hurt? Are you in a lot of pain? Did you see anything strange while you were asleep?" His questions gaining momentum, the boy got closer and closer to Cloud, not noticing the corners of the blonde's mouth tightening or eyes narrowing. Cloud's stress built with each closer step until finally he snapped.

"Are you trying to piss me off?" he practically growled, voice fierce.

The boy frowned. "What?" He hesitated briefly, but continued to get closer.

"Stop. Stay away from me." Cloud was almost shaking. The boy stopped in his tracks, surprise apparent on his face. Cloud carefully pushed himself to the far side of his bed, ignoring the small voice that was still trying to scream at him through the haze. "I don't know who you think you are, but just leave me alone. Alright?" He felt a small twinge in his gut at the teen's pained expression, but he didn't back off from his intense glare.

"Oh, Cloud," Tifa said, dread and disbelief coloring her tone. Her ruby eyes stared deep into Cloud's. She walked over to the side of his bed and crouched with her hands on the railing, bringing herself to just below eye level. "You remember Zack… Right?"

As the name "Zack" left Tifa's lips, a quick lance of pain shot through Cloud's head and the small something shouting through the haze gained a tremendous volume. It hit him like lightning, like he had never forgotten. Of course. Zack. His best friend since they were young children. His silly, caring, energetic best friend. With all of that knowledge, Zack took on a completely different light in Cloud's eyes.

"Zack," Cloud whispered. Zack sent him a small, albeit worried, smile. "Zack," Cloud whispered again, feeling more emotionless stinging tears prick at his eyes. Was his memory really that damaged? "Zack. I'm sorry, I…" Cloud looked down at his lap, horror at how he had just treated his best friend preventing him from meeting his eyes. A hand firmly grasped his shoulder and he looked up to see Zack next to him.

"It's alright, Cloud," he said with a genuine smile. "Don't take it so hard. All that mako probably scrambled your brains. That, or…" he trailed off and then shook his head. "Never mind. I'll think about that later."

Cloud returned the smile – albeit faintly – after a moment and looked down at his hands. He opened and closed them, feeling slowly returning to his fingertips. He noticed a bandage wrapped around his left forearm as well as bruising along his other arm. He looked up and caught Zack eyeing him carefully. "What?"

"Do your eyes feel strange?"

He must have been wondering about the tears. "Yeah. They really sting. It's a weird sting too."

"Weird?" Tifa asked by his elbow.

"It's like…" Cloud hesitated. "It's… deep in my eyes, and it goes deeper."

"That is weird," Zack agreed. He was currently rooting around the room looking for something.

"What are you looking for, Zack?" said Tifa.

A black, spiked head looked up. "Something reflective. Do you see some mirrors anywhere?"

"I'll look." Tifa stood upright and began to look around as well.

Cloud watched quietly. Why did they need something reflective? He already had a good idea what his eyes must look like from all the tearing up they were doing.

Tifa found a mirror in a cabinet across the room after a few minutes and handed it to Zack. Cloud looked up at his friend as he approached and held out the mirror.

"Take a look," said Zack as he handed the mirror to Cloud.

"I think I have an idea of how bad my eyes are right now, Zack," Cloud muttered wryly as he maintained eye contact while taking the mirror. "There's no need for a… mirror…" He fell silent as he looked at his reflection in the small hand mirror before him. He stared in disbelief at the face looking back at him in the glass. "What is this?" His eyes… they were glowing! Not only were they glowing, they were green! He scrambled to understand why the usual blues he was used to seeing had turned into such a vibrant green. He looked up to his friends as if they had an answer. "Why are my eyes green?" he whispered as he handed off the mirror back to Zack.

"It's a perfectly normal response to the mako," a nasally voice hissed from the doorway. An oily skinned and black haired man in a lab coat walked in, his back hunched as he peered at Cloud through large round glasses. The small eyes hidden in the shadows of large brows upraised Cloud eagerly. He tensed as the man approached, glancing at Zack and Tifa. It seemed they knew the man – and they did not appreciate his presence. Zack openly glared at the man while Tifa's mouth tightened. A second man with sandy brown hair appeared in the doorway but said nothing, only watching the black haired man. Cloud focused on the pin above the lab coat's pocket. Dr. Hojo. He looked carefully at the man in the doorway. Daniels.

Daniels approached Dr. Hojo, handing him the long sheet of paper the nurse had earlier pulled from the machine. The doctor scanned through it rapidly and handed it back to Daniels, an eager smile stretching across his face. "Absolutely fascinating. Surviving such an incredible amount of mako exposure without signs of shock. You, my boy, are something special." He waved his hand at Daniels and the other man came over to Cloud's bedside and put down the railing surrounding the hospital bed. Dr. Hojo pushed his glasses up his oily nose. "Stand up."

"What?" Cloud's stinging eyes narrowed. Had he heard correctly?

The doctor glared. "You heard me. Rise."

"He just woke up." Zack stepped forward, fists clenched and mirror abandoned on a shelf top. "He can't stand up, he's too we—"

"Silence!" snapped Dr. Hojo. "He will stand if I demand it." He turned to Cloud. "Up, boy!"

Cloud glared at him, but carefully tried to swing his legs over the bed side. He stopped immediately as all his muscles tingled and then clenched, freezing him in that position. His jaw tightened as the unpleasant sensation slowly ebbed away. The throb of his eyes expanded into his sinuses, giving him a migraine. He faintly heard "Get up, boy!" before a hand grabbed his upper arm and started tugging him up. He dizzily scrambled to his feet and wobbled as he tried to straighten to full height, fighting off vertigo. He spread his legs to stabilize himself before he fell over. The arm that had pulled him up disappeared and was replaced by gentle hands wrapping his bandage free arm behind someone's shoulders.

Cloud was having trouble seeing as his vision swam, but he was grateful for the assistance. It was certainly needed as he felt his legs begin to shake and give out underneath him.

"Pitiful," rasped the doctor's voice. "He'll need to be put in therapy to get him ready. We'll start strengthening exercises tomorrow."

"Sir," said an unfamiliar voice who Cloud assumed must belong to Daniels. "The mako levels in his system are still dangerous. He needs more treatment before he can begin any type of physical exertion."

"Do you take me for a fool, Daniels? Exercise will aid his body in subduing the mako and learning to exploit it."

By this point, Cloud's vision had begun to clear and he was able to blurrily make out Daniels' grimace. "I apologize, sir. I assumed that since this is important to your reputation you would want to go about it carefully."

"Quiet!" Dr. Hojo shifted his glare from Cloud to Daniels. "We'll talk about that later, and in private." The doctor seemed to be contemplating, his beady eyes shifting back to Cloud. "However, I will take what you have said into consideration." He gave a dismal wave towards Cloud and whoever was supporting him. "Lay back down. We'll decide what to do with you," he said before departing.

Cloud looked behind him. The bed was only about two feet away, but it felt like miles to him.

"Come on, bud," said Zack's cheerful voice right above his ear. "Let's get you over there."

After some careful maneuvering, Cloud was back under the covers of his hospital bed. The three friends sat in silence for a little while as Cloud slowly began to relax and sink into the mattress.

"What an asshole," Cloud muttered eventually as he began to drift towards unconsciousness. Zack chuckled at the small outburst, still unused to hearing profanity from his friend.

"Looks like we're going to find 'Johnny's at every corner of the world, huh?"

Cloud frowned. What was he going on about? "What?"

"The doctor is an ass like Johnny."

"Who's Johnny?"

Zack and Tifa shared a look. Zack looked at Cloud gravely. "I guess the mako messed up your head a lot more than we realized, huh?"

"I guess," Cloud whispered, close to falling asleep. "It's hard to remember what you've forgotten when you have no idea that you've forgotten something…" He trailed off as he began to fall under. The haze was starting to creep across the forefront of his mind again. He had only been awake for about twenty minutes, but he was exhausted.

And weak, hissed a voice somewhere behind the fog and near the ache in his head. Cloud thought nothing of it as he fully slept.

As Cloud slept, Tifa and Zack waited for news on the doctor's decision. After about forty-five minutes, Daniels stopped by to let them know the final decision: Cloud would be left to rest for another three days before he began therapy.

The next three days for them were spent taking turns watching Cloud and going to rest in the room provided for them. Cloud would drift in and out of consciousness every couple of hours and strike up a quiet conversation with Zack or Tifa if they were in the room. The quiet conversations were mildly disturbing. Cloud was much more delirious for the first day and a half than he was when he had first woken. He would ramble off about times he remembered doing things which Zack was certain he had never done before.

During this time, Nanaki was hiding in the room, away from prying eyes and the loud noises and nasty smells of outdoor Midgar. When offered to be taken to meet Cloud, the beast had declined, uncertain how the weak human would handle seeing him. Even though he was beginning to become stir crazy and pace, he refused to go out into the metropolis. When Zack had asked him about Cloud's odd memories, the beast had simply said, "Mako contains the memories of all who have died before us. I would imagine he is unable to sort between the Planet's memories and his own."

Cloud's odd ramblings were not the only things discussed over the three days. During their time in the ShinRa tower hospital, their Turk bodyguards had refrained to keep such a close watch on the teens. Zack had commented that the Turks must be letting down some guard because the hospital and rooms they were staying in were higher level security than the Nibelheim teens had originally thought. Instead of having a suited figure drifting behind them, the teens now had the ability to freely roam a limited area with only one exit blocked by a large burly dark skinned man with a welded gun in place of his right forearm and a tattoo stretching across his left bicep. Tifa had struck up a conversation with him one day and the two had – surprisingly – hit it off nicely. The man's name was Barret, and he had proven to be a real teddy bear underneath his intimidating exterior when left to get to know the gentle and sweet-tempered Tifa. However, he had been quick to show he didn't like Zack's witty remarks and "attitude."

"Don't you start tryin' stuff with me, punk," the large man would growl whenever Zack would try to tease or joke around.

"But I don't get something," Tifa said while Cloud quietly listened to her and Zack talk. It was two days after he had woken. "He's guarding our part of the building, but I keep noticing him sending death glares at the Turks. Not to mention he mutters about ShinRa under his breath all the time."

"Well, even if he doesn't like ShinRa, it's always been pretty obvious they're the main source of jobs here," Zack pointed out.

"I know," whispered Tifa, picking at a loosening thread in her pants. "But it kind of feels like there's something more than just petty dislike."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, he must have some pretty serious reasons to dislike them. Come on, Zack, you've seen the looks he's been sending us, right? And not just him, lots of the nurses too." A frown creased Tifa's brow.

"Looks…" Zack trailed off.

"You haven't noticed?" Tifa sighed. "Pity, Zack. Just… just watch them more carefully. You'll definitely see it."

"So, he hates them because they're experimenting on Cloud? And because by experimenting on Cloud, they forced us to leave Nibelheim?"

"Experiments?" asked Cloud.

"It's a theory. I'll tell you about it later, man," Zack waved off his friend. Cloud settled back down, a bit disgruntled. Tifa waited for them to quiet down before continuing.

"Maybe that's part of it… I still feel that there's more to this, not just what we're seeing now. You heard Daniels right? I think there's also quite a bit of politics involved."

Zack's eyes widened. "You mean when Daniels said something about the doctor's reputation?"

Tifa nodded. "We're going to see how it plays out eventually, aren't we?"

"Yes, we are."

On the third day of Cloud's recuperation, Nanaki finally braved the bewildered stares of hospital staff to visit Cloud. The blonde teen had finally become able to stay fully conscious for more than a couple of hours, and Nanaki felt now was the best time for them to be formally introduced. Even though Nanaki had been with their group for several days, it would be Cloud's first time seeing him.

Cloud sat upright in his hospital bed, finishing his lunch of somewhat hearty soup. Tifa was currently sitting with him, keeping him company and eating her own lunch. He greatly appreciated the gesture. Whenever he was alone in the room, he found his mind drifting back to the memories that had been pouring into his brain for what had felt like years to him at the time. He would try to sift through them, but the longer he concentrated, his head would begin to ache and an almost static like noise buzzed in his ears. Tifa's company always helped quiet the noise.

A sigh alerted Cloud as Tifa set down her plate of cafeteria food. "What's up?" he asked.

"Well, there's something Zack and I haven't told you," she started.

"The experiments?" Cloud interrupted.

"Uh, well, there's another thing. It's not as serious," she mumbled, looking away briefly.

"What is it?" asked Cloud warily.

"We kinda… picked up another party member while on the trip here," she explained haltingly. "He didn't want to see you while you were still out of it because he thought you wouldn't be strong enough to handle seeing him."

"What's so special about him?" Cloud wondered what kind of person this new "party member" was.

"He's… not exactly human," said Tifa.

Cloud gave a small hum of confusion. "Might as well bring him in. The suspense is killing me," he added dryly. Tifa rolled her eyes and went to the door. She leaned out into the hallway.

"Bring him in."

As she leaned back, Zack appeared in the doorway and as he walked in, a large beast followed. Cloud stared at the large red hair cross between a big cat and wolf. He took in the bangles and flaming tail and something clicked in the haze.

"You're one of the guardians of Cosmo Canyon, aren't you?"

The beast immediately perked up, its amber eye focusing sharply on Cloud's face as it gave a nod. "You're correct," it rumbled, its voice distinctly male. The beast padded up to Cloud's bed and reared up onto his hind legs to place his front paws on the railing and hover over the teen. His predator eye bored into Cloud's glowing eyes. The blonde didn't flinch and stared evenly back. The beast huffed and sank back down onto all fours. "Quite a confident one. My name is Nanaki," he growled. He lashed his tail and shook his mane, causing the beads in it to tinkle together. "I'm surprised you know of my kind. Almost none do unless they were raised in the Canyon."

"How did you know that, Cloud?" asked Tifa.

"You forget me, but you remember something like that?" Zack joked. Upon seeing the hurt expression on Cloud's face, he muttered, "Sorry, not something to joke about. Got it."

"I don't really know myself," said Cloud.

Nanaki gave a yawn and then lay down on the cool linoleum floor, his fur faintly rustling. "I would say, yet again," he glanced at Zack, "that it has something to do with the mako. One of the memories he experienced belonged to someone who knew what my kind were before he or she returned to the Planet." A long pink tongue flicked out to moisten a black nose. "When given a chance, you and I must talk. The memories of the Planet which you were exposed to are fascinating entities. They would be a great help to those in the field of Planet Study."

Cloud gave a faint nod. "Sure. When we have time."

The sound of the door opening caught the attention of everyone in the room. Daniels walked in and looked straight at Cloud. "You've had three days to rest. Now it's time to begin therapy."

A/N: Nothing much to say about this one. Finals are killing me, slowly and surely.

Review Responses:

Irish-Brigid: Here's what happened to Cloud. I was planning on being more elaborate on him in this chapter, but it looks like I'll be adding to the new Cloud in future chapters.

Melody-Of-Lockhart: Here's another update for you! I'm always so grateful for feedback and encouragement from my viewers. :)

Quick shout-out to chibipinkbunny who has taken it upon herself to throw tips to me for improvement in my writing. Always appreciated! :D