Author Note: Every so often I have to sit down and remind myself that the characters are not omniscient and therefore Don't Know everything.


Learning New Things

Old Man Mooney Apartments, Sector 5 Slums

"You really up to splitting up today? Your headaches are getting better, but …" Zack finished fixing his clothes. Clothes in the slums were usually worn until they were threads, and the Soldier gear could stand some pretty heavy wear and tear, and didn't get cut very easily.

It just wasn't what most would consider casual.

"I'll be fine, I'm staying in Sector Five. Those Smoggers are starting to show up more. I'll call if something goes wrong. Besides, Aerith said he only visits her until the next train comes, you need to get going." Cloud smiled at Zack as he finished getting ready. "Or are you planning on a date with Aerith after?"

"Maybe? Depends if she wants one. You should take Tifa out."

"I guess…" Cloud blinked as he stood up, his vision going green for a moment before he shook his head.

"Flashback? Headache?" Zack was close.

"Stood up too fast. Might get more food." Cloud rubbed his eyes. "I'm fine. Did I use to get this hungry?"

"Well, I wasn't always able to feed you on the run, so it might just be sore over the year of missed meals." Zack glanced down. "And there was never a right way to do it, sometimes you were capable of swallowing and sometimes you weren't so …"

"Zack, for the record, I'm okay with you crossing whatever boundaries you had to to keep me alive. We can talk about that later. Don't you have some place to be?"

"Right. Take care Cloud!"

Cloud shook his head as Zack left, door banging closed as he left Cloud alone in the room.

"I'm fine." Cloud said to empty air, moving to grab his sword before freezing as a hand gripped his shoulder.

"Liar." A familiar voice whispered, too close to his ear and Cloud whirled around to see no one there.

Cloud put his sword on the magnet before leaving the room and locking up.

He was fine.

"Greetings Cloud."

Cloud blinked as he saw Chadley standing by the bench.

"Chadley. How goes the materia making?"

"Pretty well, I might be able to make a summon, soon. Initial predictions say it won't be as strong as a naturally formed summon, but with your help, I should be able to do it." Chadley reported.

"Sure, what do you need?"

"I need you to fight a virtual version of the summon so I have accurate battle data."

"Alright."

Chadley handed him goggles and a handheld controller, running him through the buttons and the menu before starting the simulation.

It took a bit to get used to before he could properly fight Shiva, but it was worth it … though Cloud had questions on how Chadley made the materia so quickly because it was ready as soon as Cloud removed the headset.

"Here, Cloud. Thank you for your assistance."

"You're welcome." Cloud equipped Shiva. He could feel her whispers of ice as he accepted another form to fill out for further research.

"I'm pretty sure the priests at home would consider that blasphemy or something." Sonon noted, coming almost out of no where. "Creating a summon."

"But you're more pragmatic?" Cloud asked.

"Whatever helps win a fight, especially against ShinRa."

"Mm." Cloud could see that. "Gonna help monster hunt?"

"Might as well. I do need to talk to you." Sonon kept up with him.

"About what?"

"Why would Zack call himself a prisoner when he's a soldier?"

"… ShinRa does human experimentation… not all subjects are willing. Soldiers … if a Soldier is worth more as an experiment than a weapon …" Cloud looked away. Sonon wasn't a bad person, Zack said it was okay to tell him the truth. "There was an incident. General Sephiroth burned my home town, Zack and I stopped him. H-He didn't like it that an infantryman and an inferior soldier beat his prize specimen… so he tore us apart and put us back together trying to get rid of our imperfections." He has flashes of green and pain and Zack yelling.

Someone grabbed him and he gasped as he came back to reality. Sonon looked like he didn't know what to say for a moment.

"ShinRa… hurts its own men? Why would anyone join them?"

"Because we wanted to help people, sometimes. Or because we were weak and scared and ShinRa promised to help. It wasn't like there was anyone else who said they cared." Cloud sighed. "There are people still like that in there, ShinRa's good at lying and hiding. They rebuilt Nibleheim, have soldiers there pretending absolutely nothing happened. It's just another fort."

"But why don't they-"

"Fight? You know, Zack was a popular person, friendly. People cared about him. And ShinRa all but erased him. What would they do to someone who wasn't that strong?"

"So what, everyone's scared?"

"..." Cloud looked ahead. Had that been a person or a monster? Was that white fur?

Sonon didn't continue the argument, noticing the movement as well.

They ended up startling a kid in a moogle costume and Oates.

"Cloud!"

"Oates. Who's your friend?"

"You can see me, Kupo?"

"This is Moggie, we're scavenging things for him to sell at Mog's Emporium." Oates explained.

"Huh?"

"You know, like in Mog the Moogle!"

"We're not from Midgar." Cloud explained.

"Oh! In that case, Kupo, Mog is my predecessor, a moogle who made a shop to sell things to help his friends! We accept moogle medals, Kupo!" Moggie explained.

"Moogle medals?" Sonon asked.

"Are these what you're talking about?" Cloud had picked them up when he found them. He crouched down and held out three.

"Yes, Kupo! I don't have my full stock here, but I have this!" Moggie held up a scarf. "This is worth three medals, Kupo!"

"Sure." Cloud could give it to Zack or Aerith later.

Moggie beamed, taking the medals and then wrapping the scarf around Cloud's neck before bouncing back with a cheerful 'Kupo!'.

"Thanks. We need to do some monster hunting now, so you two should head back to town, okay?"

"Okay!"

Oates hung back for a moment.

"Thanks for playing along with Moggie, the other adults tend to think he's odd, but he really wants to help people."

"No problem."

Oates grinned at them and followed Moggie home.

Cloud found himself absently reaching up and holding onto the scarf, feeling strangely grounded by the action.


Train Station, Sector Five Slums

"Should I be jealous?" Aerith teased him as he fidgeted.

"I honestly don't know why I'm nervous."

"It's going to be okay." Aerith assured him.

The train pulled in and people came out. For a moment, Zack didn't see his friend.

"Zack." And then Kunsel was right in front of him.

"Hey, Kunsel, miss-" Kunsel actually grabbed him in a hug. Zack wasn't expecting it.

"I thought I was going crazy, I couldn't find you no matter where I looked." Kunsel muttered. "It was like you'd been deleted from existence."

"Came pretty close, but I'm still here. Cloud too." The trio moved out of everyone's hearing range.

"Your trooper buddy. I found one of his friends, but his records were even harder to find- they deleted all Nibleheim census records, got some fake ones up now." Kunsel reported. "Archives still had the hard copies, but in top secret clearance."

"Damn." Zack sighed. "I thought the bombing of Banora was bad."

"It gets worse. Took some doing, but they did the same thing to Kalm twenty years back give or take."

"So Nibleheim was nothing new." Zack sighed. "They were already okay with wiping out a town and covering it up."

"And yet Corel was destroyed in a clash between ShinRa and Avalanche. The residents weren't erased, just relocated to Notth Corel while Gold Saucer was built over the ruins." Kunsel crossed his arms."And they could have had it worse. Whatever happened with Kalm, Science received a bunch of specimens from Kalm at roughly the same time, all sent to Nibleheim's lab. A similar accumulation of specimens happened in Nibleheim five years ago."

"Don't tell me I left other survivors there." Zack felt sick. He had been so focused on getting Cloud out, had he missed other survivors? What did he tell Tifa and Cloud? And the monsters in the pods … had those been Kalm residents?

"No further information on what happened. I couldn't tell you that." Kunsel admitted.

"You saved Cloud. That matters a lot." Aerith held his hand.

"I know, I just … I don't remember anyone else in that place other than Cloud, Hojo's staff and Hojo on occasion." Zack admitted. He knew he was missing memories, but compared to Cloud who had lost a huge amount, his few missing ones weren't so bad. "What else has happened?"

"Almost the entire Turk department is gone. Only three left, Tseng, Reno and Rude. Rumor is Veld was executed along with a leader of Avalanche, but no bodies."

"So, topside is a mess."

"Unstable is a better way to put it. Heidegger's trying to prove he's in control, he and the President have been having Daily meetings, sometimes with Scarlet. Soldier is still under Heidegger, but more and more we're restricted to the upper plate while Scarlet's machines and the troopers are sent out. Publicity says the machines are working but they still can't tell the difference between Soldiers and Monsters."

"Yeah, there's a reason for that. Hojo uses Jenova cells in all his research, including soldier."

"Jenova? The Calamity from the sky?" Aerith asked.

"Sephiroth said she was his mother and an ancient."

"No." Aerith shook her head. "She's what killed most of u- them."

"The way Genesis and Sephiroth talked … the degradation that happened to Genesis and Angeal may happen to anyone not Sephiroth, or Cloud, if Genesis was right about him. I don't know exactly what happened to us."

"Degradation is happening to Soldiers now, several have gotten sick, gone to Science and just left the company after treatment stopped working. They are all getting a number tattoo to identify the body." Kunsel reported. "That's the story, anyway."

"There's one in Sector Five that wanders around. The doctor tries to keep him in his clinic most of the time, but he still wanders off." Aerith looked at Zack the same time as Kunsel.

"What?" Zack asked.

"What do we do? They can't keep getting away with this." Kunsel asked.

"… I don't know. I don't want to ally with Avalanche or Wutai, they won't be interested in saving Soldiers or the collateral damage that would happen. But at the same time, this situation isn't sustainable, it's gonna get worse. And I don't want to be an experiment again." Zack wanted to stop ShinRa from hurting more people, but ShinRa was in the position where if they went down they would take a lot of innocent people with them. "Is there any director that isn't complicit in working with Hojo?"

"Reeve Tuesti. He does Urban Development, mostly infrastructure work. And maybe Palmer, most of his department has been pulled into Heidegger's control but I don't know much else about either of them." Kunsel admitted. "I was keeping an eye on Hojo, Scarlet and Heidegger as those three tend to have the highest casualties."

"Can you get more information?" Zack asked.

"Yeah. Got a number? I'm guessing you don't have your old one."

"Taken from me. Here are Cloud and mine's numbers."

"Alright. My train's coming. You'll be careful this time, don't disappear on me again."

"I'll give you a warning if things get weird." Zack agreed. "But you can't go missing either. Things get weird, get out of there."

"I will, Aerith keep Zack and Cloud safe."

"You can count on me!" Aerith saluted with a grin.

Kunsel hugged him again before leaving.

"That went well."

"Yeah." Zack wrapped an arm around Aerith. "I just have a bad feeling."

"I know. Me too. ShinRa's… messed with things they shouldn't before, but they…"

"Had the Turks and Sephiroth. Half their damage control is now completely gone and Heidegger's all about looking strong instead of actually doing things right." Zack sighed. He remembered arguments between Sephiroth and Heidegger about that. "We need allies, but I don't know who to ask."

"What about Tifa? She might help, right?"

"I'll introduce you. Care to go to her bar for a date?"

"I'd love that!" Aerith smiled.


Seventh Heaven, Sector Seven Slums

Marlene likes the lazy mornings when Daddy's home and they have breakfast for breakfast and lunch. She gets to draw with Daddy until Betty picked her up to play in the afternoon.

Tifa is in the middle of restocking the bar when Zack bounded in, with a girl.

Daddy got grumpy around Zack and Cloud, but Marlene liked them both. Cloud gave them flowers and talked to Tifa and made Tifa smile's less sad and Zack was nice too, he smiled a lot.

"This is Seventh Heaven! And this is Tifa, Cloud's friend! The guy glaring at me is Barrett and the tiny Angel is Marlene!" Zack smiled. "Everyone, this is Aerith. She's my girlfriend and she sells Flowers."

"Like our Cloud flowers?" Marlene asked. She had named them that because they were yellow and had points like his hair, they also made Tifa smile more.

"Exactly like." Aerith smiled. "It's nice to meet you all."

"Is Cloud coming?" Tifa asked.

"He's monster hunting in Sector 5."

"Is that safe? His headaches-"

"Are getting less frequent."

Marlene tuned out the adults, happily drawing even as her daddy got up to help Tifa.

She knew Cloud was sick, sometimes he would look like the scary man that lived next to Tifa, but he was also getting better- Cloud was starting to look less sad all the time. He even smiled at her the other day, though it looked like he had to work at it, like he wasn't used to smiling. Which was really sad, if she thought about it too much.

"Two Cosmo Canyons, house specialty. Cloud likes them."

Marlene hummed as she drew Cloud and Tifa together standing next to Zack and Aerith before moving onto drawing her and daddy.

"I might be willing to bring you more flowers, I could try expanding the business a little bit more. They wouldn't be completely free, how about discount for discount?" Aerith asked.

"Sounds like a deal."

Adults talked about boring things, but Marlene liked the idea of having more flowers.

"Tifa! Your Johnny is here!" Johnny bounded in. Marlene found him too silly to really be an adult. He was too loud and he almost knocked Marlene over when he worked for Tifa. Zack bounced, but he never knocked anyone over.

"Hello Johnny, what's your order today?"Tifa was nice to him, but Tifa was nice to everyone because she was a bartender.

"You and me on a date!"

"Punk, if you're not here to eat or drink get out!" Daddy growled.

"Talktoyoulater, bye!" Johnny rushed back out.

Marlene added Wedge, Biggs and Jessie to her picture.

"Friend of yours?" Zack asked.

"Johnny. He's the town … character, I guess. He can't really hold a job for very long, both because of his personality and his … clumsiness. I had to fire him, because he nearly trampled Marlene and he broke a case of glasses trying to flirt with me. Somehow he got it into his head that I fired him so we could have a balanced relationship?" Tifa sighed. "He's not a bad guy, he's genuinely nice and helpful, he's just …"

"Not your type?"

"That's putting it too kindly." Daddy grumbled. "He's a walking disaster."

"Daddy! Done!" Marlene held up her picture. "Our family!"

"Yes, baby, they certainly are." Her daddy praised her. "Ready for playing with your friends?"

"Uh-huh!" Marlene hugged Tifa and waved to everyone else as her Daddy picked her up.

"Have fun!" Zack waved back.

Marlene liked being perched on her dad's shoulder, she was so tall people had to look up at her!


End Note: I gave Cloud a scarf for two reasons. One is a future joke setup, the other is because as an infantry man he had a scarf and something familiar would be better for him healing. The scarf in question is the same one Moggie sells.

Moggie also has weapons to sell, I imagine he gets them by scavenging. Moggie will return.

I did like that the Remake had Sephiroth haunting Cloud. And also that Cloud had an infantry friend who remembered him.

Kunsel is here! He's not the usual fanon master spy, but a bit more canon keeping an eye on things and quietly investigating. I love fanon Kunsel, my absolutely favorite version is Mystic 777's Escape Plan Green, but for this fic I'm having him less master spy and more private investigator. So it's probably going to be him, Cloud's infantry friend and Reeve forming the 'decent people working for ShinRa' contingent.

I like Johnny, he's a genuinely nice guy that tries to help people, he's just … about as self aware as a dog. You want to be mad at it, but then it tries to fetch you the newspaper and comes back with a stick and wagging its tail at a job well done. He's a good comic relief character.