boring author crap...
There are a couple of small timeline and detail issues in this chapter; the biggest one that has been bothering me is whether or not Sephiroth actually has a tattoo. Anyway... I made up a word in this chapter (that's not a name or a mistake); see if you can pick it!

Untitled 5

Chapter Two - The General

By Loquacia Dee

       

The first thing he felt was the pain. It laced through his body, all pervasive, and for a long while it was all he could focus on as he desperately wished for unconsciousness to reclaim him back to its gentle void.

It didn't come.

But the realisation that he was, one again, unarguably alive did. He had been so sure, last night, that death was his. The 'mako' had been like fire in his veins, wracking his body to the point that they no longer had to hold him down to prevent him running. He couldn't have moved if he'd wanted to; lying in the filthy storeroom floor, choking on his own bloodied vomit. The first blow had landed soon after, his "endurance testing" , and penance for daring to ask a question. For speaking up, and standing out. Worthless trash. Little faggot hick wanting to play dress ups with the real soldiers... and SOLDIERs.

He had passed out soon after. Weak. Any real Shinra soldier worth the name would never be so pathetic.

It was that thought itself which lead him to the most painful realisation of all; today was the day of the trials to pick those eligible to enter basic training at Shinra. Such a simple goal, to be simply able to attend, and yet he had managed to fuck it up.

And to think you were stupid enough to think they'd want someone as useless as you in SOLDIER...

The thought lanced his heart, the pain a thousand times worse than any physical ache, leaving him powerless to prevent the whimper from his lips.

Footsteps approached with the prim determined stride of a doctor. Cloud rolled away from the sound, curling on his deeply into himself.

"How are you feeling?" The voice was female, crisp and non-nonsense, but unfamiliar. He hadn't know they'd gotten a new doctor? Or perhaps he was in some other infirmary...

"... hurts..." he managed to whisper.

"I'm not surprised," came the doctor's dry response. "You took quite a beating. One day you're going to have to start taking better care of yourself; you're tough, but not indestructible. Roll over."

He obeyed wordlessly, eyes cracking open painfully. The doctor -- a jolly-looking middle-aged woman -- administered a few professional flicks to the needle in her hand. The sight made him shrink away almost immediately, memories of the night before rising unbidden and unwanted.

"... no!" The raw panic in his voice shamed him. Weak.

The doctor just smiled at him sadly. "I'm sorry, Cloud, but I don't dare use Materia such a short time after high level mako exposure. It will be over quickly."

It was; a quick, professional jab and the pain in his body began to recede almost immediately. Something the doctor said nagged at the back of his mind.

"... mako?"

"Mmm, you boys really must learn to stop playing with the stuff. Being resistant is not the same as being immune, and polluted mako at that."

Cloud visibly started. Polluted mako? It's... impossible! Where could they have gotten hold of that? He felt panic well in his chest, and things began to slowly fall into place. They thought he had somehow administered himself mako. He didn't recognise the infirmary or the doctor because they were obviously not from the Academy. More likely from wherever Shinra threw its prisoners... or lab experiments.

"General Sephiroth is waiting outside. He was in earlier but was making such a scene I sent him out -- strange young man. I'll go tell him you're awake." She patted his arm at that; motherly and reassuring.

By the time she had ambled off Cloud's insides had turned to ice, jelly, fire and back to ice again. The General. Waiting. For him. Making a scene. The General. He was sure his panic was palpable, his heart beating with such force he was amazed the sound didn't reverberate throughout the room. His mind oscillated between dream and nightmare; dream that he would finally be meeting the General, up close, hearing his voice... and nightmare as to what that might mean. Were they going to execute him? Cloud could imagine no less a punishment would be deserved by someone who had, they believed, stolen and self-administered mako. When the door opened a scant second later he whimpered again, closing his eyes against the inevitable expression of scorn or loathing he was sure the General's eyes must hold for one as pathetic as he.

He didn't want to see it, to feel every one of his dreams ripped brutally away so casually. Perhaps now life would be merciful; death would be better than this moment.

Two sets of footsteps returned, the second pair heavier and accompanied by a great deal more metallic clanking. They crossed the room in half the time, stoping beside him. His desperation surged, but so too did panic, and he found himself completely unable to move, barely breathing. Perhaps if he remained still...

Cool fingers -- naked, gloveless fingers too elegant to be the doctor's -- gently rested on his brow. The sensation shot dual waves of shame and desire through Cloud; that something as flawless as the General should choose to touch him was unthinkable, that he should want it was sacrilege.

"How are you feeling?"

It occurred to Cloud that he had never, ever heard the General speak. His voice, however, was everything it should have been; deep and rich, velvet smooth and razorblade sharp. He was so lost in its sensation he almost forgot that the question was addressed to him.

"... sore," he decided that lying to such a man would only add to his shame. Before he could stop it, more words tumbled out. "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean..."

The fingers that had, until that point been slowly stroking his brow froze momentarily, before resuming their gentle torture once more. "Sssh, later," came the silky reply. The gentle motion of the General's hand terrified Cloud with its tenderness, and put him in the mind of a cat gently playing with a mouse before moving in for the final kill.

There was a strangely pregnant pause during which Cloud could distinctly feel the General's attention shift first away then back to him. After a brief moment, the doctor asked, "Cloud, I'd like you to tell me the last thing you remember?" Her voice was far too careful. Cloud swallowed; here it came.

"I... I went to bed. Early." He truly hadn't meant to lie, but neither could he bring himself to tell the truth, for surely should he do so the fingers really would withdraw.

"Why did you do that, Cloud?"

"Um... the... the trials are tomorrow..."

"Which 'trials'?"

The question was confusing, but perhaps they really didn't know. There was, after all, no real need for anyone bar the Academy staff to know the date for the trials. Certainly someone like the General had no real interest in something so routine, nor this doctor... wherever she was from.

"F-for the army. B-basic training?"

The fingers paused for a fraction of a second, but resumed before Cloud could think to panic for their absence. The sensation was terrifying, true, but also far more soothing than if it had been absent.

"Cloud, how old are you?"

"Sixteen," he added. The shock in the room was almost palpable, so he hurriedly added, "I-I know I look y-young... b-but my birthday was last week. The nineteenth."

A pause. "General, sir, if I could speak with you in private for a moment?"

"Of course." The fingers did stop then, leaving a small squeeze on Cloud's shoulder before disappearing entirely. He listened as both sets of footsteps receded to the other side of the room, a hushed and heated debate followed. Cloud simply curled onto his side once more, and tried very hard not to think of what was being said.

... perhaps you'll be sent to a secret lab somewhere, and they'll jab needles and electricity into you day after day, "Look, it's the boy who wanted to play at SOLDIERs..."

He turned his face against the pillow, and tried very hard not to cry.

When the footsteps returned he didn't dare move. They were talking at him, again. Words he was sure he didn't want to hear so didn't; let them kill him now and be done with it. Anything would be better than this.

"... and I have to say I strongly advised against it, so unfortunately you have... Cloud are you listening to one word I'm saying? Cloud? General Strife!"

He jerked upright, eyes snapping open focusing on the doctor, whose current expression had gone beyond exasperation and deep into the realm beyond. "What?"

"Mm, I see you have attained his attention."

Cloud started again, his eyes swivelling to where the General stood, arms folded and smirking, glowing aqua eyes blazing with some unshared amusement. He met those eyes only briefly, before dropping his gaze once more to hide the blush that threatened to creep shamefully across his face. It wasn't that the General was beautiful, per sei -- his features were a little too long, a little too sharp for true beauty -- but the impossibly silver hair and burning cat-eyed gaze definitely made him incredibly exotic. The fact that he seemed to radiate raw power only added to the effect. It would be hard -- truly impossible, really -- to resist such a man. Yet the General was never rumoured to take lovers; a fact which seemingly only increased his appeal to the moon-eyed masses back at the Academy.

The doctor sighed sharply. "Well then, as I was saying before you were listening, I believe you are suffering from a form of magically-induced amnesia."

"A-amnesia?" Cloud risked a glance at the doctor, whose expression softened somewhat upon realising she had regained her audience.

"Mm, yes. There should be no permanent damage, though I will have to run some more tests; unfortunately I can't use the equipment on my own, so we will have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest. Lieutenant Michiba was the only other individual present at the time of your accident, and unfortunately he is in a coma recovering from a serious case of Materia backlash -- apparently the poor thing tried unleashing three very high level spells at once, without, I might add, a conduit, never mind the question of exactly what an untrained lieutenant was doing with such powerful Materia in the first place..." Here she fixed Cloud with a withering stare that sent a wave of guilt through him, though he really wasn't sure why.

She looked about ready to relaunch into her speech when the General interrupted. "As the doctor is taking so long to explain, we believe that whatever attacked you at Seal Site 47 has in some fashion damaged parts of your long-term memory. In effect, erasing the last twenty nine years of your life."

It was around that point that Cloud decided that he had not, in fact, survived being injected and beaten and that this was, in fact, the afterlife. A somewhat... strange afterlife, but unreal all the same.

... if I'm lucky maybe I've just fallen into an unrecoverable coma, and this is all some kind of dream... she called me 'general'...

"It's true your birthday was last week, but you turned forty five, not sixteen."

"I... see."

... forty five... funny, I don't feel that old...

He looked down at his hands, cut in contrast against the over-starched white sheets of the infirmary bed. They looked... exactly as he remembered. Maybe slightly more calloused, and adorned with a ring he had never seen before.

"I know it's quite a lot to take in," the doctor was saying, "but I feel that it's something that can wait. Your body still hasn't fully recovered from being dragged through a pool of dark mako, so rest is your first priority. I'll have someone prepare a report for you tomorrow detailing all the necessary information."

"... thank you..."

... I can't be forty five... there must be some mistake... or maybe it's some kind of... of test? Is this what they mean by 'psychological' testing?

"General Sephiroth seems to feel that you would rest better at home than here, and unfortunately can be quite... adamant about some things. I've left you some clothes on the chair over here. We'll be waiting outside when you're ready."

Cloud was still staring at his hands when they left.

       

"Cloud, how old are you?"

"Sixteen."

Something very tiny and, up until that point, almost totally ignored in the back of Sephiroth's mind snapped on with what must have been an audible alacrity. Sixteen. Cloud though he was sixteen; he was worried about trials for the Shinra standing army. Not even SOLDIER; which of course he had never actually attended, but never mind that now because the fact remained that Cloud thought he was sixteen.

It was amnesia, of course, but Sephiroth was at nothing less than a loss to explain it. Vague medical lessons from an age ago rose to the front of his mind, all delivered in the clipped, demented tones of Hojo.

... commonly thought to be caused by head trauma, though in reality more often the result of extreme emotional stress...

Neither of which really fit. They knew little of whatever had transpired at the destroyed front of Seal Site 47; only the corpse of the beast Lieutenant Michiba had destroyed remained, and not much at that. Both Cloud and the lieutenant were unconscious by the time help had arrived, and the site had been abandoned soon after, the remaining squad had -- wisely, in Sephiroth's opinion, though much of the Shinra executive was up in arms about it -- decided it was more important for the General to be removed to a safe location than the remaining four squad members attempt to hold the base. They had trekked for three days -- dragging the two bodies behind them the entire way -- before the PHS had fizzled to life long enough for them to radio in. The transport had met them the next day; it was a dangerous place to bring in an airship, the winds buffeting the fragile craft against the unforgiving shears of rock, but fate had been gentle and they had made it out without incident. It had been three days since they had landed in Neo-Midgar; three days Sephiroth had spent sitting next to the unconscious Cloud, neither eating nor sleeping nor moving. This morning Doctor Liguel had grown so frustrated she had forcibly ejected him, ordering him to eat and sleep and walk around. He had told her in icy tones he didn't have to do any of those things, thank you very much, and instead had simply stood outside the infirmary door. At around midday, a nurse had bought him a sandwich and smiled at him prettily until he ate it.

Hardly anyone ever smiled at him anymore.

Eating had, as he knew it would, only made him realise how hungry he actually was. He ignored the feeling of his insides slowly burning themselves out, and had gone back to waiting, silent and still.

At five the doctor had re-emerged to inform him Cloud had awoken.

"He's still in a great deal of pain. I've given him an injection --"

"You did what?"

"Calm down. You know I'm not going to use Materia on someone so soon after such high-level mako poisoning --"

He hadn't waited for her to finish, pushing bodily past and into the room. Cloud had looked awful; pale and drawn and, he realised, absolutely terrified. He was feverish, too, though that had lessened a little since, whether by Cloud's own metabolism or the doctor's drugs.

The pause following Cloud's admission of age must have been too drawn, because he hurriedly continued, snapping Sephiroth's mind back into the present. "I-I know I look y-young... b-but my birthday was last week. The nineteenth."

Doctor Liguel had looked up at him then -- something strangely reassuring, as the doctor was one of the few people unafraid to meet his gaze -- and said, "General, sir, if I could speak with you in private for a moment?"

"Of course." He gave Cloud's shoulder a brief squeeze before following the doctor; he realised gloomily that it was probably for his benefit more so than Cloud's. If Cloud still thought he was sixteen then he would have no memory of, well, anything. To him, Sephiroth would still be the untouchable General, pinnacle of Shinra military engineering, and nothing more. A stark loneliness thought long since banished welled up inside his heart.

He had not died at the end of the Catastrophe, though he had long thought that he should have. He had been badly damaged in both body and mind, however, and his resulting coma had lasted several years. When he had finally dragged himself from that dark and lonely place it was to awake in a nightmare of steel restraints and glass tubes that reminded him far too strongly of Hojo. He probably would have started screaming, had they not kept him drugged. How long, exactly, he had never been sure, but life had degenerated into a long stream of helpless waking-nightmares followed by brief, sharp moment of almost lucidity in which he had been asked endless questions by people with fear in their eyes and hate in their hearts.

Something had happened to put that hate and fear there, but he could no longer remember what. People had always been afraid of him to some degree -- sensing in him something disquietingly inhuman and predatory -- but it had also usually been tempered by awe, something that was totally devoid now, and replaced by unfettered loathing. Most of the questions had made no sense at the time; no he knew nothing of the Cetra, the Black Materia, he'd always been told Jenova was his mother's name but knew nothing of her beyond that, the last thing he had recalled with any clarity had been entering the mako reactor at Mt. Nibel. After that memories grew hazy; he remembered Hojo's experiments, remembered a vast library, and Zack... where was Zack?

Eventually they stopped sedating him and, after several more tests he realised were, for the most part, psych examinations, he had been unchained and moved from the glass tube into a small, spartan holding room. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it also did not try and hide the fact that it was a jail cell.

The next day a man had appeared and handed him a large stack of files, before leaving without a word. So Sephiroth had sat down and begun to read, and it was from these bald, uncaring papers that he had learnt about the Catastrophe... and the man who had defeated him.

A week later he had been removed from the cell and escorted up into a large conference room. Inside was a strange gathering of people, some remembered, some not. He had been surprised beyond all measure to find the ex-head of Urban Development, of all people, had taken over the presidency of Shinra, seemingly due to some kind of heroic involvement in the Catastrophe. He introduced himself as Reeve, and had stated in no uncertain words that he felt Sephiroth should have been executed, but that certain members of the Shinra executive had felt that too much time and money had been invested in the former General to simply throw him away. So long as Sephiroth agreed to continue to work for Shinra, to follow orders and generally behave like the good little pet he had been created to be, he would be allowed to live. To make certain he behaved, he had been appointed a babysitter. Reeve had gestured behind him, then, and Sephiroth had turned to see a figure standing motionless against a wall. The blond head had lifted, and for the first time in he didn't know how long, Sephiroth had felt true bone-chilling fear curl throughout his body as he found himself staring eye to mako eye with what could only be Cloud Strife.

       

"I absolutely forbid it!"

Doctor Liguel sighed impatiently. "Sir, with all due respect, you can't. The fact remains that I need to test Strife to see if he had any kind of lingering damage to his brain. I'm sure you'll appreciate that I can't allow his condition to worsen."

"And I can't allow you to put him into that... thing to do it." Sephiroth's hands were clenched tightly at his sides, his lips pressed into a thin, seething line. The doctor had suggested a CAT scan; the very thought of watching Cloud being inserted into that stark white tube, of watching him lie there in total stillness while the machine clunked ominously was almost too much.

"And why not?" the doctor finally snapped, though still in hushed tones as Cloud himself lay only a few metres away. "Because of something that he doesn't even remember anymore?"

Sephiroth's eye twitched, but he had no answer. The doctor was, on this point at least, maddeningly correct.

"Fine," he had eventually ground out. "At least let me take him home until then. He deserves to be somewhere familiar."

The doctor's expression softened somewhat. She didn't try and state the obvious -- that nowhere Sephiroth could take Cloud now would be 'familiar' anymore -- and for that he was in many ways grateful. It hurt, this notion that everything he lived for now, the only thing that lessened the hate and fear and loneliness, could so easily be ripped away. He hated being so weak.

"Very well. But if he shows any signs of deteriorating..."

He cut her off with a curt nod, and she didn't press the issue.

They had moved back to Cloud's bedside then. He had curled tightly into himself under the sheets, eyes squeezed shut so fiercely it seemed as if he were trying to fuse them together by willpower alone.

I wonder what he thinks is happening... what he's done...

There had been something, Sephiroth remembered. To say that Cloud had been persecuted during his time at the Academy was somewhat of an understatement, but there had been one incident that had particularly stood apart from the rest, and it had, he realised, occurred the night before the entrance trials for the army. Some kids had taken it into their heads to play Hojo, got their hands on an old needle and some -- Sephiroth wasn't really sure what it had been, but it had almost killed Cloud on its merits alone, never mind the beating they gave the boy afterwards. It had caused him to miss the trials, laid him out in the infirmary for weeks recovering, but it had also ironically been what had caused Zack to recommend that Cloud be automatically admitted into the army anyway... and to be scouted for SOLDIER. The mere fact that he had survived had demonstrated an incredible level of both physical and psychological endurance.

Cloud was terrified, that much was obvious.

"... and I have to say I strongly advised against it, so unfortunately you have... Cloud are you listening to one word I'm saying? Cloud? General Strife!"

"What?" Cloud's reaction was immediate and severe, he jerked upright and stared at the doctor as if slapped. The reaction sent a strange emotion curling through Sephiroth's heart; he had never known Cloud as a teenager, that the man had accompanied him to Nibelheim all those years ago was nothing but an abstract thought with no real emotion behind it. This was not Cloud, this beaten dog of a man, and Sephiroth had half a mind to track down every single brat from that accursed Academy and teach them true fear. Never mind that they would all be grown now, with children and wives and burdened with their own guilt... or perhaps pride.

("The General, you say? Lemme tell you a thing or two about the oh-so-mighty General...")

But there was also a kind of mischievous pleasure that lurked at the heart of Cloud's predicament. Because his life was not what it once was, or perhaps what he once dreamed it ever could be, and Sephiroth realised if all he did was spend the rest of his time with Cloud showing him what wonders his life now held, then he could indeed be very happy.

It was with this in mind that he purred, "Mm, I see you have attained his attention."

Cloud glanced at him then, then dropped his eyes almost immediately, as if ashamed to dare and touch Sephiroth's gaze with his own... and perhaps to hide the blush that crept steadily across his cheeks.

Yes... I do believe this could prove to be very amusing indeed...

The doctor sighed sharply. "Well then, as I was saying before you were listening, I believe you are suffering from a form of magically-induced amnesia."

"A-amnesia?" Cloud glanced up at that, albeit briefly, and the doctor -- much to Sephiroth's chagrin -- launched into a tirade over the General's irresponsibility for giving unauthorised, high-level Materia to junior officers. Sephiroth almost scoffed; it had been merely minutes since Liguel had been reminded him of exactly what Cloud could and could not remember.

Cloud honestly looked as if he were about to cry, aware he was being scolded but entirely unsure of why... and ignorant, of course, of the fact that he outranked the good doctor a thousandfold.

Cloud's misery left him disquieted, so he interjected; "As the doctor is taking so long to explain, we believe that whatever attacked you at Seal Site 47 has in some fashion damaged parts of your long-term memory." And here it was, the punch line. "In effect, erasing the last twenty nine years of your life. It's true your birthday was last week, but you turned forty five, not sixteen."

He wasn't sure what he had been expecting as a reaction to that, but it certainly wasn't what he received.

"I... see." Cloud's voice sounded oddly dead, and for a moment Sephiroth's mind flashed with worry.

He doesn't believe it...

The thought was confirmed somewhat by the intense study Cloud was giving to his hands. They didn't look like those of a forty five year old, and of course Cloud had no real reason to suspect that, like Sephiroth, he too no longer aged.

... it won't even enter your mind, that you made it to SOLDIER... let alone beyond...

The doctor gave her finishing speech, and Cloud didn't even react when she mentioned he would be sent home. He was still turning his hands over and over, as if disbelieving they could possibly be his. Or perhaps trying somehow to disprove the situation by believing that they were.

It wasn't until the doctor touched him lightly on the arm that he realised he had been staring, and that they should be leaving to allow Cloud some privacy while changing. That thought alone brought with it a hint of hysteria, that Cloud's privacy now explicitly excluded him.

Sephiroth followed the doctor out, but not before glancing behind at Cloud once more. He hadn't moved.

       

Black pants, black Shinra regulation boots, black zippered sleeveless high-necked knitted vest. SOLDIER clothes, Cloud knew, but not quite, because those were blue. The only SOLDIER he knew to wear black was the General himself.

He wasn't sure exactly what to make of that thought.

... she called me 'general'...

He dressed mechanically; the clothes were freshly laundered but from the looks of things well-worn. The boots, especially, were almost worn through, soft and pliant with the hint of mud caked in between the almost-gone treads. Everything fit perfectly.

They were waiting for him outside, and he couldn't quite bring himself to meet either of their eyes. The doctor -- he still didn't know her name, he realised -- opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted as a flushed boy in a Shinra army uniform jogged up.

"General. Sir," he snapped off a sharp salute. "I have a report from the --"

"It'll have to wait," the doctor snapped. "The General is still recovering. Whatever it is the world won't blow up if it's not looked at right now."

The soldier glanced between the three of them uncertainly, almost looked as if he were going to disagree, but sharp looks from the doctor and General Sephiroth caused him to reconsider. It really probably wasn't that important. At least he could say he tried.

"Ma'am, yes ma'am. I'll just leave it on the General's desk, then?"

"That will be fine." The soldier couldn't help repressing a small shudder at the voice. The Catastrophe hadn't occurred in his lifetime, but the reports of it still echoed in his mind. Shinra official line was that, whatever had happened, General Sephiroth was fine now, really... but the soldier couldn't help but feel that, however fine he might have been, he still was very much not human, and thus still very much unpredictable. And he knew he wasn't alone in his doubts...

"Is that all, soldier?"

"General, sir. Yessir!"

The raised eyebrow he received indicated that perhaps he should have left quite some time ago. He decided the idea definitely had its merits.

       

Interruptions. There were always going to be interruptions. Briefly, Sephiroth considered dragging Cloud on the next transport to Costa del Sol and burying them both deep inside Cloud's villa. The idea sounded promising, until he realised that the entire army itself would likely relocate to the tiny resort town just so it could continue to harass them both with meaningless reports and problems. If he had never been re-appointed General he would have died a very happy man, and he knew Cloud had similar feelings. In truth, Cloud was only here because of him, and he was only here because, as long as Shinra stood and the majority of the Planet still blamed him for something he no longer remembered nor could ever really imagine himself doing, he really couldn't go elsewhere.

He'd always told himself it wasn't love, whatever it was he had with Cloud. Had never really been about love so much as the desperate banishment of loneliness. There were worse things in life by far.

In his first month or so after being reinstated at Shinra he had hardly even seen his so-called 'babysitter'. So long as he kept quietly to himself, didn't venture too far beyond his room and the immediate surrounds -- library, courtyard, training rooms -- Shinra seemed almost content to forget that he existed. It was an awful, desperate month, and he had nearly sent himself mad thinking that perhaps this was going to be his entire future. Wandering eternally like a ghost between rooms, neither speaking nor being spoken to, until the corporation crumbled to dust around him.

He had been planning an escape -- it wouldn't be hard, he realised, even unarmed, so long as he could avoid Strife. Even if he couldn't, and died in the attempt, well... so what? He had been doing that when an aide had entered his rooms -- they never knocked, exercising every bit of power they had over him -- and dumped a folder on his desk, informing him in clipped tones that he would be needed and that the General would be around tomorrow at 0500 to pick him up. Sephiroth hadn't bothered to ask questions, for the most part ignoring the aide and instead concentrating on the folder. There were several documents, most of which were so censored that he could barely find a single full sentence in any of them. Nevertheless, he got the general idea; a spawn site for monsters had been discovered, and he and Strife were being sent to clean it up. He had thrown the files into the bin in disgust.

... the mighty Sephiroth, ruler of the clean-up crew...

The next morning Strife had, indeed, arrived at 0500 on the dot, carrying something very long and very familiar; Masamune. That had been a surprise of the highest order, as he had logically thought the blade destroyed. At the very least adorning a museum somewhere (he would later learn that, apparently, it had been, and that Cloud had extracted it under extreme duress from the Shinra executive). Strife himself had been carrying the sword Sephiroth recognised as once having belonged to Zack. He didn't comment on it.

They barely spoke as they left Shinra, and it wasn't until they were sitting alone in the hold of the transport that Strife had asked, "What did they bother to tell you about this mission?"

He had almost started at the sound of that voice. The tone was level, and -- most surprisingly of all -- reasonably amicable.

"Not a great deal, other than we will be clearing an area of monsters."

Strife had frowned at that. "I'll talk to someone about your briefings. I'm not going to do this for them if they won't tell you what's going on; it puts both of us at risk." That, too, had surprised him. Strife had sighed, frustrated, and continued. "I don't know how much you know about it, but after Meteor we started finding seams of polluted mako; no-one's sure how they form, but it's probably the reactors. Any biological matter that comes into contact with the stuff is mutated; turned into a monster. Shinra's been going around purging the areas and sealing the things off before the monsters -- or the mako -- manage to get anywhere important."

Sephiroth had understood, then, why they had allowed him to live. "And they need me to do it. The mako won't effect my metabolism like it would with regular living tissue." Cloud had nodded. "So your task is to make sure I come back?"

"No, I'm going in as well."

"But the mako will --"

"No, it won't. I'm... the same as you are."

       

"Um, s-sir?"

The voice had knocked him forcibly back into the present. He turned to look at Cloud, who was walking half a step behind, eyes darting around skittishly. It felt strange to be called 'sir' by this man. Strange and, he thought gloomily, very lonely.

"Mm?"

"W-where are we?" The question was rushed, as if Cloud had been slowly building the confidence to ask with each step and was determined now to ask it before his determination failed.

"Ah, of course. These are the new Shinra army headquarters." He caught Cloud's eyes dart towards one of the windows; a landscape of lights and unfamiliar buildings arced out beyond. "Midgar and the original Shinra compound were both destroyed; the land around was dead from over-extraction of mako, so it was decided there was no real use rebuilding. Everything was relocated; this is Neo-Midgar." He'd never liked the name; it sounded too much like the old President Shinra... and Hojo. The Urban Planning department, however, was not high on his list of influences.

"Oh."

They walked in silence for a little while longer. Cloud was fidgeting again, obviously wanting to ask something else but not daring. Cloud had never been reluctant to speak to him.

"Despite what you may heave heard, I do not actually possess the power to read minds..." It probably came out a little harsher than he intended, and he winced at himself. He desperately wished Cloud wasn't so frightened of him, now, and snapping at the blonde would hardly help matters.

"Sorry, sir..." Cloud murmured, and Sephiroth hated how tiny and ashamed that voice sounded. "It's just... areyouallright?"

He blinked in surprise, stopping dead so suddenly that Cloud almost ran right into him. He must have looked totally blank, because Cloud rushed out, "It's just the doctor said you were still recovering... and I thought... Um..." He bit his lower lip, blood rising to his cheeks.

Sephiroth almost laughed, then, but refrained lest he frighten Cloud more.

"No, Cloud. She meant the General; you."

Cloud's jaw almost hit the floor. He shook his head violently. "I-I'm not a general! I'm not even in the army! A-and I heard the doctor call y-you..."

"An unfortunate title and thankfully largely honorific," he couldn't help the small smile that formed. "You are the effective leader of the Shinra army, now, Cloud. But for the moment that's not important. We're almost home."

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

       

By the time they arrived at their destination, Cloud was hopelessly lost. They had walked down what had seemed like endless expanses of corridors, up at least two separate sets of stairs, ridden for several uncomfortable minutes in a lift with two terrified young recruits, and finally out along a wide, and quite beautiful, balcony garden before entering one final corridor and stopping outside a rather unassuming set of automatic doors.

Cloud's first thought was that this place must be massive; he suspected he could fit the whole of Nibelheim in here several times over, and the number of people who dwelt in the complex must have been in the thousands.

Sephiroth had swiped an access card and fiddled around with the keypad on the door for a few minutes.

"I've changed the door code for the time being. 1908; not terribly secure, but at least you won't have to worry about locking yourself out."

The fact that the General, of all people, knew his birthday seemed to somehow pale in comparison to the sheer number of other unbelievable things that had occurred since his waking.

"Thank you, sir," he murmured. Even if it was true and he did outrank the General, Cloud didn't think he could imagine himself ever referring to the man as anything other than 'sir'.

"Mm." A strange, musing tone, with an undercurrent of emotion Cloud couldn't pick up on, and perhaps didn't want to.

Another brief touch to the pad and the door swished open, Cloud tentatively following the General inside. Lights flicked on automatically as they entered, illuminating the space. It wasn't grand by any means -- General or not, this was still the army -- but it was comfortable. A sitting room with a small adjoining kitchenette, and two doors Cloud assumed lead to bedrooms and a bath. The room was in itself fairly spartan, but the few pieces of furniture that were there -- a lounge suite, coffee table, bookshelves, desk, and small dining table -- all looked expensive. It was relatively undecorated -- a brief splash of magazines across the table, a small collection of photos -- which Cloud did not find particularly surprising; he could hardly imagine the General as the sort of man who would decorate his living area with vases of flowers or small china ornaments from distant tourist destinations.

That was, of course, assuming that this was where the General lived. Cloud realised he didn't actually know whose home this was, and though he could hardly imagine himself living here he realised that he now had no real way to imagine anything about his life -- if, indeed, this was his life and still not some kind of weird test, or dream, or afterlife or any of the hundred other possibilities that felt far safer than the thought that he had somehow slept through twenty nine years of his existence.

Unsure of everything, including himself, he simply stood mutely in the doorway as the General disappeared into one of the adjoining rooms, soft shufflings and the sounds of draws and closets being opened and closed followed. Left to his own devices for the time being, Cloud found his eyes being drawn to a photo hanging on the wall an arm's reach away. This was a tourist photo, the words Greetings from the Gold Saucer! arced tastelessly, in gold, along the bottom right. It looked like it had been taken in some form of booth, the nine people -- or, more rightly, seven people and one... giant cat... and an oversized Moogle? Cloud wasn't sure exactly -- were squashed in on top of each other with varying degrees of excitement and put-upon distemper. He recognised himself in the centre, looking for all the world like he'd rather be absolutely anywhere but there, held firmly in place by two women on either side, arms linked with his in a kind of sadistic determination. Like the rest of the photo-people, the woman on the right was unknown to him, but the one on the left...

"Tifa?"

"Ah, yes. Photos."

He jerked around to see the General standing barely a foot behind him; he hadn't heard the man approach, and that in itself left Cloud feeling for all the world like a naughty child, caught red-handed raiding the cookie jar. The General had changed, removing his usual leather and steel clothing for slacks and a vest similar to Cloud's own. He closed the small distance between them, and leant in to examine the photo. He was very close, and Cloud could all but feel the heat radiating off him. He bit back a blush.

"Yourself and Ms. Lockheart I believe you recognise. The gruff-looking man with the gun-arm is Barret Wallace, an anti-Shinra rebel. The pair of eyes and hair belong to a Vincent Valentine, ex-Turk and lab experiment. The young lady holding him in place is Yuffie Kisaragi, Lady of Wutai. The man with the ridiculous grin is Cid Highwind, one of Shinra's most competent pilots. The large red cat is Nanaki, last guardian of Cosmo Canyon, and the pink mechanical monstrosity I believe you called Cait Sith, but is in fact the now President Reeve." The pause was noticeable, and when the General continued his voice was tinged with a kind of reluctance. "And finally young lady holding onto your arm is Aeris Gainsborough, the... a flower-girl from the Midgar slums."

He took a step back, and Cloud found he was able to breathe again.

"But... who are they?"

"Your friends. The photo was taken twenty four years ago, so everyone is much older now of course, but you still speak fairly regularly."

"Oh." He studied the photo. It was strange, he thought, everyone looked happy enough, like people on vacation with friends should, and even the gruffness in several of the expressions was tempered with good humour. But there was something else, as well; a kind of lined tension that hovered just beneath the surface, as if time was running short, and each person present knew that this photo may have been their last. The second thing he realised, was that the photo-Cloud was wearing what was most definitely a rank-and-file SOLDIER uniform; adorned with a kind piecemeal armour that was definitely not regulation, but also somehow familiar.

A rebel, an ex-Turk, a ninja, a pilot, a giant cat, a mechanical Moogle, a flower-girl, Tifa and himself... he realised he couldn't even begin to piece together how they had all met, or why they had preserved such a moment with a photo from the Gold Saucer.

He moved to the next photo, this one he recognised as being from Nibelheim, taken near the old Shinra mansion. Tifa was in this photo as well; younger than the previous image, and thus more akin to how Cloud remembered her. She was flanked on one side by the imposing monochrome figure of the General, and on the other by a SOLDIER Cloud didn't recognise bar the fact that, yes, his armour was identical to that which the Gold Saucer-Cloud was wearing.

"Do I... know this man?" he blurted out before he could stop himself. He turned to where the General was reclining on the couch, flicking idly through a magazine.

"Zack?" The burning teal eyes turned up to study him, and Cloud thought he saw the same kind of reluctance there that had entered the General's voice earlier when describing the girl... Aeris.

As soon as he heard the name, Cloud remembered the broad, kind face of the SOLDIER who had explained the recruitments to them. It had been only weeks ago... except, of course, for the quarter of a century gap he apparently couldn't remember.

"He came to visit us. To tell us about SOLDIER..."

"Did he?" A small, sad smile crept in. "That sounds very much like the sort of punishment he enjoyed."

"He said he knew you...?"

A small snort of laughter. "Zack and I were... friends, I suppose. He was that sort of man; very difficult not to like."

The use of past tense did not go unnoticed to Cloud, but he didn't press it. Being a SOLDIER was a risky job, after all.

"This photo is from Nibelheim."

"Yes. You were almost seventeen then, I believe, though I didn't know you then. Zack did; he was the one who brought you along, despite the fact that you had barely finished basic training by that stage. I suppose he thought it would be... exciting for you to visit your hometown accompanied by myself..." the narrative trailed off, and Cloud glanced back to see that the General had gone almost totally still, studying his hands intently -- now, without gloves, Cloud noticed he had the number '1' tattooed on the back of his left -- his face an impassively unreadable mask. It occurred to Cloud that in the short time he had spent in the General's presence the man had never seemed so shuttered off. Dread curled in the pit of Cloud's stomach; something had happened, he realised. Something terrible.

Suddenly, the General stood up; the movement was startling in its jerky execution. Usually the General moved with such fluidity, and Cloud swallowed hard as a wave of guilt washed through him, that he could possibly dare to upset such a man -- that he even could -- was unthinkable. But when the General's eyes turned to his, they had regained their usual sheen.

"Come," he said, vanishing into one of the yet-unexplored other rooms. Cloud obeyed with automatic precision, and found himself led into a bedroom.

There was only one, large, bed, but he had little time to think on this, as something else caught his eye.

Two swords rested in specially-made rack against the back wall of the room; one he instantly recognised as the General's own legendary Masamune, and he found himself drawn to the blade in awe. It was, with no understatement, several inches taller than he was, the blade practically glowing with preternatural sharpness, hilt and base littered with bright orbs of terribly powerful Materia. It was without a doubt the most beautiful thing Cloud had ever seen, and to have it so close, to be almost able to feel the smooth perfection of the thing itself...

A low chuckle slapped him back to his senses, and he withdrew his hand a mere hairsbreadth away from the metal, guiltily ashamed that he could possibly think to sully such perfection with his touch. "I... I'm so sorry I..."

The General waved his apology off. "It has been handled by far, far worse than you." Cloud wondered about that; no-one dared touch this blade bar the General himself, just as no-one dared touch its wielder.

He moved his eyes to the other weapon; this one not nearly as long as Masamune, though still almost as tall as Cloud himself, and what the blade lost in length it made up for in width. While Masamune was sleek and elegant, this blade was heavy and crude; the metal was worn and notched, the blade itself sloped at the end like a guillotine. A row of holes ran down its length, and the Materia set within looked no less powerful than those from the General's own weapon. Cloud noticed three of the holes were empty, and he knew this was important somehow, but couldn't quite remember why...

"It used to belong to Zack." The General was speaking again, his voice coming from much closer than before; he moved so silently. "But now it's yours."

"M-mine?" Cloud looked from the sword to the General then back again. "I... I can't even lift this!"

"How do you know?" It was a challenge, Cloud realised.

"I..."

"You're no longer sixteen... Cloud." The voice was so close, the whisper so dusky, that Cloud couldn't suppress the shudder than ran through him. And the way his name sounded coming from those lips... as intimate as a lover's caress.

And as irresistible.

Before he could stop himself, his had was curling around the hilt; oddly enough, it felt right somehow, the braided leather worn down in exactly the right locations. Unconsciously he braced himself against the sword's weight, and then pulled...

       

It was the kind of thing that Sephiroth realised would embarrass him for the rest of his life, though it had seemed like such a good idea at the time. A way to draw Cloud away from photos of dead friends and a painful minefield of unremembered memories Sephiroth would rather not have walked through again. The sword was something real, something tangible, that could show Cloud how much he had changed, how he was no longer a scrawny, cowed boy but a strong and powerful man. Sephiroth knew it was for his own sake just as much as it was for Cloud's; to show him they were equals, that no longer was Sephiroth someone untouchable and feared and different.

("I'm... the same as you are.")

The words still lay close to his heart heart, even so long after they had first ripped the bottom out from his world. All his life he had assumed he was a unique experiment; the other SOLDIERs came close, but despite everything they were still mostly human. Sephiroth had never felt human, and the notion that he wasn't had been drummed incessantly into him ever since he could remember; his mind was filled with images of Hojo telling a small boy, with a sadistic sort of pleasure, what a wondrous creation he was, a pinnacle of science and engineering, free of all the frailties that made humans human. Bitterly, he often thought his appearance especially, had been manufactured so as to prevent him from ever passing as an ordinary man. Sharp, ageless features, impossibly silver-white hair, and the cat-slit eyes that few people could comfortably meet; brighter and more inhuman even than ordinary SOLDIER eyes. He had never played with other children; had never really been a child. Never had true parents. Zack had really been the first to attempt to spend time with him outside of the formalities of the army, but Zack had been too little too late, and had no power to compete with Jenova's siren song of family.

After the Catastrophe things had been worse. At least in the lonely days before he commanded respect as well as fear; he was idolised, he knew, and while that hadn't helped so much it had at least been something. Afterwards, however, he had resigned himself to an eternity -- he wasn't sure exactly how long he would live, but nothing yet seemed to have ended him, and by his reckoning he had been creeping up into his forties with none of the deterioration normally associated with human age -- an eternity of hate and fear and the lonely knowledge that he was the last and only one of his kind... whatever kind that happened to be.

And then Cloud had uttered six simple words that had destroyed everything.

Of course, they weren't entirely true; after all, Cloud had most certainly been human. Birthed to and by human parents, raised as a human child... It had only been later that his body had been rent and twisted into something other. In a way, Sephiroth mused, that fact alone made Cloud feel the loss of his humanity far more deeply than he ever could. But despite their differences, Cloud too knew what it was like to be idolised and feared but always on the outside looking in, and oh so terribly lonely.

Cloud had never treated him with hostility, and that had surprised him; that the man whose life he had all but destroyed simply by being alive, never mind any active participation, seemed to bear him no ill-will. The nature of their work meant they were often alone in the wilderness for days, engaged in constant battles with whatever mako-spawn the latest site felt like vomiting up. Sephiroth learnt to quickly appreciate just how much Cloud trusted him; of course, had Cloud not, had he instead been constantly suspicious, things would have most certainly been far more difficult than they had been. As it was, they had quickly developed a kind of rhythm together, and while they rarely spoke, Sephiroth found less loneliness in that silence than all the chatter and glory of his days back as the General. He lived from mission to mission, dreading the resentful stillness that awaited him back at Shinra.

A few months passed before Sephiroth ever heard a knock at his door. He opened it to find Cloud, familiar manila folder in hand. Cloud had briefed him on missions from then on; a welcome relief from the days spent waiting on entrance of the hostile aide they had sent previously. He began running into Cloud in other places as well, where previously he had never seen the man. Always ostensibly 'coincidentally', but Sephiroth knew Cloud had the run of the Shinra building -- run of the whole world, really -- and there were far grander places to be found than the tiny, dingy wing they had assigned to him. Even still, he had never commented, lest Cloud stop coming.

He didn't know exactly when his desire for Cloud first ventured into anything deeper than a simple ache for companionship. The man was undeniably beautiful, preserved forever at the crux of youth and full of none of the hard inhuman sharpness that Sephiroth knew graced his own features. To his horror, he would find himself contemplating how silky and smooth Cloud's skin would be, how soft his hair... and how delightful his moans. While it was not entirely true that Sephiroth never took lovers, those whose beds he had shared back as the General had been infrequent and male -- Sephiroth trusted neither his own body nor Hojo's machinations enough to ever risk to lie with a woman -- and had always left him with such a sense of hollowness that he had, in the end, simply given up. He had thought vainly that perhaps being trained to be void of human emotion was, for once, beneficial and had simply learned to live without the comfort of another body alongside his. To find that desire suddenly rekindled a thousandfold stronger now of all times, with Cloud of all people was distressing to say the least.

He had passed months in idle-minded kind of lust better reserved for a teenager than a man of his standing. It had all come to a head quite rashly while scouting the mountainous forests of Junon, a brief rest between battles had found him sitting next to Cloud on a fallen log -- a rather small fallen log at that -- watching slightly too intently the way the man's not-quite uniform accentuated the teasing curve of his waist, and the way his lips parted to release soft panting breaths, a result from their previous fight. Cloud had turned then, embarrassingly, catching Sephiroth deep in the middle of his moon-eyed gazing.

"What?" The question was snapped, irritated, but it also released something inside him.

Oh... what the hell...

They were so close he barely had to move before he was finally kissing Cloud Strife. There were a multitude of ways the encounter could have gone, and now that Sephiroth was actually caught in the middle of it, he had been forced to admit that he had considered this moment. Quite extensively, and it usually ended up with him receiving a face full of fist... or a gut full of sword. It generally did not, he knew, involve Cloud moaning softly and melting so thoroughly in his arms that he found himself supporting almost all of the other man's weight. Cloud's kisses were clumsy and absolutely divine, and had deepened almost instantly to an intensity that had left Sephiroth's mind reeling. When they pulled away, a small strand of saliva hung momentarily between them; Cloud's cheeks were flushed, his lips reddened and parted, eyes half-lidded and rolled deliciously upwards. Eventually they had focused gently to lock with Sephiroth's own, flooring him with the depth of emotion that swirled within...

... which had been shuttered off so quickly behind hard, angry walls that he had doubted that it had ever existed.

"Cloud, I --"

"Shut up. Behind you."

       

The sword was heavy to the point that anyone without the benefit of mako-augmented strength would barely be able to drag it along the ground, let alone use it. That much was obvious just from looking, and Cloud had attempted to accommodate as best he could. Had Sephiroth been paying less attention to the seductive way the tight, Shinra regulation black vest and baggy, Shinra regulation black slacks accentuated Cloud's hips and ass, and more attention to Cloud himself, he may have been able to warn the blond that he didn't need to use nearly as much force to life the blade as he thought he did. Except he wasn't, and when Cloud pulled the sword from its rack, expecting something almost impossibly heavy and instead receiving something he had been swinging around effortlessly for over twenty years, physics kicked in.

Cloud's startled cry broke Sephiroth guiltily from his contemplation, and he looked up just in time to see the blond crash backwards into him, but not in time to brace himself against the impact.

He ended up on the ground with tailbone-jarring finality, a lap full of Cloud who in turn had a lap full of sword -- and thank whomever happened to have been listening that the sword had landed flat, leaving Cloud mercifully intact.

A stunned silence passed before the utter stupidity of the situation came crashing home, and Sephiroth began to laugh.

"Come into my bedroom and play with my sword..." Very smooth you. Utter. Moron...

He calmed down when he noticed Cloud had neither joined in, nor hurriedly attempted to scamper away with muttered apologies, or in fact done very much of anything. He was instead sitting very, very still, studying the sword with a frightening intensity. Sephiroth noticed Cloud's hand had moved to his cheek, and that he was not actually looking at the sword itself so much as his own reflection in the polished metal.

Of course, he hasn't seen himself yet...

Photos of Cloud at age sixteen were hard to come by, but Sephiroth had once seen the one attached to Cloud's Shinra armed forces identification file. At the time he had been struck by, well, how little Cloud had changed since then. The blond had put on a fair bit of muscle since, and his hair was shorter but all in all Cloud now and Cloud then were almost interchangeable. Except for one small detail, one that effectively scored a harsh line between Cloud's childhood and everything that had come after.

At sixteen, Cloud's eyes had been wide and innocent, almost painfully nervous of himself and his situation but above all, utterly human. At forty five they were harsh and shuttered from seeing, from feeling, far too much for one lifetime, and blazed with a mako-fuelled fire that was matched only by Sephiroth's own in its intensity.

Cloud's hand hovered in front of his eyes, which crossed in a way Sephiroth would have, at any other time, found irresistibly adorable, as they tried to focus on his fingertips, and the harsh blue glow they bathed in.

"Cloud?"

"I... mako eyes... How is this possible?" The voice was so quiet Sephiroth could almost believe Cloud hadn't meant to say it out loud. "I could never..." He swallowed, continued in a voice that was slightly louder, but only slightly. "Everyone used to dream of being picked for SOLDIER, but I never really thought... that I..."

It felt like he was trying to digest lead, like he wanted to be anywhere other than here, but Cloud was Cloud and deserved... everything, really. How could he, of all people, deny the man answers...

"Technically you weren't." Sephiroth's voice was quiet too, his hands ached to embrace the figure that still hadn't moved from where they had fallen. He stilled them forcibly. "It was... you were never a SOLDIER..."

"Then, what...?"

"A... a replacement. An improvement. On me."

Cloud did stand then, stiffly, and swung the sword experimentally a few times. It was clumsy, nothing like Cloud's usual grace when handling the weapon, but it was still effortless.

"I know that it's heavy... but it feels like it weighs nothing at all..."

Sephiroth rose himself, hesitated a short distance away from the other man and tried desperately to think of something to say.

"You said I was your... replacement?"

"Yes."

"I'm stronger, then? Faster? Better?" There was no conceit in his voice. No anything, really.

"I..." Sephiroth paused, honestly unsure of how to answer. The truth was he didn't know who was 'better'; he and Cloud sparred regularly but it was for exercise, to keep in form and release pent-up tension and anger. It occurred to him that, on some level at least, it was likely that they had deliberately avoided finding out the answer to just such a question. He knew their power relative to each other was of some debate amongst the rest of Shinra, but whenever the subject came up Cloud would make himself frostily clear that he and Sephiroth were equals in all things, and that people had no business asking such questions anyway. Eventually people learnt to not bring it up... at least not to their esteemed Generals' faces.

Cloud had defeated him at the height of the Catastrophe, however; that much was irrefutable. He remembered nothing of the time itself, but from all accounts had possessed powers far beyond those he currently knew, and Cloud had overcome them all using nothing but what he was.

"Yes. I believe you are," he said eventually.

"Oh."

The sword was clicked back into its place, Cloud running his fingers along the blade almost lovingly. "I wish I remembered how to use it..."

"It will undoubtedly return to you in time. Meanwhile I will teach you, if you wish."

A smile, at that, and when Cloud next risked a glance his eyes shone with a boyish excitement that sent an ache through Sephiroth's heart and warmth to his groin. He chided himself mentally for his thoughts; whatever graces his Cloud allowed him, this one seemed almost totally devoid of any kind of sexuality, especially when dealing with the man he still thought of as the powerful, removed General. The blond didn't even seem phased that the apartment appeared to have only one bed, located in one room in which both their things were kept. Sephiroth felt the urge to groan,

(... could he possibly be that dense?)

and repressed another wayward thought; Cloud had welcomed him to his bed before with far more reason to hate him that now. He longed to feel that smooth, lithe body move under his. Longed for the small, breathless gasps he knew Cloud would emit at the height of pleasure. The possessive lust was a familiar feeling, flooding his mind regularly after any event that took Cloud from him for any real length of time. Previously it had always been welcome, Cloud succumbing with a matching passion, but for him to be denied it now, after coming so close to losing everything...

"S-sir?"

He was staring, he realised, Cloud shrinking back uncertainly from the growing fire in his eyes.

With the practiced care of a lifetime Sephiroth had sealed down his surging emotions; a painful necessity he had not had to perform around this man of all men for so long.

"It is growing late --" an utter lie, it was nothing of the sort "-- and the doctor has only released you on the condition you rest. The bathroom is next door. Please feel free to ask if you require anything further."

He bowed slightly and started to leave.

"S-sir?"

"Mm?" He stilled in the entryway, hand resting on the door jam.

"Where... where will you sleep?"

Ah, so perhaps he finally notices...

"I... do not need rest at this time."

"Oh."

"Good night, Cloud."

"'Nite..."

He closed the door behind him as he left, washed in a mix of a thousand different emotions, and prepared to wait out the night.

yet more boring author crap...
Whee. There's 10,000 words of utter shyte done. I just love the utterly awful dictation of past events throughout this chapter, don't you? Anyway, next chapter is Plot, I promise. I want my game back...

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