Archive of Our Own ^beta

The pull was strong, and it came between dimensions. If Cloud had been able to, he would have gasped in helpless shock. This had never happened before. He had no control, no idea of what or why. The mysterious force pulled, and he came along with it.

He landed hard, feeling weak in a strange way. Disoriented. Almost… blurred. Hands grabbed his arm. Something heavy and metal was clamped around his wrist. The moment it snapped shut, reality slammed into him with the force of a physical punch.

He gasped. Everything was suddenly crystal clear. He was on his knees in the WRO headquarters. He was real and alive. His arm burned like it was still trapped between dimensions, but that didn’t matter because when he looked up, Tifa⁠—his Tifa⁠—was kneeling in front of him, hands on his wrist.

Incomparable joy coursed through his veins, lighting up every single nerve, and he felt like he’d come alive after being dead for a long time. He lurched forward, wrapping his arms around her, gripping his own wrist so he wouldn’t squeeze too tight. “Tifa!”

“Cloud!” She squeezed him back. The pain in his arm intensified, but he ignored it.

“Readings are holding steady,” said Reeve, and Cloud laughed as he raised his head to look around.

“Reeve! Shelke! Shalua!”

“We got you home and we’re going to keep you home, Cloud,” said Reeve, eyes on a computer monitor. “Just give me a minute.”

The pain worsened, bad enough that he could feel his breath start to catch. It felt like something was trying to drag him away while he was pinned to the floor, and he was being slowly torn apart.

“I’m getting unstable readings from his body,” said Shelke as she looked at a monitor of her own. “Something isn’t synchronizing right.”

Cloud pulled back so he could hold Tifa by the shoulders. He was shaking, but it didn’t matter. He could ignore it. “Tifa, wh-where—where’re the kids?”

Her beautiful wine-red eyes went wide. “You’re in pain. Reeve, it’s not working, we have to take it off!”

“No!” He snatched his arm back when she reached for the band she’d clamped around his wrist. Even for him the pain was unbearable, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if he was gasping and shaking and choking down a scream. “I-I can handle it. Please—please, Zack? Where is he? H-how old now? I—I—“

His mouth tasted like hot metal. Tifa reached out and grabbed his face, not harsh but urgent. “He’s four and he loves you so much and we have to take the anchor off. It’s just the first prototype, teddy bear, we’ll make a better one.”

“No, please—“ His vision was starting to go black. ”I want—“ Something wet dripped down his chin. He tried to hold the metal band over his wrist, but his hands were spasming. Everything was spasming. He was only a few seconds away from a full seizure, and then maybe worse.

“I love you! It’s not over, you just have to trust me.”

He heard the latches coming undone. Speaking felt almost impossible. “The—kids—love—tell—“

“I promise. We’ll get you back.”

The band came off, and he… well, it wasn’t really possible to black out between dimensions. Blacking out was a physical response, and he wasn’t technically physical there. But something happened. It felt like he became fragmented, his shattered pieces trapped in a zero-gravity orbit, hurtling through nothingness at the speed of light. The sensation went far beyond pain and into something that defied words altogether.

It was like, for a moment, he simply wasn’t allowed to exist at all.

Then everything snapped back together, jagged edges forced into realignment, and he crashed down into the dirt in a painfully literal sense.

Cloud’s landings were rarely gentle, but this one was in a category all its own. The part of his mind that simply never turned off anymore cataloged it and did what it could to shield him with his materia. He hit the ground at speeds that would have put Fenrir to shame and tumbled, then hit something else. Whatever it was slowed him down, at least, then crashed to the ground behind him with a tremendous noise. He came to a stop buried almost completely in a snowbank.

I have to live, part of him thought, and that part of him activated his materia and started repairing the life-threatening damage.

The rest of him was in shock. The sheer, unbridled, electrifying joy he’d felt upon seeing his friends and family inverted itself into pitch-black despair. For a moment, he felt his mind threaten to crack under the weight of all the grief and terror he’d been ignoring for the past three years. It was too much. He’d been so close, only for the curse to tear him away again⁠—

…ah.

Their baby was four. 

He’d missed three years of their baby’s life.

He really had been stuck in this endless nightmare for three years.

The cold of the snow seeped into his skin, numbing everything. If he didn’t get his head free, he was going to suffocate. He wasn’t entirely sure he could move yet, though. Something in his spine felt very, very broken.

I have to live, part of him repeated, though it was a smaller part now as more and more of him went into shock. I have to live so I can see my kids again. So Tifa can find me again.

Cloud heard noises muffled by the snow⁠—digging, he thought. Someone was digging and shouting. Maybe he wouldn’t suffocate. Whoever saw him crash-land was probably not going to be happy. That was the nature of his curse, to land him in the worst possible position every single time.

I have to live.

The dangerous black edge to his vision receded as the snow was pulled away from his face. His body was stuck taking shallow, gasping breaths, but that was enough. The fingers by his face were armored in gold, and they stopped abruptly. “...Cloud?” asked Vincent.

He didn’t seem hostile, which probably meant Cloud didn’t have to think about getting up and running yet. That was good. His spine wasn’t back in one piece. Actually, he wasn’t sure what was going on with his legs either. It would be very helpful if this Vincent was a friend. Then Cloud could safely shatter into a hundred million pieces for a minute before he had to pull himself together again.

“Vin⁠—” His lungs spasmed. He blacked out.

He blacked back in.

“—get Reeve. We need more than one person to move him.”

“Yes Mr. Vincent.” Someone went running across the snowy ground.

Reeve? “Please,” Cloud rasped, disoriented. “Please. I can take it. Try again.”

“Cloud?” Vincent’s face was close. 

“Please. I can take it.” His vision blurred badly. “Reeve, please, try again.”

“Try what?”

It hurt. He was supposed to keep holding on, but it hurt to be so close and have it ripped away. “I want to go home. Reeve, please⁠—” His lungs spasmed again, protesting at the extreme damage they’d taken. He lost track of time.

“—safe to move him?”

“We don’t have a choice. I’ve done what I can with the materia he had on him. Move him on three.”

He was moved, and it hurt like a bitch, and normally he would have started wise-cracking and figuring out how to heal himself up, but he wasn’t sure he could. The careful, unhinged mask he wore to cope with everything felt like it was missing. He was scared of what was left underneath.

“Please.” The sky above was gray, promising snow. Branches passed in a procession as they carried him. He could see the underside of Reeve’s jaw, then his eyes when he looked down. Nothing about his face seemed right. “Please. I just want⁠—home. Please, the kids⁠—try again.”

“Cloud… I don’t know how you got here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The kids.” Rational thought was slipping past him entirely and taking his strength with it. “I want to… hold… my kids…” His eyelids dragged down.

“Just hold on, Cloud. We’ll get you help.”

Reeve had promised. Tifa had promised. His eyes closed. His mind slowly sank into dark, sludgy unconsciousness, but not before he heard them talking a little more.

“Mr. Vincent, do you and Mr. Reeve know him?”

“Yes, Sephiroth, we do. We just don’t know how he got here.”

The last thing Vincent was expecting just when everyone had finally, truly relaxed a few days into returning to Nibelheim was to hear a tremendous crash just outside the house, like a meteor striking the ground. It only took a split second to make sure everyone inside was alright⁠—Reeve startled but covered by his bodyguards, Sephiroth equally startled but alert⁠—before he dashed out of the house, ready to meet the threat head-on. Sephiroth followed quickly, but that was alright. He could handle himself while Vincent assessed the situation.

The trail of destruction was easy to follow. Something had hit the ground hard and dug up the earth, striking and felling a tree whose branches still hadn’t stopped shaking from the impact. The trail ended in a steep snow bank. Vincent spotted very human black boots poking out of the snow, and a streak of red blood. A person was buried under there.

The boots looked familiar.

“Sephiroth! Over here, we have to dig him out!” If the man was still alive, he would suffocate under the snow.

“Yes, sir!”

He estimated where the head should be and started digging, Sephiroth at his side. There was light glimmering under the snow—healing magic. Blood stained the ice they dug through as they got closer and closer. He’d misjudged slightly, as the first thing he saw was a black and navy jacket. That at least told him it was indeed a grown man. They shifted, quickly digging his head free, and when Vincent finally saw blond hair caked with snow and glazed-over blue eyes… he stuttered to a stop.

“…Cloud?”

It wasn’t possible. And yet, Cloud’s pale lips moved as he whispered in response. “Vin—“ He choked, spasming as blood bubbled out from his mouth. His ribs were broken, tearing into his lungs. There would inevitably be more damage hidden from view.

“He needs a stretcher⁠—a blanket or a tarp will do. Go get Reeve. We need more than one person to move him.” No matter what the damage was, it would only be made worse by leaving him in the snow.

Sephiroth nodded sharply. “Yes Mr. Vincent,” he said, and ran off at full speed.

Cloud’s choked coughing stopped, leaving him gasping in shallow breaths. Somehow, even through all of that, he was still using his Cure materia to heal himself. It had to be bad if he was ignoring his lungs to fix something else first. Vincent kept digging, freeing the rest of his body too.

“Please,” Cloud rasped, quiet and confused. “Please, I can take it.”

Take it? Vincent paused his work and leaned in close. Cloud’s eyes didn’t fully focus on him. “Cloud?” he asked, hoping for clarity.

He got none. If anything, his old friend’s focus only wavered more as his eyes welled up with tears. “Please. I can take it. Reeve, please, try again.”

“Try what?”

“I want to go home. Reeve, please⁠—” He choked again, eyes rolling back in his head, and it was clear there was no point in asking questions right now. Vincent redoubled his efforts to dig him free as he spasmed and shook.

Reeve arrived just as Cloud subsided again, panting and groaning quietly. He came with a tarp and Sephiroth, both running as fast as their enhancements allowed. Reeve’s eyes went huge at the sight of the blond lying in the red-stained cradle of the snow.

“That can’t be⁠…”

“It is.” The glow of healing magic had stopped as Cloud wavered in and out of consciousness. Vincent managed to find the materia in his bracer and take it, casting bare hand and brute force until he thought it might be safe to move him. Cloud’s breathing had at least become less strained, and Vincent put the materia back in case he woke up again. This Cloud seemed unnervingly adept with it, even when incoherent and unaware. “Help me get him onto the tarp. We’ll just have to keep it as taut as possible.”

Reeve laid out the tarp right next to him, folded into a long strip, but he looked hesitant. “Are you sure it’s safe to move him?” he asked, eyes on the red stain of blood and the many unnatural angles in his limbs.

Vincent shook his head and moved to get his hands under Cloud’s shoulders. Reeve gingerly looked for purchase around his hips. “We don’t have a choice. I’ve done what I can with the materia he had on him. Move him on three.”

Cloud didn’t make any noises to indicate it hurt as they moved him, though his eyes were open and glazed-over with shock. The only sounds from his lips were shallow, ragged gasps. They switched, with Reeve taking the end of the tarp by his head and Vincent at his feet. Very, very carefully, they pulled the tarp taut between them and lifted Cloud. He still made no noise as he stared up at the sky.

Sephiroth stayed beside them, watching alertly for any threats they wouldn’t be able to fend off. His eyes darted to Cloud every few seconds.

“...please,” Cloud rasped when they were maybe a third of the way back. It almost seemed like he was actually looking at Reeve, though he sounded disjointed and confused. “Please. I just want⁠—home. Please, the kids⁠—try again.”

Reeve looked down at him, terrified for their friend. “Cloud… I don’t know how you got here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The kids,” he whispered, and Vincent thought of Denzel and Marlene. His chest twinged. “I want to… hold… my kids…” Cloud’s voice grew weak as his eyes started to shut.

Reeve took a breath that shuddered, but his grip and his steps remained perfectly controlled. “Just hold on, Cloud. We’ll get you help.”

Sephiroth finally asked the obvious question as Cloud’s eyes shut and he fell unconscious. “Mr. Vincent, do you and Mr. Reeve know him?” he asked, barely above a whisper himself.

“Yes, Sephiroth,” said Vincent. “We do. We just don’t know how he got here.” It had to be Cloud. Who else would know of the children? But then, why did he look like this? Why was his hair long? Why was he so thin and worn? The Cloud of this time was still in Claudia’s womb. The Cloud of their time looked nothing like this. Not when they’d left.

Todd and Becca were standing at the door when they reached the house. Both looked shocked at the sight of Cloud’s bloody, broken form.

“The hell?” Becca said. “Did a behemoth get him or something?”

“We don’t know,” said Vincent.

“It looked like he was thrown,” said Reeve. They got inside and carefully put him on the table.

Thrown? said Todd, stepping in to help them get Cloud’s armor off. The fabric was strange, too strong to be cut easily. They had no choice but to get his clothing off the traditional way. From where?

“...a plane, maybe,” said Reeve, though he sounded doubtful. It had looked more like Cloud had been launched from a cannon than fallen from the sky.

“He should be dead,” said Becca, looking him over. “How is he not dead?”

Vincent took Cloud’s mastered cure again and didn’t answer. He started with the chest. Some of his bones would definitely need to be re-set after healing crooked. “Go get Mrs. Strife,” he said to Todd and Becca. “Mr. Strife too, if you can, and as many potions as Rells has. Sephiroth, can you show them the way?”

“Yes,” said Sephiroth, staring at Cloud. Vincent wanted him out of the house while the awful work of re-breaking bones had to be done.

“Good. Go.” When the younger Turks hesitated, he barked “Quickly!” in a voice that wouldn’t be disobeyed.

Becca glared, but they went. Hopefully they wouldn’t encounter Ghost on their way, or Vincent would have another, far more difficult headache to contend with before he and Reeve had a chance to talk thoroughly and candidly.

Because the two younger Turks would snitch. Immediately. And without remorse. Todd was probably snitching right now.

When Vincent was sure everyone else was out of listening range, Reeve gave him a frantic look. “This isn’t possible,” he hissed.

“I know.” He started quickly breaking and re-setting Cloud’s bones. Anything small would just have to wait for Mrs. Strife.

“We both came back to our own bodies.”

“Yes.”

“Cloud barely even looks like Cloud!”

“He looks like Cloud if Cloud was half-starved and stuck in the mountains for years.”

Reeve went quiet for a moment. He didn’t yet have a deft enough hand with his enhancements to feel comfortable with helping Vincent directly, but he could do other things. He focused on those tasks as he thought.

“…what should we do?” he finally said.

“Take care of him until he wakes up,” said Vincent.

“You realize he might not be coherent enough to keep a secret and we’re surrounded by people who won’t hesitate to tell on us, yes?”

Vincent sighed through his nose. “Yes.”

“Then… how honest should we be, exactly?”

Vincent was silent for a moment. “We have already let slip that ‘Cloud’ was the leader of the group both of us were part of.”

Reeve grimaced. “And what if Mrs. Strife recognizes her own features in his face?”

Vincent had only ever been able to compare the faces of mother and son within his mind. Now, though, as he looked at Cloud’s bruised and battered face, he grimaced too. They did look remarkably, startlingly, alike. “How would we know what their relation is? Cloud can explain when he wakes. Perhaps even he doesn’t know.”

Reeve’s exasperated look bored into the side of his head. He refused to acknowledge it as he broke and reset two of Cloud’s ribs.

“He was trying to ask you for something,” Vincent deflected.

“To ‘try again,’” Reeve said, allowing the deflection. “But I don’t… I don’t remember anything we were trying before…”

“The children were fine. Will be fine.” They were a long way off from being born, but… he knew that much. Denzel and Marlene were not in danger.

Cloud shifted in his unconsciousness, not quite rising to the level where Vincent believed he was on the verge of waking, and groaned quietly. Reeve put a hand on his clammy forehead for just a moment.

“What if,” he said slowly, “this… isn’t Cloud?”

Vincent frowned.

“What if it isn’t our Cloud?” Reeve clarified. “Theoretically… multiverse theory posits an infinite sequence of parallel universes. What if he came from one of those?”

Cloud was here, fully grown, wearing clothes they’d never seen before and looking ground down in a way even the Stigma hadn’t been able to accomplish. Cloud was also over there in Claudia’s womb. Perhaps…

“Perhaps,” said Vincent, finishing up his gruesome work just as an approaching group entered the range of his hearing, “we don’t have to worry about our own cover story after all.”

Waking up hurt. It hurt a lot more than usual, actually, which was quite an accomplishment.

Cloud’s breath stuttered in his raw throat. There were multiple hands on him, skating over patches of skin that ranged from completely numb to painfully sensitive. He tried to open his eyes, lashes fluttering, but didn’t succeed. The muscle around his left eye spasmed uncomfortably. He took another stuttering breath and noted that his Cure was gone.

It seemed to have been put to good use, though. So much magic had been pumped into him that he could taste the caster’s mana in the back of his throat. Vincent? He thought he remembered seeing Vincent after he crash-landed.

After⁠ he’d—

“Can you hear me?”

The next breath he took stuttered from an excruciating sob. That was Reeve. Tifa had been right th⁠—

No, he⁠—no. Not now. Not yet. He couldn’t bear it yet. He only had to make it a little longer.

The corners of his mouth spasmed as he tried to smile, pulling desperately on the memory of a man he’d never been. Smiling and joking were safe. If he had enough energy to smile, then things weren’t so bad—not as bad as they’d been in the beginning, not as bad as they’d been after he’d run out of energy for white-hot hatred. He couldn’t go back to that. Innocent people had died because he was too angry to think straight.

Smile. Laugh. Of course I can hear you, can you pipe down a little? I’m trying to nap.

The smile collapsed before it could form. He choked on another dangerous sob.

“You’re safe now,” Vincent said. “Can you open your eyes?”

Cloud had promised himself earlier that he could shatter to pieces if Vincent was a friend. But now, it… it felt like something he might not come back from. You can make it, Cloud promised himself instead. Keep it together. You can get home without breaking too badly to fix. Just open your eyes and smile. Everything will be okay.

He tried again, lips trembling as they tilted slowly, slowly, toward the right shape. His eyelids crept open, revealing a world blurred by brain damage. It would heal soon. It always healed eventually… or he died and it fixed itself. He was tired of dying, though. He just wanted to go home.

Cloud opened his mouth. Hey, got any leftovers I can steal? Because healing yourself from mortal injuries is hungry business, let me tell you.

A jagged, keening sob came out instead. He frantically snapped his jaw shut.

His mother’s hands⁠—he was sure it was his mother’s hands⁠—pressed to his face. “Cloud?” she asked, face blurred above him. His eyes stung. “What hurts? There’s so much that I’m not sure what we missed.”

Nothing. This is normal, I’ll be okay in a minute.

Another thin, awful wail came out when he tried to tell her. This time he squeezed his eyes shut, hands curling into painful fists at his side. He was on a hard table, head cushioned by some folded mass of fabric. Get up, he told himself, jaw clenched against any more unwanted noises. That hurt too. You have to get up. You have to live. You have to smile. You’ve always been okay before.

“Vincent, do we have anything that will work on him?” Ma asked.

“No. He is… immune to anything available to civilians.”

Aw Vince, it’s so much worse than that. I’m such a jigsaw biology freak now that the good stuff only makes me high. Hey, got any of that? I’d like to forget that I came within inches of this nightmare being over only to⁠… to have to… only for it…

The breath left him in a rush and the persistent burning in his eyes became too much. Tears streaked down the side of his face, disappearing into his hair.

I want to go home.

He couldn’t stop himself. This time, it wasn’t a sob that escaped him, but a scream⁠—reedy at first, high and pathetic, but it rapidly built into the kind of scream he wanted to scream all the time. All the anguish, all the terror, all the grief and fury and frustration came out in that scream. His vocal cords smashed themselves into pulp after barely a few seconds, nearly silencing him, but it didn’t stop.

I can’t take any more of this.

He was curled up into a ball. He didn’t remember doing that, but his hands were fisted in his hair.

I can’t keep going.

There was blood in his throat. A lot of blood.

I’m sorry Tifa. I tried. I tried so hard.

Someone was picking at the Ribbon tied around his arm. He couldn’t even summon up the will to stop them.

Make it stop. Please just make it stop.

Maybe they could hear him after all, because as soon as the frantic thought crossed his mind, they did. Cloud sank beneath the Sleepel as easily as a drowning man sinks beneath the water after his last desperate gasp of air.

He hoped he wouldn’t wake up again.

Vincent wished he’d sent Sephiroth out of the house entirely before Cloud woke. He’d sent him out of the room, of course, but that wasn’t enough. Not when it turned out that Cloud was capable of screaming like that. As it was, he had to step away as soon as he’d put his friend to sleep again and comfort his distraught child.

Vincent remembered many of the sounds that he himself had made in the labs. He remembered the noises other human beings had made⁠—not that they’d stayed human for very long when Hojo was involved. He’d heard hundreds of screams in his life before then, too; strong and weak, old and young, civilian and military. Dying screams, tormented screams, screams of pain and pleasure, joy and terror.

He’d never⁠ heard—and he was convinced would never again hear⁠—a scream like the one Cloud had made. Perhaps it was a mercy that the force of it had mangled his vocal cords within seconds.

“Vincent,” Sephiroth sobbed into shirt as he knelt down to hug his young charge.

“It’s alright,” he said—perhaps lied. “He was in pain, but we’re helping him now. It’s alright.”

“No it’s not!” Sephriroth tangled his hands into Vincent’s cloak. “He⁠—he sounded like⁠—”

“I know. He was in a lot of pain, but he’s going to be alright. He will be in less pain when we wake him up later.”

“He sounded like an experiment!”

Vincent exhaled soundlessly. “...I know.”

In the main room, he could hear Claudia tersely directing everyone. Var was sent to prepare hot water to wash the blood off of Cloud. Reeve was to carefully feed him potions while he slept. Todd was to prepare food that could restore a SOLDIER, and Becca was tasked with stoking the fire. Ghost was sent outside to make sure no one had heard the scream and came running.

Vincent grimaced faintly and rubbed Seph’s back.

“I want to help too,” the boy said, pulling away enough to be heard. He didn’t let go.

“Alright.” Vincent stood slow enough to let Seph adjust his grip. “Let’s go see what Claudia wants us to do, then.”

Neither he nor Reeve had told her Cloud’s name⁠—there hadn’t been time⁠—but she’d known anyway, and Vincent suspected that was the reason for the pinched, fiery look on her face. Still, she didn’t ask when there were more practical things to do. By the time she did, the whole house was warmed and smelled of whatever Tood was making, Reeve had run out of potions, Cloud was clean and dry, and Vincent had very carefully moved him from the table to his own (often unused) bed.

Claudia waited, quite deliberately, until Reeve and Vincent were in a location with the maximum amount of witnesses before she cleared her throat. Perched on the edge of Vincent’s bed with Cloud asleep next to her hip, she asked, “Would anyone like to explain why a grown-up version of my son showed up looking like that?”

No, Vincent would have liked to do basically anything but that, and Reeve seemed to share his opinion. Everyone else had gone still at her question, and the silence was weighty.

Var’s eyes were wide. Evidently he hadn’t put the same pieces together. “Honey?”

“Don’t ask me to explain how I know,” said Claudia, one hand resting on her belly. “I just do. It’s Cloud.” She turned narrowed eyes back to Vincent and Reeve. “And I think I’m not the only one who knew that.”

The silence stretched until Becca broke it. “Holy fuck, you did?” she said, agog at both of them.

“Language,” said Reeve, glancing at Seph where he was glued to Vincent’s side.

“You did!”

Vincent sighed faintly. “Reeve proposed multiverse theory as an explanation. We have no information beyond that, not until he wakes up and tells us.”

“Will he, though?” Becca asked. “Because that wasn’t the scream of a sane man.”

Seph pressed his face into Vincent’s side.

Claudia narrowed her eyes at them even more. “You’re lying to me. About my own baby.”

Reeve held up his hands. “We really don’t know, Mrs. Strife. I… would prefer not to guess until we do.”

“Tell me how you know him. That won’t require any guessing.”

Reeve hesitated. Vincent, seeing no alternative, took over. “We don’t know him. We also don’t know the child in your womb. But our Cloud was… he existed along the same lines. It is difficult to explain.” He looked down briefly. “He saved both of our lives many times. And… he is the one who convinced me to join the living again.”

Var, who had been studying Cloud’s unconscious face intently, looked up. “You mentioned… multiple universes? Does that mean that you two…”

Becca gave voice to Todd’s words when he waved a hand and interjected. “That can’t be right,” she said, frowning. “There’s only one Reeve.”

Vincent nodded and braced himself. “Yes. We are… from the future.”

The room went silent like all the air had been sucked out of it. Then pandemonium erupted. Sephiroth flinched at the overlapping shouts and Vincent put a protective hand over his head, hiding him further in the crimson expanse of his cloak.

“Quiet,” said Ghost, and by training or by instinct, everyone obeyed.

Claudia had a hand over her eyes. Var looked devastated. “What happened to my son?”

Reeve quickly shook his head. “We don’t know what happened to this Cloud. But… he’s strong. Resilient, like his parents. He’ll be alright.”

“He was well the last time we saw him,” Vincent added quietly. “Strong, capable. Kind. I don’t doubt this Cloud will be the same when he recovers.”

Claudia sniffled, dashing tears from her eyes before he looked at him again. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me what happened to my baby.”

Slowly, Vincent dipped his head in acknowledgement. “I… will tell you what I can.”

Cloud associated numbness with exhaustion. It was hard to be numb when he lived every day jumping from horror to horror. The closest he could get was deflection, assuming he had the energy for it⁠—and he had increasingly been able to build up the energy needed to maintain a deflection equilibrium. He even enjoyed himself, sometimes.

Not now, though. Now he felt so tired he couldn’t even imagine moving. It wasn’t tiredness in the way of ‘I haven’t slept in ninety-six hours and my mind is giving out under me,’ though. It was more like… ‘nothing matters. Who cares, because nothing matters.’

It didn’t make sense. He knew that. He was closer to home than ever. He just had to endure until they made a better anchor, and it would all be over. He knew that.

But… he wasn’t sure how to make himself believe it. Not when Tifa had been right there in his arms and he’d felt real hope for the first time in years, only to have it ripped away in the most painful way possible. What if it never worked? What if he was hoping for something that was impossible?

What if he never saw his kids again?

What if he really, truly, could never die?

What if⁠—

What if⁠…

What if.

Gaia, this was all so useless. He was useless, at least right now. None of the ‘what ifs’ mattered. He had to keep going as if he was wrong, because⁠—

Well. Because the alternative was worse than being right. He just… had to convince himself to get up again and pretend he believed.

Any day now, Cloud.

He could hear a fire crackling somewhere. It was warm, and he felt clean. Someone had tucked him into a moderately uncomfortable bed, but hey, it was better than the table he’d been on before… and better than most of the places he habitually chose to nap, if he was honest. ‘Comfortable’ usually also meant ‘vulnerable.’

There were several people in the room, and even more in the rest of the house. One was outside, chopping firewood and cursing in a way that would have left Cid impressed. Someone was cooking. It smelled fantastic⁠—lots of protein and excellent seasoning. Not Angeal, though. Cloud had a sixth sense for Angeal cooking at this point.

At least open your eyes.

That sounded doable. He opened his eyes. The blur from heavy brain damage was gone. Someone had pumped him full of enough potions to make his skin feel like it was going to vibrate off his bones, but that was preferable to bleeding out. It didn’t feel like he’d been out for very long, but the damage had been bad. He could tell that he’d lost a good chunk of weight he couldn’t afford to lose. Gaia, Tifa was going to be so worried if he couldn’t fix that before she saw him again.

Someone small was sitting on the bed, and they shifted slightly. He rolled his head to the side just enough to see a teeny-tiny Sephiroth looking at him intently. He had a plush dragon in his arms.

Cloud blinked slowly. “Hey.” His voice rasped horribly.

Baby Seph blinked back. “Hello. Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Is everyone being nice to you?”

His question seemed to surprise the kid. “...yes.”

Cloud nodded. “Good.” Lucky, too, because if they weren’t it was going to take a lot of effort for Cloud to get up and deal with it.

“You… screamed earlier. Really loud. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah,” said Cloud tiredly, paying half an ear to the sound of the grown-up people in the room moving closer. “I was just… sad. But I’m better now.”

Vincent appeared just past bitty Seph’s shoulder, hovering in an understatedly protective way, like he was ready to yank the kid out of danger if Cloud proved to be a threat. It made a faint, exhausted grin cross Cloud’s face. Vincent had always been like that with Marlene, and a bit more subtly with Denzel, but it had been the first time Tifa had made him hold baby Zack that he’d really gone full hover mode.

Shit. Vincent had seen more of Cloud’s kids’ lives than Cloud himself had. At least they were guaranteed to be safe with a protector as dangerous as the ex-Turk.

“Hey, Vincent,” Cloud sighed. He summoned up the will to crack a joke. “Sorry for bleeding everywhere.”

It fell flat, based on the way Vincent frowned behind his cowl. “What happened, Cloud?”

“Yeah, you must have a lot of questions.” He felt even more tired just thinking about it, but still not in an ‘I need a nap’ way. It was more of an ‘I’m tired of doing this’ feeling. “I don’t suppose my laminated Q&A sheet survived that landing, did it? If it did, it was in my jacket.”

“Q&A sheet?” Vincent echoed.

“That’s a no, then.” Cloud shut his eyes for a moment and sighed. “I’m not your Cloud, obviously. I’m cursed to move from dimension to dimension until…” He couldn’t think about it. “Not important. I’ll be gone in two and a half days. And if you know anyone who’s doing a genocide or planning one then I’ll… get up and do something. In… five minutes.” That was reasonable, right? Five minute break.

“You’re not going to be getting up any time soon,” said a new voice, and for once Cloud didn’t recognize it at all, except for the accent. With a lot more effort than it should have taken, he managed to turn his head in the opposite direction to see a man sitting in a chair beside the bed.

“Hmm,” said Cloud, vaguely intrigued. He was getting a weird sense of deja vu the longer he looked. “I don’t recognize you.”

The man smiled, but it came out closer to a grimace. “Yeah… you wouldn’t. Vincent told us that I died up in the mountains before you were born.”

Cloud blinked, now fully intrigued. The heavy mental fog lifted a little. “Wait… Da?” His actual dad, the one he’d had in his own universe? It was rare to meet any version of Cloud’s dad, and he’d never met a variant similar to his own. The man just didn’t make for a good cursed landing.

The smile became more genuine. “Yeah, kiddo. Da.”

Cloud snorted. “I don’t think you can ‘kiddo’ me when I’m older than you.”

“I think I can kiddo you because you’re my kid, but I’ll bite. How old are you?”

“Thirty. I think I just missed my birthday, actually.”

Da blinked like he hadn’t been expecting that answer. “Oh.”

“Mhm.” Cloud sighed, sinking deeper into the pillow. “My youngest son is four. Oldest is about to be sixteen. And Marlene is a teenager now, Gaia. I missed three years of their lives because of this stupid curse, so… whatever you’re thinking about when you see me, I probably get it.”

“You’re not far off,” said Da, subdued. “Our… version of you is still safe in your Ma’s womb, but I look at you and see all the years that your version of me missed.”

Cloud tried and failed to smile, much like Da had. “It’s better that you missed it. Trust me.”

Surprisingly, it was Vincent who interjected. “No,” he said. “It’s not better. No matter how painful things become, being present for your child is always what a good father wants.”

Cloud turned toward him. His expression was stern, and when Cloud glanced at tiny Seph⁠—who was by then leaning against Vincent⁠—things clicked into place. “Oh,” he said. “Woah. Yeah. Good choice, Vince. You always were good with the kids.”

“Thank you,” said Vincent. Then, after a breath of pause, “The cape helps.”

Something that was almost a laugh escaped Cloud. Was that some kind of dad joke? He wanted to say. Instead, though, he lost momentum. His mouth clicked shut. What did it matter? What did any of this matter? He was so tired.

“Cloud?”

He stared at nothing, eyes half-lidded because he was too tired for anything else. Someone put a hand on his forehead. “Cloud? Kiddo?”

He wasn’t tired enough to go back to sleep, but he shut his eyes anyway.

“Claudia!”

It took a while before anything mattered again. He knew his Ma had looked him over, frustrated because nothing new seemed to be wrong. Bitty Seph had asked him if he was okay. Vincent had asked him to tell them what was wrong. Even Reeve had come in at some point to check on him.

The thing that really got him, though, was food. Even if his mind couldn’t figure out how to care about getting up and keeping in motion, his body had its own priorities. Food took precedence over everything. He smelled the dish that was set down near the bed, heard the quiet thunk of heavy ceramic against the wood, and that was that.

Da asked, “Do you think we can get him up to eat? Maybe that will help.”

“S’fine,” Cloud managed to say, body overriding his mental deadweight and forcing him to sit up. “Give.”

“Cloud!” said Ma, right there to help him. “Baby, what’s wrong?”

He was way too tired to point out that he wasn’t her baby. “Nothing,” he said, apathetically noting a new person⁠—Turk⁠—standing near the food. “‘M fine.”

“You are clearly not fine,” said Vincent. “You didn’t respond to us for nearly twenty minutes. Was that deliberate?”

Da pressed the dish into his hands. He started shoveling it down, and food was an excellent excuse not to talk. Halfway through, the… well, the depression finally lifted enough for him to feel like answering. “Wasn’t deliberate.” Gaia, he was so tired. “I’m just… recovering. Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” said Da, and Ma said “Recovering from what?”

Answering Ma was an ‘end of the entire dish’ sort of activity. The mystery Turk brought another two dishes before he managed that, though, which was an even better reason to delay. It felt kind of weird that they let him. By the time he was done, he felt restored enough to wonder how much of his despair was just from his body eating itself to keep him alive.

Not all of it. Not even most. But… a lot.

“I… saw my wife right before I crashed here,” he admitted softly, plucking at the thick winter blanket covering him. “Her, Reeve, Shelke, and Shalua. They made a prototype anchor to counteract my curse, so I could come home.” He closed his eyes, circling his fingers around the wrist where the heavy band had sat. “It didn’t work. It hurt worse than dying, actually, but I still…” Shit, his eyes were burning. “I still didn’t want to let her take it off.”

“Oh, Cloud…” said Da.

“I’m fine,” he lied, putting a hand over his face. “Just gotta… you know. I’m fine. I’m fine.”

His voice broke. A few traitorous tears snuck past the barrier of his palm and dripped off his jaw.

“You’re not,” said Ma, trying to coax his hand away from his face. “And you don’t have to pretend you are.”

Cloud didn’t let her pull his arm, because even though it was her, there were some things that were more important than listening to his mother. “No. I’m okay. I have to be okay. As long as I stay okay, I’ll get back home in one piece.” He tried to laugh, but it sounded dangerously close to a moan of anguish. “I can’t scare the kids. Tifa shouldn’t let me hug the kids if I’m not okay. I might⁠—I might hurt them. I might hurt her.”

He felt a hand⁠—cold, sharp gauntlet, Vincent⁠—touch his. “I think,” said the ex-Turk, “you are far more likely to hurt yourself.”

Cloud abruptly relaxed the grip he hadn’t realized he had on his leg. The fresh bruise throbbed sharply. “That’s fine,” he said, aiming for a joking tone and falling horribly short. “I never stay dead anyway.”

Several people sucked in sharp breaths at his words, and he couldn’t even feel bad about it. Forcing himself to breathe evenly felt like the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life, but he managed it. Or at least, he managed to take in even, shuddering breaths and not burst into tears. And if he had to pull his knees to his chest and hunch over and keep his palm over his eyes and grip his opposite wrist hard enough to hurt, that was his business.

I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m okay.

I can keep going.

It felt like someone maybe made a suggestion, but Cloud didn’t hear it. All he felt, eventually, was a hand stroke over the back of his head and pull his loose hair away from his neck. “You should drink more and then rest,” said Da softly. “Right, honey?”

“...yes,” said Ma. Her voice had gone a little hoarse. “Something warm. Can someone⁠—tea? Perfect, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” another woman grumbled. “It was his idea.”

The touch on his back shifted. “Sit up, son.”

He did, and a cup of steaming tea was pressed into his hands. He couldn’t smell it, but it was warm in his palms. He drank because staying hydrated was part of staying alive. Dehydration certainly had faster and worse consequences than mere starvation.

When the cup was empty someone took it from him and Da pressed on his shoulders until he lay down. Since there was no point in resisting, he didn't. The sweet oblivion of sleep would be a relief, anyway. If he was lucky he might even dream about home.

That was a joke. Cloud’s life was defined by cursed luck.

“Rest,” said Da, hand on his forehead. “You’ll feel better when you wake up.”

He wouldn’t feel better, but he wasn’t betting on that. As long as he could pull the mask back up and be ‘okay,’ then he’d make it through. ‘Better’ was for when he had his kids in his arms again, and not a moment before.

Someone held one of his hands between theirs. He thought maybe it was Da as his breath started to even out and deepen. The palms were wide and callused⁠—not nearly as callused as his, but enough to tell him that Da worked with his hands every day. They felt strong. Reliable. Safe, even, insofar as he ever could be safe.

Da started to hum as Cloud sank into a doze. It sounded like the one he’d hummed to his own son. He couldn’t decide how he felt about it before his thoughts unraveled and he fell asleep.

Cloud didn’t properly wake for the next four days. He would rouse enough to eat and drink and limp to the bathroom with some help, but he was never really ‘awake.’ Vincent thought that was, perhaps, for the best. Cloud was a terrible patient when injured and often re-injured himself by stubbornly insisting he could get up and continue fighting or working. Like this, the man was at least resting and eating without any complications.

Sephiroth watched the way Claudia and Var specifically interacted with Cloud. Knowing that this Cloud was a version of the baby currently growing in Claudia’s womb made him thoughtful, in his usual inscrutable sort of way. Vincent, in turn, watched him begin to mimic them in small ways—putting his palm to Cloud’s forehead, or squeezing his hand as he slept.

“Vincent,” Seph had asked during the first day of catatonia as they watched Var half carry Cloud to the bathroom, eyes dull and arm held over his father’s shoulders, “why is he doing that?”

Vincent hummed, trying to think of the best way to explain. “His mind has been damaged,” he settled on. “Like his body was damaged. But he hasn’t had any time or support to heal his mind. There’s no materia that can heal the mind the way one heals a body, so he’s… simply doing his best to handle things.”

Sephiroth was quiet for a moment. “What hurt his mind?”

“He hasn’t told us yet, but I imagine it was many things. Constant fighting, fear for his life, fear for his family and himself… loneliness when he’s trapped like this, away from them. What he calls his curse would be traumatic to anyone, and it isn’t over yet.”

Sometimes Sephiroth seemed to be able to see directly into Vincent’s soul. Now was one such time. “Like when you’re still an experiment,” he said. “Or when no one is there to stop the doctors who want to hurt you.”

“...yes.”

Sephiroth nodded and said nothing else, an uncommonly serious and understanding expression in his face.

On the fifth day, Cloud became lucid enough to speak. Sephiroth was sitting on the bed next to him, keeping watch with Vincent and Reeve. Cloud drew in a deep breath and shifted, tilting his head to the side. Hazy blue eyes caught sight of Sephiroth.

“Hey,” he croaked. “‘S everyone being nice to you?”

Sephiroth didn’t seem bothered by the repeated question—obviously Cloud didn’t remember or know where he was. “Yes,” he said. “Everyone’s being nice to me.” He put a hand on Cloud’s forehead. “They’re being nice to you, too. So you don’t have to be scared. You can heal up.”

A faint, indulgent smile crossed Cloud’s face even as his eyelids drooped. “Yeah?” His eyes closed. “That’s great, buddy…”

He seemed to sleep easier after that. Var was there a few hours later when he stirred again. “Hey, kiddo,” he said, urging Cloud to sit upright. “Come on, feet on the floor. Let’s go for a walk before dinner. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Muh,” said Cloud, aware and seemingly displeased by it. He didn’t fight his father, though, and soon Var was leading him through the front door, supporting his waist and holding one of his arms over his shoulders. Sephiroth and Vincent trailed after them.

The air was bitingly cold. Cloud roused more as soon as he felt it, head rising, and Var didn’t need to support him quite so much. They crunched through the snow a short way from the house. Vincent could feel several gazes burning into his back from the front windows as they walked.

“…oh,” Cloud muttered. “We’re in Nibelheim.”

“Yeah kiddo. You crash landed by Vincent’s house.”

“Hn.” They crunched along a little further. Cloud straightened up more, but he didn’t shake Var’s grip off. “I feel so… how long was I out? I don’t think I have much time left here. I need my gear.”

Vincent answered. “This is the fifth day since we found you.”

Cloud stumbled, saved only by Var’s support, and cast Vincent a startled look. “What? No. I’m only up to sixty hours. That can’t be right.”

“Up to sixty hours?” Var echoed. “What does that mean?”

“I… started off getting kicked from world to world every few seconds, but it got longer each time. Now I stay in place for about sixty hours. So—so it can’t have been five days.” He stopped, forcing his father to stop with him. “It can’t. That’s not—that’s never how it worked.”

Var exchanged a glance with Vincent. “Well,” he said slowly. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s been five days and you’re still here.”

Cloud stared. “…no.”

“Perhaps we should sit,” Vincent said, ushering a worried Sephiroth over to a fallen log. Var dragged Cloud along after them, who obligingly sat and stared wide-eyed at the snow under his feet.

The silence stretched, razor-sharp in the cold air. Cloud eventually licked his lips. “It’s not—it can’t. It can’t change. It’s been the same for years. How could it change?”

Sephiroth took one of his hands. “Are you scared?”

“I…” He looked lost and pale. “Yes.”

“Perhaps your family’s intervention changed things,” Vincent suggested delicately.

“That’s right,” said Var. “Maybe they broke the jumping part. Maybe you can stay here until they come get you!”

Cloud regarded his suggestion with bewilderment. “…n-no. No, it can’t… that’s not fair. That’s not fair.”

Var opened his mouth, then shut it with a click. “…I’m sorry, Cloud,” he finally managed.

Cloud pulled his hand from Sephiroth’s and folded over himself, burying his face in his palms. “That’s not fair,” he whispered. “I didn’t even get to see my kids. Why—why couldn’t it have…” He shuddered.

Then, he laughed: a tiny hysterical giggle that rattled his shoulders.

“Oh. Right. Because I’m cursed. And this is the worst thing the curse could possibly do to me.” He giggled again. His hands crept up into his hair, and he gripped two fistfuls tightly enough to make his fists tremble. He sobbed, but only once. “It won’t stick. I won’t stick. And now I have no idea when my time will be up. I can’t—“

No one said anything. No one knew what to say. Var tentatively rubbed Cloud’s back, and Sephiroth leaned into his side, casting a helpless and pleading look at Vincent from the corner of his eye. Unfortunately, Vincent didn’t know what to do any more than anyone else.

Perhaps they should have brought Claudia.

“I’m so tired,” Cloud whispered. “I’m so… I’m so tired. Da, I’m so tired.”

And again, Var was visibly at a loss for what to say to this tortured, grown-up version of his son. “...I’m so sorry, kiddo,” he managed, the inadequacy of that consolation obvious on his face. Cloud merely folded in on himself even tighter.

Sephiroth turned his pleading eyes on Var, apparently having determined (correctly) that Vincent was useless in this. “You’re his dad,” he whispered. “You have to make him feel better. That’s what dads do.”

Var jerked back like he’d been slapped by the words. He glanced at Cloud’s bowed form, then back to Sephiroth. “I…” Slowly, his expression softened. “I guess I’d better start doing a better job then, huh?” He took a deep breath. “You’re going to be okay, Cloud. Your friends and family will get you home. But for as long as you’re here with us, you can rest.”

“No,” Cloud muttered against his knees. “No. I can’t.”

“You can.” Var stood and took hold of Cloud’s upper arm, pulling until he unfolded slightly. “Come on, up. You’ll feel better after eating.”

“No,” Cloud muttered, petulant and exhausted.

“Help me out here, Vincent,” said Var instead of arguing with his grown-up child. Vincent nodded and took Cloud’s other arm, lifting him to his feet whether he liked it or not⁠—and he did not. But, between the two of them and Sephiroth helpfully pushing him along with hands at the small of his back, Cloud trudged all the way back to the house. His head remained stubbornly bowed the entire time.

Cloud was… himself.

For once, himself.

He was still here, and being in one place for so long, uncertain of when or if or how he’d be forced to move on, had knocked him completely off balance. He wasn’t consumed by rage like he’d been in the beginning. He wasn’t exhausted into nothingness like he’d been before he learned the rhythm of effective immortality. And try as he might, he couldn’t claw his way back into the cheerful apathy he’d modeled after Zack’s unshakable good nature.

He was just… himself.

Unfortunately for everyone, Cloud was a sulky, petulant, self-isolating brat when left to himself. Yeah, sure, he’d learned his lesson about that years ago during the whole Geostigma shit⁠—Tifa definitely wouldn’t have married him if he hadn’t⁠—but three years of nonstop torment had clearly earned him a nice little backslide.

It wasn’t the same as breaking. He hadn’t broken yet. But things had changed enough that he just… didn’t know what to do with himself. And when Cloud Strife didn’t know what to do with himself, he ran away.

Or tried to, at least.

It never really worked. Honestly, even calling it ‘running’ was a little generous. Right now he was just trudging slowly and grumpily through the frozen woods of Nibelheim at two in the morning. He’d been able to find his coat and boots, but not his armored pants or sword. He could summon Tsurugi just fine, and had, but he couldn’t summon his pants, which was definitely part of why he was so grumpy.

“Stupid do-good alternate universe friends and family,” he muttered without meaning a word of it. “Always stealing my fucking pants.” He thought about kicking a clump of snow as he passed it, but that sounded pointless and exhausting, so he didn’t. In fact, this whole walk was starting to feel pointless and exhausting. Everything was pointless and exhausting. His whole life was—

“Don’t finish that thought, Strife,” he told himself as his feet slowed to a stop of their own accord. “Don’t go down that road.”

He stood still. The wind howled around him, freezing and familiar. Even the air in Nibelheim attacked you. His chin sunk toward his chest, and suddenly he remembered why he’d stopped running away from his problems when he didn’t know what to do. It was fucking lonely out here. And it was hard to remember why he even wanted to keep going when he was alone.

“Ugh.” He sank down and put his head against his knees. “Ugh!”

Cloud was, at least, glad his kids couldn’t see him right now. He was setting a terrible example for how to handle problems like an adult and not a sulking teenager.

“What are you doing?”

A young voice startled him, and he realized he had perhaps spoken too soon about setting a bad example. He twisted around to see Sephiroth, bundled up and peering at him with confusion. Papa Vincent was nowhere to be seen, which either meant he was just unseen, or he was letting Sephiroth drag Cloud back.

The man knew Cloud was an absolute sucker for kids. Cheater.

“I’m sulking like a moody teenager,” Cloud answered dryly. “Make sure you don’t grow up to be like me.”

Itty-bitty Sephiroth’s head tilted to the side. He thought for a moment. “If you don’t want me to do it,” he asked, “then why are you?”

Sephiroth was always so earnest when he wasn’t batshit insane. Cloud considered how he would answer if Denzel or Marlene asked him the same kind of question. “Well,” he said, “sometimes it feels good to make a bad decision. But with bad decisions, that good feeling never lasts. And usually it only feels good because you’re avoiding doing something that’s hard but actually good for you.”

He hoped Tifa could somehow sense this moment at home. He had listened to all her arguments about wisdom and emotional maturity—he just wasn’t good at it.

Sephiroth narrowed his eyes shrewdly. “What are you avoiding?”

Cloud sighed. “It’s… hard to put into words. I feel better when I’m moving than when I’m sitting still, no matter how much I might like the company.” He arched a brow at the kid. “Company likes to ask hard questions.”

A slow, cat-like blink came in answer to his wry words. “So you’re walking through the snow without pants,” Sephiroth said at length and with great skepticism, “because you don’t like talking to us?”

“Well I would phrase it differently, but… yeah, pretty much.”

The look Sephiroth gave him was distinctly pitying, like he’d found a sad wet kitten in the snow. “Mister,” he said, “that’s kind of stupid.”

A startled laugh burst from Cloud. “I did say not to be like me, didn’t I?” He finally stood back up, mostly because his ass was freezing. “Did papa Vincent send you to puppy-eyes me back into the house?”

“Mister Vincent didn’t send me.” Sephiroth frowned up at him. “I came because I wanted to help you feel better.”

“Sweet of you.” Cloud reached out to ruffle his silver hair, knocking his knit hat askew. “What was your plan, huh?”

“Make you feel better,” he asserted with the faintest hint of a blush. Cloud laughed again, but refrained from pointing out that ‘no plan’ wasn’t much of a plan. He hardly had the grounds to criticize anyone there.

“Well, you did. I feel better now.” He glanced through the trees and sighed. “Let’s go back. It’s too early for you to be up.”

Vincent was waiting on the porch when they got back, and Cloud could feel eyes on him from somewhere above too—probably from one or more of Vincent’s Turk friends. Ugh.

Cloud glared without heat. “You’re a damned dirty cheater, Valentine.”

The ex-Turk blinked at him slowly. “And you have no pants on.”

“...touche.”

“If you are planning on leaving again,” said Vincent as he ushered them inside, “consider asking for pants first.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Da was waiting for him in ‘his’ bedroom, which he’d gathered was actually Vincent’s (and hardly ever used, which didn’t surprise him). “Hey,” said Da, reaching out to hold his shoulders. “Don’t do that again. Please.”

Cloud sighed. “I won’t. The ‘run away from your problems’ urge is out of my system now.”

Vincent grunted behind him, skeptical. Cloud turned around to stick his tongue out at his alternate-universe friend, which startled a quiet laugh out of bitty Seph. Cloud smiled.

“That’s enough feelings for one night,” he said. “I’m going back to sleep. Sorry for disturbing yours.”

Da moved from holding his shoulders to holding his jaw, taking him by surprise. His expression was intensely serious. “I would sacrifice my sleep for my son any night, and I wouldn’t think less of him for needing help, Cloud.”

Didn’t I just say enough of the feelings? Cloud wanted to say, but something stopped him. His jovial, unhinged mask wasn’t back on. Not yet, at least. It probably didn’t need to be for these people anyway. “I know,” he settled on instead. “That’s what a good father does.”

Da smiled. “I’m glad you understand. Now, back to bed.”

Cloud stayed with Vincent the entire time he was in this Nibelheim, which ended up being nearly a month. Ma had wanted him to come stay with her and Da, but there was no good way to explain the extremely obvious similarities he had to both her and Da. Resemblance to one would have been manageable, but both? Even the most skeptical would guess his identity.

The stability of it all made his head spin, but it was probably the best-timed break he’d ever received. Reeve hadn’t been able to stay long, but he had been able to stay long enough to have a few real conversations with him. It made Cloud realize how much he missed his friend, and how infrequently he actually got to see Reeve’s dimensional counterparts. And Cait, too.

Reeve had some funny bodyguards here too, in the form of two eccentric Turks. The woman, especially, reminded him of the hissy kitten Marlene had adopted a few months before his… involuntary departure. Cloud wasn’t sure he would have trusted them with Reeve if Vincent clearly hadn’t, though.

“So… you aren’t surprised by the time-travel thing?” Da asked a day after Reeve and his Turks had departed. The scary quiet Turk was still here, though out of sight. Creepy.

Cloud looked up from his tea. “Huh? Oh, no, it happens. It’s not even the weirdest case I’ve seen.”

“…what was?”

“Hmm…” He tapped his fingers against the cup. “Anything other than me traveling back gets weird, honestly. I think the ‘Rufus Shinra fixes everything’ dimension was probably the weirdest to me personally.”

“There are a lot where you go back? Why?”

Cloud was quiet for a moment. “I guess because important things happen to me. Around me. A lot of things I could have prevented if I’d known. And there’s a lot of good those versions of me can do.” He thought about the world with the statue of his young self, lost forever to save that world’s inhabitants from a fate they barely understood; he tried not to think too hard about how much better off it had been for his sacrifice.

“You’re thinking of somewhere specific, aren’t you?” Da asked softly, recognizing the melancholy on his face.

“It’s always specific,” Cloud sighed, rubbing his forehead with a hand. “There’s something about seeing a million probabilities applied to you that messes with your head. They all could have been me. They all were me. You start to question yourself. Sometimes you even start to feel responsible.”

“Good or bad, you didn’t take any of those actions. They did.”

“But I would have, in their shoes.”

Da shook his head. “There’s no way to know that. You may be facing down millions of timelines, but there’s still no way to know that you⁠— whatever you truly are⁠—would have done the same. Don’t agonize over it.”

“I usually don’t,” Cloud admitted, taking another sip of his tea. There was something reassuring about hearing it from a version of his actual father, though. “I’m not… in the headstate I usually am, right now.” He looked over. “Thanks.”

Da arched a brow. “For what?”

“For showing me what I missed out on. And what I should be for my own kids.”

He smiled. “You’re welcome, Cloud. Thank you for letting me.”

Conversations like that were the reason Cloud actually felt… okay, when his time in that world was finally up. He’d taken to carpentry, under his father’s tutelage, for a lack of anything better to do while he waited. He sparred with Vincent too, of course, but that was just a necessary routine. He had to stay sharp if he wanted to survive the next world. Regardless, he was patiently measuring out and marking where some cuts needed to be made when he felt a familiar, tingling pain begin in his toes. He went stiff and dropped the pencil.

“Cloud?” Da asked immediately. “What is it?”

The burning was moving at a moderate pace, but there wasn’t much time. “I have to go,” Cloud said urgently, dusting the wood shavings from his pants and yanking on his coat. “My time is up.” He summoned Tsurugi and attached it to his back. “I have maybe three minutes.”

Da didn’t question, just ran and shouted for Claudia, Vincent, and bitty Seph. They all came running, and Ma crashed into him first.

“I love you, baby,” she said. “Please, take care of yourself.”

“Love you too, Ma. I’ll try.”

Vincent surprised him with an embrace, but Cloud returned it regardless. “Sorry I couldn’t help,” said Cloud.

Vincent shook his head. “I never expected it of you. Follow your mother’s advice.”

Cloud knelt to say goodbye to Seph. The pain had spread up to his thighs. “Bye, Mister Cloud,” bitty Sephiroth said. His hug wasn’t surprising, and Cloud returned it gently. “I’m glad you feel better.”

“Me too. Thanks for helping me feel better.” He ruffled the kid’s head of meticulously groomed hair and grinned when Seph frowned and immediately patted it back into place.

Da was the last to embrace him, and Cloud could feel every ounce of the man’s not-inconsiderable strength poured into it. He returned the hug with equal fierceness.

“I’m so proud of you,” said Da, and for some reason that made Cloud’s breath hitch.

His careful, jovial mask was finally coming back, though, so he cracked a grin and said, “Hey, don’t make me cry. The next world will get a bad first impression.” The smiles directed at him immediately turned painful, but he had warned them. He’d told them about what it took to survive his curse.

The pain had spread up to his neck when he stepped back and saluted casually. “It was a pleasure. Really. And I love you all.” He closed his eyes as his vision started to go dark. “I’ll make it to the other side. I promise.”