Disclaimer: Final Fantasy belongs to Squaresoft and various other interested parties, not me. I'm not making any money from this, and no infringement of copyright is intended. This is a work of fandom, intended as appreciation of the original work.

Chapter 20

The bar had been well and truly trashed, so once Tifa got the kids tucked away somewhere safe - carefully not telling either Zack or especially Cloud where she'd sent them - they ended up back at the church. None of them knew quite what to say or do. Tifa sat at the table, with Zack straddling the other chair backwards and facing her. Cloud paced ceaselessly from one side of the tiny room to the other, struggling to control himself with every step he took.

"Kid, seriously, sit down already," Zack ordered him, propping his head on one hand and tracking Cloud with his eyes. "You're making me exhausted just watching you." The potions Tifa kept on hand at the 7th Heaven had been enough to get them both mobile again, and a couple of quick applications of Cure magic once they'd reached the materia hidden in the church had taken care of the rest. The only outward signs that any of it had ever happened were the damage to the bar and Cloud's constant restlessness.

"I can't," Cloud replied tersely, his arms folded tightly across his chest and his clenched fists tucked under his arms. "You don't understand how close to the surface he is. It's like now that I know he's there and I'm not blocking the memories any more, I can't block him either. I have to have something to focus on."

Rummaging in the bag she'd brought from home, Tifa pulled out small bottle and tossed it to Zack. He caught it and checked the label, then raised an eyebrow at her. This was premium whiskey, the kind that was practically worth its weight in gil.

"What?" she answered his questioning look defensively. "I think I've bloody well earned it. And so have both of you. Cloud?"

He glanced at it, and his expression turned incredulous. "Tifa, I'm hanging onto my control by the skin of my teeth, and you want to get me drunk?"

"It'll take a hell of a lot more than a third of that bottle to get either of you drunk, though I'll probably be a little tipsy," Tifa retorted. "Anyway alcohol is a downer. In small quantities it might help you calm down. Well, small for your metabolism, anyway." More than anything, she wanted Cloud calm. He was skittish and edgy, and every time something made him jump the mako glow in his eyes got brighter for a moment. She'd seen him turn into Sephiroth right before her eyes twice today, and she didn't think she could handle it a third time.

She didn't think any of them would survive a third time.

"She's got a point, though I think I may be on your side in this one," Zack said, sloshing the contents of the bottle thoughtfully. "Doesn't mean I might not have a glass myself. My nerves could use some calming too. Gods, what a day."

"What I don't understand is, why now?" Tifa asked, standing to get glasses for herself and Zack. "Not why today, I understand that he's been wearing away at your will all this time. I mean, why now? The one thing that really made it seem like it had to be Zack was the timing. He showed up that first night you got out of the lab, that can't have been coincidence. Can it?"

"Who knows?" Zack shrugged and sighed, accepting the glasses and pouring a generous measure for both of them. "Maybe something Cloud was exposed to in the lab triggered something dormant in his mind. Maybe all the memories brought back by seeing me again opened a crack in his defences somewhere, giving Sephiroth a chance he'd been waiting for. Maybe he'd been recovering all this time from his last fight with you as Kadaj, and the timing really was a coincidence."

"Or maybe it's some kind of critical mass thing," Cloud suggested with a sense of dark amusement, glancing over at them. "Me alone wasn't enough Jenova cells to work with, and you alone wasn't either, but with both of us together so often he finally had a chance. He did say he tried to break you first."

"Could be. We may never know exactly how or why," Zack agreed. Tipping his glass back, he drained half the contents in one gulp, not taking the time to savour the rich flavour the way he should have. The burn of it going down felt good, something real and solid in the midst of all this confusion. The second sip he took was much smaller, though. He didn't really want to get drunk, not when he might have to face off against Sephiroth again at any moment. Heal materia could burn the remaining alcohol out of his system in an emergency, it was really just another kind of poison, but it wouldn't keep him from suffering the damage already done to his reflexes and coordination.

"What about Hojo's notes, what did Rufus say?" Tifa asked Cloud. "Did you actually get that far?" He'd been gone for some time before he'd suddenly staggered back into the bar and transformed into Sephiroth, but who knew what he'd been doing in the meantime?

"Rufus. Gods." Half laughing despite himself, Cloud rubbed at his face with his hands. "No wonder Elena shot at me. Given the way I was acting, I must have been channelling Sephiroth even then. Not completely, or they wouldn't have given me the time of day, but enough to scare the crap out of her. I hope I didn't hurt her too much."

"Great. Sounds like they're not likely to be inclined to cooperate with us," Tifa said, wincing at the thought of poor Elena. She had a certain sense of kinship with the blonde Turk; they were both women in a profession dominated by men, and both of them had been forced to endure the attentions of Don Corneo in the past. Shooting at Cloud when he was halfway to being Sephiroth must have taken a lot of guts; Tifa ought to know, she'd just faced the same situation herself.

"They might," Cloud replied. "Rufus did say that destroying Sephiroth permanently instead of just chasing him off again was something he wanted, too. But I don't know if they're going to have answers for us fast enough." He uncrossed his arms, and looked down at his fist. He was shaking, hard enough for the tremors to be visible even to Tifa and Zack, and he couldn't make himself stop. Whether it was fear, weariness, or just the strain of keeping control, he wasn't sure. "I don't know how long I can hold him off."

"As long as you have to," Zack said, confidence in his voice. "I have faith in you, Cloud. He seems to get triggered any time you get overly emotional, so as long as you stay calm you should be fine."

"Or until I fall asleep," Cloud retorted. "Most of the times he's appeared have been when I was sleeping, Zack! How can I fight him if I'm not even conscious? I can stay awake for a day or two, but not for long."

"True," Zack conceded, frowning. He hadn't thought of that, but it was a fact that sleepwalking was the most common method Sephiroth seemed to have for controlling Cloud. And once he was in control, Cloud might not be able to get it back again. They couldn't count on a situation like Marlene and Denzel being in danger to happen every time, nor did Zack particularly want to have to.

"I'll call Rufus," Cloud decided, reaching for his phone. "I didn't get a chance to really finish talking to him. If I make it clear enough to him how urgent this is, maybe he'll actually be helpful." He smiled sourly as it rang. "Once Sephiroth is done tormenting me by killing everyone important to me, I'm pretty sure anything and everything connected to Shinra is likely to be his next target. That ought to provide some incentive."

He didn't actually have Rufus' private phone number, didn't even know for certain if the man had such a thing. But he did have the number of someone who would be able to get Rufus on the phone.

"Talk to me, yo," Reno's voice said when the ringing stopped.

Cloud didn't bother with social preliminaries. "Put Rufus on the phone," he ordered coldly.

"Oh, shit," was Reno's apprehensive response. "Boss!" Cloud waited impatiently as there was a muffled discussion in the background, then the sound of the phone being handed off.

To his irritation it was not Rufus who spoke next, but Tseng. "That was a fairly impressive display this morning," the head of the Turks said, as calmly as if he was discussing a particularly interesting theatre performance.

"Tseng," Cloud nearly spat, bristling. "I don't have time for this. Let me talk to Rufus. You can't possibly argue that I might hurt him over the phone."

"No, and believe me I'm pleased by your consideration in calling this time instead of demolishing our door," the Turk replied dryly. "We're no longer at Healin, in case you were wondering. I've rethought the wisdom of having people aware of Rufus' location." Cloud flushed, embarrassed at the reminder of his irrational behaviour.

He hesitated, torn for a moment, but finally decided that he wanted to know. "Is Elena...?"

"She's fine," Tseng assured him, and Cloud thought the man's tone warmed a degree or two towards him for asking. "Nothing a potion or three couldn't heal, though unfortunately there's nothing we can do to help the headache from the concussion." Cloud winced, but ploughed onwards.

"Good. Now let me talk to Rufus!" he demanded, going back to his original objective now that he'd been reassured that he hadn't hurt the woman too seriously. He had nothing personal against Elena, and any damage he'd done due to Sephiroth's influence was something that would eat at him for a long time to come.

"He's unavailable, I'm afraid," Tseng said smoothly. "Anything you need to say to him can be relayed through me."

Cursing under his breath, Cloud considered his options. For all he knew Rufus really was unavailable, though he was fairly certain Tseng was just stonewalling him. He knew how stubborn the Turk could be when it came to doing his duty. Did he have the time, and more importantly the patience, to argue with the man?

"Fine," he growled, admitting defeat. "I need to know what's being done with the records I gave you. I need an answer now, not next week or even tomorrow. I'm not going to be able to hold Sephiroth off much longer." He didn't mention that the battle was internal rather than external, but after what he'd done that morning he didn't doubt that Tseng suspected the truth anyway.

"Then perhaps you should have shared the information with us back when this investigation began," Tseng replied, his tone cool again. "Even if we'd like to, and in this case we actually would, we cannot provide you answers instantaneously. The information has been sent to our most competent scientists, but they've informed us that it will take some time to sort through all of it to make any sense of it."

"Right, because Shinra and the Turks have always been so forthcoming and upfront with information to me in emergency situations," Cloud snapped back, seething. "Of course, there was that little matter of the piece of Jenova you had last time around..."

Watching the conversation, Zack had grown progressively more nervous as Cloud got more and more agitated. He could sense the struggle for control within his lover by tracking the ebb and flow of the pressure Sephiroth was exerting on him, and he didn't like what he was feeling. The headache that pressed at the back of his eyes was a warning he was learning not to ignore.

Standing, he snatched the phone abruptly out of Cloud's hand. "Here, give me that," he commanded the startled blond, resting a hand on his lover's shoulder and squeezing reassuringly. "Who is this? Tseng?"

"And you must be Zack," Tseng replied, apparently unperturbed by the sudden change in who he was talking to. "Reno and Rude mentioned your miraculous reappearance. I must say, as impressed as I was by your file when I was organizing the attempt to recapture you, your return from the dead is more impressive still."

"Yeah, thanks for that," Zack answered him dryly, his eyes flashing. If not for this man, he wouldn't have nearly died in the first place. It was the Turks who had hounded him most consistently, refusing to give up and actually acting in a coordinated manner instead of haphazardly like the troopers. That it was a trooper who had shot him in the end was a minor factor.

"Look," he growled. "I trust the Turks about as far as I can throw the lot of you, and I've got even less love for anyone whose name includes 'Shinra'. The only reason we're asking you for help at all is because you're our last option, unless we think of something brilliant in the next hour or two." Ordinarily Zack would never have even contemplated laying out his desperation like this, but they were down to the wire. It was all or nothing, and Zack would be damned if it was nothing. "Either give us what we need, or you're probably next on the list to die. It's that simple."

"Zack..." Cloud's voice was low, but it had a note of warning in it. Waving him off impatiently, Zack ignored him.

To his surprise, the regret in Tseng's voice when he spoke seemed genuine. "If I could, I would," he said. "My job is to protect Rufus at all costs, and while I'm happy to lay my life down for him if that is what is necessary, I'm under no illusions that my death would actually serve to prolong his life by more than a few minutes at most. You may not trust us, but trust me in this, Zack; we are far too aware that Cloud is our only hope against Sephiroth. If what I saw this morning means what I think it does, then I fully understand the urgency of the situation. But I cannot produce a miracle at the snap of my fingers, and neither can Rufus - much as he might wish it were so."

"Damn it," Zack swore, kicking at the nearest wall in frustration. Not hard enough to break through it, but hard enough that the boards groaned in warning, and he winced. "How long?"

"A few days at the very least," Tseng replied, his voice still just as steady as it had been at the beginning of the conversation. If the prospect of his imminent torture and death at Sephiroth's hands bothered him, it didn't show. "Quite possibly weeks. Assuming there is an answer to be found at all. Everyone involved has been given proper... incentive to work quickly, but they are only human. I'm sorry."

"Zack!" Cloud gripped his arm; Zack glanced at him and shook his head briefly, before returning his attention to the call.

"Fuck," he said succinctly and with feeling. "We don't have that much time, damn it."

"I will contact one of you the moment we have answers for you, or even a suggestion of an answer," Tseng assured him. "Until then, there's nothing further we can do for you. And I would appreciate it if all future contact is by phone rather than in person. I'm sure you understand."

With that he hung up, and Zack swore creatively and at length. His fist clenched around the phone involuntarily, and before he realized what he was doing the casing had cracked under the pressure in three different places. Quickly he eased up before it was destroyed completely, since for all he knew that phone was the only way the Turks had of reaching them.

"Zack!" Cloud fisted a hand in the front of his lover's shirt and drove the older man back against the wall, catching him completely by surprise and finally gaining the brunet's full attention. "Will you please take your own fucking advice and calm down? I'm not the only one who can trigger him by getting pissed off!"

Looking into Cloud's eyes - green, cat-pupil eyes - from inches away, Zack swallowed and took a deep breath. "Yeah. Sorry, kid," he said hoarsely, fighting his anger and frustration into submission.

Now that he wasn't focused so completely on the conversation with Tseng, he could feel the pounding headache that meant his own eyes were probably just as green, and this time his quiet curse was for himself. Of course he already knew that Sephiroth responded to his emotions as well as Cloud's, they'd proven that in Gongaga. The bastard might not be able to get past Zack's strong sense of self to take him over, but Zack was still connected to him, and through him to Cloud.

Looking around, Zack found Tifa standing warily near the door, clearly ready to bolt. "Getting ready to clear out?" he asked her wryly, not blaming her in the least.

"You both looked like you might change, for a second there," she answered guardedly, slowly relaxing as both men's eyes returned to their respective shades of blue. "I take it the news wasn't good?"

"Not exactly, no," Zack said, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. Tifa started to head back towards the table, but Zack shook his head and grabbed a startled Cloud by the wrist, hauling him towards the door. "I've got a better idea, come on."

He led his unresisting lover out into the main part of the church, Tifa following along at a cautious but curious distance. "Where are we going?" Cloud asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Right here," Zack answered, coming to a halt in the field of flowers just beside the pool of still water. Letting go of Cloud's wrist, he dropped down to sprawl out over the flowers, leaning back on his hands and turning his face up to the weak sunlight that came in through the broken roof.

"Why... oh." Cloud realized he didn't need to ask the question. He already felt a little calmer, and as he settled down beside Zack and the familiar scent of the flowers enveloped him the tense muscles in his shoulders began to relax.

"What are you two doing?" Tifa asked, standing across the pool and staring at both of them with her hands on her hips.

"It's the garden," Zack explained, opening his eyes and looking at her. "Maybe it's something inherent in this place, maybe it's something of Aerith left behind, or maybe it's just the memories we both associate with being here, but it's soothing. I think we'll do better sitting out here than in there."

"Ah." Tifa could understand that. Though the church didn't hold quite the same meaning for her that it obviously did for the two men, she'd loved the atmosphere of the garden from the moment Cloud had first shown it to her. She only wished she could have seen it when Aerith had been here, tending the flowers.

Briefly she debated going back inside to retrieve the whiskey, but finally decided against it. She sank down to sit in the flowers as well, silently apologizing for crushing them as she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. Cloud had stretched out flat on his back, his arms spread at his sides as if he was trying to present the greatest possible surface area to the garden's touch. And, she noted with a tiny pang, Zack's fingers were tangled with Cloud's, connecting the two men. She had no doubt Cloud was taking as much comfort from that touch as he was from the flowers.

Why hadn't she ever been able to do that for him? Even now she wished she could go sit on his other side and hold that hand, offering her own comfort... but the truth was, she was too afraid to get that close to him while he was this unstable. She could never be afraid of Cloud, but she was very much afraid of the madman the blond apparently carried inside him.

Afraid of him, but not to the point where she wouldn't face him down if it was necessary. She'd done it before, and unless they could find a way to solve this quickly, she might well have to do it again.

"We need to find a way to buy some time," she said, reluctant to break the almost peaceful silence that had fallen but knowing it had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. "As much as I hate to even suggest this, we could find somewhere secluded to lock Cloud up until Rufus has an answer for us? That's what I was going to propose we do with Zack this morning, Cloud, but you didn't give me a chance to finish what I was saying."

"Yeah, right," Cloud snorted, at the same moment that Zack shook his head and said, "It'll never work."

"Why not?" she wanted to know, frowning.

"We might, just barely, be able to find somewhere strong enough to contain someone with as much mako enhancement as Cloud has," Zack explained wearily. "But Sephiroth? As powerful as he is now? I doubt it."

"I don't think you really understand how strong he is," Cloud added softly, looking at her with a gaze so haunted she winced. "You were watching the last fight I had with him from the Sierra, you saw it for yourself. He was toying with me, Tifa. I won that battle out of sheer desperation. If he'd gotten serious right from the beginning, I wouldn't have had a chance. They don't build prisons to hold people that strong."

"Who said it had to be a prison?" Tifa countered. "What about the lab you found Zack in? It was miles underground. If we collapsed the entrance behind you..."

"Maybe," Zack conceded. "Though how we'd get him out of there again might be problematic. There's another issue to consider, though. If we do succeed in locking him away somewhere, Sephiroth will probably start to torture Cloud instead. I'd kind of like him to be in one piece mentally when this is over."

"You and me both," Cloud muttered, and Zack squeezed his fingers. He shuddered at the idea of being locked away, trapped in his own mind with Sephiroth for days or maybe weeks. No, there probably wouldn't be much left of him after that. He'd become a lot stronger than the weak-willed sixteen-year-old who had faced down his hero in the reactor, but he already knew that Sephiroth's ability to invade his mind was a force to be reckoned with. Even before the bastard had started using him to manifest.

"Damn, you're right," Tifa conceded defeat. She didn't particularly relish the idea of driving Cloud mad, either. She'd spent weeks sitting by him in Mideel, trying to coax him out of the comatose state he'd fallen into after travelling through the Lifestream, and she had no wish to repeat the experience. She couldn't imagine how much worse the thought must be to Zack, who had spent a year with Cloud in that state. "So what are we going to do?"

Cloud got a funny look in his eyes, and opened his mouth. "Don't even suggest it," Zack told him fiercely.

Blinking, Cloud frowned at his lover. "What?" he asked, confused. How could Zack possibly have known what he was about to say? And why the strong objection?

"Don't even think about suggesting that we kill you, or let you kill yourself," Zack clarified. "It's not an option. If you try it I won't even give Aerith a chance to kick you out this time, I will hunt you down in the Lifestream and drag you back personally, just so I can knock some sense into you. Got it?"

Despite himself, Cloud's lips twitched with something resembling a smile. "I wasn't going to suggest that," he said mildly. "Though it might have been my next idea."

"Oh." Zack deflated slightly, and gave him a sheepish look. "Well, what is it, then?"

"The crater," Cloud replied, sitting up again so he could look at both Zack and Tifa. "Maybe the answer is up there after all." He felt better, calmer, more focused than he had been since the moment he'd woken up that morning. Woken up? With a shudder, he realized he had no memory of actually getting out of bed and getting dressed, just of suddenly finding himself looking at the blood. If he'd looked back as he'd left, would he have found more bloody footprints trailing him out again? Or had the blood vanished with Sephiroth?

It didn't matter now. "You said that when we were trapped in the Lifestream in the crater, you and I and Sephiroth were all there," he continued the thought. "Because in that form we're all essentially spirits, you must have been seeing him the same way I do in my nightmares, as a separate presence rather than just something that's taken over me. If we can coax him into meeting us there again..."

"...then killing him there shouldn't affect you at all," Zack mused thoughtfully. "And might just finish him off forever. Yeah, maybe. There's just one problem; we'd have a serious time limit. You were lost almost immediately, and I don't think I lasted more than a few minutes before my sense of self started to fray as well. It won't do us much good to beat him off if we then get lost in the Lifestream. Assuming we can beat him before we get lost. All he'd have to do would be to not show up for a few minutes, then he could probably walk off with either of our bodies."

"He'll face us," Cloud said with grim certainty. "He's not just interested in finding a way to come back, he's obsessed with torturing us first. Me in particular, because I'm the one that stopped him every time. If there's one thing we can count on, it's that his need for revenge will outweigh his common sense. That's how I've managed to defeat him up until now, because he refuses to get serious right off the bat and he keeps underestimating me just a little too much."

"Wait," Tifa broke in, looking back and forth between them in confusion. "You're not seriously suggesting that you're going to go up to the North Crater and jump into the Lifestream, are you?"

"Not jump in," Cloud shook his head. "All I had to do last time was touch it. And it took me a few minutes before it pulled me under completely, remember?" he added to Zack. "I was fighting it to stay aware of my body, but if I concentrated on just holding myself together and remaining coherent instead, I bet I could stay conscious for a while. Maybe long enough to make a difference."

"You're crazy!" Tifa informed him. "Completely out of your mind! Almost as much as you will be if you actually follow through on this. Cloud, you've suffered total mako poisoning twice in your life already. You know you're susceptible to it! How could you risk exposing yourself to it again? What if you can't fight your way free of it this time?"

"Then I'll die," Cloud acknowledged grimly. "But this time Sephiroth will die with me. At least, he will if I have anything to say about it."

"If we have anything to say about it," Zack corrected him firmly. "It's the best idea I've heard yet, and I think it's pretty much our only option. If us being lost in the Lifestream is the price to beating the bastard once and for all, then I'll pay it and pay it gladly. Which does not mean I'm not going to do everything in my power to find a way back into my body once it's over, and you'd damn well better do the same!" He fixed Cloud with a stern look.

"Since I've no doubt you'd be willing to break every bone in my body if that was what it took to drag me back after you, I don't think I have a choice," Cloud replied dryly, and smiled slightly at him.

"Then I guess we'd better call Cid again, because I don't think Kinya can carry all three of us," Tifa declared. She almost laughed when they turned identical blank expressions on her.

"Three of us?" Zack repeated, clearly confused.

"Yes, three of us," Tifa agreed, her tone brooking no argument. "You don't think I'm letting you leave me out of this, do you?"

"Tifa..." Cloud started forbiddingly, his brows drawing together in a scowl, but she headed him off.

"Oh, no, don't you 'Tifa' me," she scolded him. "I am every bit as much a part of this as you two. I was there at that first fight too, remember? And I've been there at every fight since. I stopped the others from interfering in your fight with Kadaj because I knew you needed to face him, but this time it's not just about you. I may not be a SOLDIER or even as strong as one, but I can certainly give you backup. With three of us, we'll have a better chance of beating him quickly enough to make it back to our bodies."

"You'll be lost almost instantly, Tifa!" Zack protested. "You don't understand what it's like in the Lifestream, how the mako affects you..."

"Oh, no? You don't think so?" Tifa scowled at him, her eyes flashing. "Who exactly do you think it was who talked Cloud through his last bout of mako poisoning? And I don't mean by sitting at his bedside, either. I got pulled into the Lifestream in Mideel at the same time he did, when Ultima WEAPON attacked the town and blew a hole halfway to the centre of the planet. If I didn't let it tear me apart then, I'm certainly not going to let it now."

"You survived a trip through the Lifestream?" Zack exclaimed, startled. He glanced at Cloud for confirmation, and the blond nodded.

"I keep forgetting you were there," Cloud murmured. If Tifa could have thrown something at him she would have; as it was, she had to settle for glaring at him. "Hey, I was a little lost in my own head at the time, I only have vague memories of you being there at all," he protested his innocence. "I don't remember most of what actually happened in there, just that the result was that I had a lot more of my real memories when I woke up."

"Damn." Zack looked at Tifa with new respect. "You'd have made a hell of a SOLDIER, Tifa. If you could hold yourself together through something like that, you'd have gone all the way to 1st Class, no question."

She flushed, pleased by the compliment, even though she had less than no desire to have ever gone through the process that turned someone into a SOLDIER. She did just fine without the super strength and inhuman reflexes, thank you. And didn't break something on a weekly basis, either.

That reminded Cloud of something else he'd meant to ask, though. "Zack?" he said, hating himself for sounding so uncertain. "What Sephiroth said, about why I failed to make SOLDIER. Was it true?"

Zack debated for a moment, trying to decide what to tell him, and finally decided that at this point anything less than absolute truth between them would probably be more damaging than helpful. "Yeah, it's true," he admitted. "The exams for SOLDIER were only so difficult so that nobody would try for it on a whim. Shinra wanted to know the candidates were serious about wanting to be part of the program. The actual results didn't matter. The real test was the 'physical examination' they gave you all before you even got into the exam."

"The physical? Why?" Cloud asked, confused. He tried to remember. Had it been any different from every other physical he'd ever had during his time as a trooper?

"That's why they insisted on it being done by Shinra physicians even if the candidate was a civilian," Zack nodded. "They knocked you out and injected a small amount of mako, to see how your body handled it. I've never seen your results personally, mind, but I didn't need to. You either make SOLDIER, or you don't. You must have been one of the ones whose mind was too sensitive to the mako; the full dose would have caused you to get lost under the strain. Hades, Cloud, you've been through it, you know what it's like. The vast majority of people wouldn't be able to stand up to the influence of that much mako."

"But then why?" Cloud burst out, frowning at his lover. "Why did you always encourage me? If I was going to wash out no matter what..."

"Because it isn't 'no matter what'," Zack interrupted him. "It's an issue of how strong your sense of self-integrity is, Cloud. How much will you have, how well you cling to your perception of yourself. That's something that can be built up over time. You have the strength of will, you proved that even back then as a trooper. If I could've ever gotten you to the point where you had a decent amount of self-respect as well, I'd have recommended you for re-examination in a heartbeat."

"Oh." Cloud absorbed that, feeling stunned. "I... oh." He honestly wasn't sure whether that made him feel better, or worse. It was his low self-esteem that had kept him out of SOLDIER? And then failing to make SOLDIER had been such a massive blow to his self-esteem... it was a perpetuating cycle. He would never have managed to break it, except possibly with Zack's help. No wonder his friend had always pushed him so hard to think better of himself.

"Yeah," Zack agreed with his mostly nonverbal response, squeezing his fingers again before he released Cloud's hand to clap the younger man on the shoulder. "So. Let's get to the North Crater before you start getting sleepy, shall we? The sooner we deal with this, the better."

Cloud frowned at Tifa, reminded of what had started the whole conversation in the first place, but she just looked stubbornly back at him. He knew that look; she wasn't going to budge an inch.

Had he ever actually managed to win an argument with her? He couldn't remember it, if so.

"What about the kids?" he made one last try. "If you come in there with us, chances are good you're going to die with us too. Determination is one thing, but there's such a thing as being realistic. Who would take care of them with both of us gone?"

"Cid's, er, not-wife, Sierra," Tifa replied promptly, grinning wryly. "The thought of Cid as a father-figure is somewhat daunting, but she'll make a good mother. Maybe better than I have. I made the arrangement with her years ago, when I first took the kids in. There was no way I was going to leave them helpless if something happened to me."

Well, that cut that argument off cleanly at the knees, Cloud admitted. He couldn't think of any other objections that wouldn't get him punched by Tifa for 'trying to coddle her', and her punches hurt, even for someone who was SOLDIER-tough. "Fine," he gave in gracelessly. "I still think you're crazy."

"No crazier than we are," Zack said, forcibly regaining some of his usual good cheer. He'd discovered long ago that battles tended to go better if you went into them with a positive attitude, and he'd be damned if he'd go into this fight at any kind of disadvantage he could prevent. He stood and offered a hand up to Cloud, smiling across the pool at Tifa. "Let's go clobber the bastard once and for all. I think we've all got a few choice things to say to him."

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