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 6

"So what are you going to do now?" Tifa asked as they sat around toying with the last of the sandwiches. Cloud and Zack had eaten their fill, teasing each other the whole while. She was still feeling a little bemused about this side of Cloud that she'd never seen or known existed, but once she'd gotten over the initial shock she'd started to enjoy watching him trying not to smile. Thankfully he failed more often than he succeeded. He really was beautiful when he smiled.

"Now in the next ten minutes, ten days, or ten months?" Zack replied, arching an eyebrow. "Honestly, the answer to all three is 'I don't know'. When we were on the run towards Midgar I had a half-cocked notion of setting myself up as a sort of mercenary, but..."

"You could always come work for me," Cloud told him, another small smile playing over his lips. "I think I'd like being the superior for a change. I'm running a delivery service. There are still a lot of monsters out there, and with the lack of available power there isn't much travel or communication going on between cities."

"So, basically you go out racing around on your bike and fighting monsters, and not only do you get whatever the monster hides and the like are worth, you also get paid?" Zack asked, and Cloud nodded. A mischievous smile spread over the older man's face. "Sounds like a sweet deal to me! I'm in. I'll even call you 'sir' if you like."

Snickering, Cloud covered it with one hand. "I'll think about it," he said when he'd recovered. "The idea does have a certain appeal."

"You'll have to start answering your phone if you want to make enough to pay two of you," Tifa reminded Cloud, nudging his shin with one foot. "Where are you going to live, Zack? Most places aren't as badly damaged as Edge. Will you go home to Gongaga?"

"Home? Home is Midgar," Zack shook his head. "Gongaga is where I grew up. I'm staying right here, this is where everything that matters to me is." He glanced briefly at Cloud, and smiled. "I'll figure something out. I noticed they're still working on housing. Do they have shelters set up somewhere for those of us without anything?"

"You're not going to the shelters!" Tifa exclaimed, frowning at him. "As if I'd let you go off when we've got space here." She hadn't missed the faintly panicked look in Cloud's eyes when she'd asked if Zack would go back to Gongaga, either. Really, she couldn't blame him. He finally had his friend back, of course he wouldn't want to be separated.

"You might have to bed down on a pallet on the floor," she continued doggedly, "but there is space. It will do at least until you can find somewhere else."

"We could fix up the church?" Cloud offered hesitantly, not sure if the suggestion would be taken as sacrilege. "It's big enough. We could section off one of the parts the garden doesn't occupy and turn it into a couple of rooms. If I asked Reeve to help we could probably even manage some sort of water system, though I wouldn't drink anything that came out of that sector."

"That's a great idea!" Zack lit up, his eyes gleaming more from excitement than mako. He couldn't think of a better place to live than near the garden that had been such an important part of the happiest time in his life. Really, it was so obvious he was amazed he'd even needed to think about it. Of course the church would be 'home'. It practically had been, anyway.

"We can clear out the debris, and use the rest of the free space as a practice area," he continued, gesturing widely as his enthusiasm flared. "And as a place to put together that bike you promised me," he added with a grin to Cloud. "Until then I guess I'll just have to keep riding with you, or borrow someone else's. Or catch a chocobo somewhere, maybe." He laughed. "Hades, we could even stable it in the garden - though if Aerith's spirit really is still hanging around there, she might not appreciate having her flowers munched on. At least we can be sure she won't mind us living there."

"Us?" Cloud repeated, his eyes snapping up from his intense contemplation of his sandwich remains, at the same time Tifa exclaimed, "Both of you?"

Cloud had been struggling to resign himself to the idea of Zack living somewhere away from him, reminding himself that it wasn't like the church was that far from the bar. And they'd be seeing each other practically every day, probably. More if they worked together. But it still hadn't been long enough that he could be comfortable with the idea of letting Zack out of his sight for hours, days at a time.

It had never even occurred to him that Zack would want to live with him. The fact that the older man had just casually assumed they would be staying together made something warm and tight form in his chest.

"Er." Zack glanced back and forth between Cloud's dumbfounded look and Tifa's dismayed one. "Um. Right, I guess you already live here, don't you?" he realized sheepishly. Of course Cloud already had a place to live. It was seeing the spare stuff the blond kept at the church that made him forget. That, and the desire to keep his friend close to him.

Looking at them both, Tifa swallowed. It was so glaringly obvious that neither of them wanted to be separated that they might as well have hung out a neon sign. "It's not like he doesn't sleep there more than here half the time," she made herself say, rolling her eyes, and was glad that her tone came out exasperated rather than hurt. "You might as well make it official. Maybe I can get you to visit more often than I could get you to come home!"

Stricken, Cloud winced. "Tifa..." he started awkwardly, then stopped because he didn't know what to say. He had to say something, though. "I don't... it's not..."

"Stop," she said, and put a finger firmly over his mouth to hush him. Her smile was wry, but her eyes were sad. "Cloud, it's okay, really. I know you've been struggling with a lot of things, and I know you're doing your best. Maybe we need to take a step back before we can go forward again." She'd been thinking something like that for a while now, actually, but hadn't wanted to suggest it for fear that Cloud would take it as some kind of rejection. The last thing she'd wanted was him thinking she was hinting that she didn't want him around!

But if he wasn't feeling so pressured to come 'home' and play whatever role it was he thought they expected of him - provider, protector, even father-figure to the kids - then maybe he really would come back more often. She knew he loved them, all three of them, but sometimes when he looked at them she'd seen fear in his eyes. Fear that he would fail them, or fear that he couldn't be what they needed, she wasn't sure.

If being with Zack could make Cloud relax like this, then eventually if she was lucky he might relax enough to realize that they just wanted him there with them, regardless of any role he might or might not play.

"Maybe," Cloud acknowledged, ducking his head both to get out from under Tifa's finger and to avoid looking her in the eyes. "I just..."

Feeling awkwardly like he was in the middle of something private, Zack leaned back in his chair and stayed out of it. Cloud had been a little vague on exactly what the status of his relationship with Tifa was; more than friendship but still less than lovers was the vibe Zack was getting, but he could be wrong. Whatever it was, his presence had obviously just thrown a monkey-wrench into the works.

"As long as you realize you're always welcome here," Tifa told him, and glanced at Zack with another smile that reached her eyes a little better than the last had. "Both of you. In fact, Cloud, you'd better be showing up on a regular basis, or Marlene and Denzel are going to do something drastic!"

Chuckling softly, Zack grinned back at her. "Well, we can't have that. Far be it from me to deny the wishes of a cute little girl like Marlene. I'll just have to make sure he doesn't have any excuses. With two of us on the job, he can't claim work is interfering! And I'll see that his phone stays on."

"Zack!" Cloud looked put-out, but he couldn't exactly object. It was true, he did tend to use work as an excuse. He felt guilty every time he did it, but the guilt hadn't stopped him.

Zack never had tolerated him running and hiding, though. He had no doubts the older man would make good on his promise to ensure Cloud visited regularly.

"Well, that settles that, then," Tifa declared. To her own surprise, she felt more pragmatic than hurt about the whole thing. It really wasn't as if they would be seeing any less of Cloud. And if it helped, so much the better.

Maybe it was just that it was difficult to be upset about anything when Zack was grinning at her with the unrestrained enthusiasm of a little kid, his smile inviting her to share in his happiness. It was a trait he shared with Aerith, though the half-Cetra had been sweet about it rather than gleeful. Small wonder the former SOLDIER was so good at getting Cloud to come out of his shell.

"I will take you up on the offer of floor space while we get the church ready, though," Zack declared. "And I'll earn my keep, too. I don't know much about bartending, but I can wash dishes with the best of them!"

"Good!" Tifa smiled back at him. "You can start right now, then. Cloud, you show him where everything is, and I'll go find some extra blankets and pillows. You want me to put them in your office?"

"If you can find room," Cloud agreed, nodding. He'd set up a cot in the tiny room that had served as his 'office' while he'd been living with Tifa, and had been sleeping there since the geostigma had been cured. He hadn't quite wanted to jump right back into his previous living arrangements with Tifa, worried that sharing a room with her would only emphasize the fact that he wasn't yet ready to go to the next step in their relationship.

There wasn't really enough room for one bed in there, let alone two, but they would manage somehow. They were used to sharing tight quarters; the tents Shinra issued for field missions were pathetically small. Of course, he'd been a scrawny little runt back then, which had made it easier.

Cloud helped Zack carry the sandwich plates back into the kitchen. There was already a small stack of unwashed glasses and the like piled by the sink, even though the bar hadn't been open that long before Tifa had kicked everyone out. Without asking Zack started running the sink and putting the mugs and glasses in, and Cloud pointed at the dish soap and cloth before picking up a drying rag. At least the water in this sector no longer stank or ran brown, though he still wouldn't drink it without boiling it first.

"I'm sorry if I caused problems back there," Zack apologized as he started washing the first of the dishes. "I didn't mean to come between you and your girl, I just wasn't thinking. You don't have to live with me, you know." He smiled ruefully. "I'm a big boy, I can live on my own, honest. Once we get this reluctance to be apart out of our systems, anyway."

Flushing, Cloud ducked his head and grabbed the glass Zack handed him to dry. "Tifa... it's not... it's more complicated than that," he finally managed to get out. "We're still trying to figure out where we stand, and how things are going to work. She might be right, and some distance will be good for us. Give us a chance to take things slow instead of rushing in too fast this time."

And he really needed to figure out what he was going to do about this newly remembered attraction to Zack, and how that would affect his feelings for Tifa, Cloud thought to himself with a grimace. To say that it complicated matters was an understatement.

Glancing over, Zack saw the grimace and offered a sympathetic smile in return. "It's always complicated," he said. "Granted I think your entire life comes under the heading of 'Pretty Damn Complicated', but still. If a relationship is easy, then either it's not serious or you're just not paying attention."

"You and Aerith had it easy," Cloud retorted, rolling his eyes and trying not to look wistful. "I may still be missing a lot of memories, but I remember that much. You were like, the perfect couple. I always envied you."

"You think?" Zack raised an eyebrow at him. "Her mother hated Shinra and everything to do with it. She was in hiding from Hojo and the Turks, and just being connected to a SOLDIER was dangerous for her. We almost never got to see each other, I was always off on missions. And Aerith may have been the sweetest and most forgiving person on the face of the planet, but she was neither perfect nor a pushover. We argued sometimes."

"You guys fought?" Cloud blinked, shocked at the very idea. Oh, he knew Aerith could be stubborn in her own way, but he couldn't imagine actually fighting with her. And Zack was just about the most easy-going person he'd ever known.

"Sure, once in a while," Zack shrugged. "We made up fast, and they were never big fights, but it wasn't a perfect relationship, Cloud. So don't worry too much if things aren't always smooth with Tifa, okay? You both care about each other, and you're still trying to make it work, and trying is about ninety-percent of any good relationship."

Deciding it would just be best not to mention the new complications, like Zack himself, Cloud just nodded. Maybe his friend was right, and things would work out eventually as long as they didn't give up. If even Zack and Aerith had faced problems, then there might be hope for Cloud and Tifa yet.

The world was awash in shades of green, and all other colours had vanished. It would actually have been better if it had all been black and white; somehow having everything entirely one colour was worse than a simple lack of colour.

He knew this particular green, was far more familiar with it than he'd ever wanted to be. Mako surrounded him, pressing against him and flooding his vision. He was immersed in it; more solid than a gas, less tangible than a true liquid, he could feel it against his skin all over his body.

Besides the monochrome quality, the image before him was further warped by the curve of glass between him and it. The tank wall was thick enough to cause a significant distortion when you were looking out from the inside. Like the colour, it was a phenomenon he was so used to he hardly even noticed the extra effort it took to make out what was on the other side.

A desk, books, and lots of computer controls. There could be no mistaking it; he was back in the lab where he'd spent so many years as a helpless captive. He struggled to fight free of the clinging liquid, to scream a denial, but the mako swallowed his cries and made movement as difficult as wading through molasses. He couldn't pound on the glass to try to break it, unable to get any force behind the blows. Searching for a weakness, his fingers found traces of scratches in the glass, messages passed back and forth during the time when they'd still had the strength and focus for such things.

This was the Shinra mansion, then. From what he could see, it had not changed at all. Did that mean he was dreaming?

Or, horrible thought, did that mean everything else had been a dream? The escape, the year spent on the run, the events on the cliff, even the second lab... it wasn't impossible. Mako could play strange tricks on a man's mind, and he'd been exposed to it long enough to drive anyone else mad. Maybe long enough to drive even him mad.

No, he couldn't let himself think that way. Down that road lay true madness. This was a dream, a nightmare, though an oddly lucid one. All he had to do was wake up.

Easier said than done, unfortunately. He tried hurting himself, tried closing his eyes and focusing hard on reality, tried everything he could think of, and it made no difference. Still he remained trapped in the world of green behind the glass.

Something moved just beyond his line of sight, and he tensed. It would be Hojo, or one of the lab technicians. That was okay, it was still just part of the dream. As bad as the nightmares could get, they couldn't really hurt him, because he wasn't really here.

Right?

To his shock and alarm, however, it wasn't Hojo or a tech that moved into his vision. Even through the distortion of green liquid and glass he would know that sweeping silver hair anywhere, and the glow of the man's green eyes seemed to outshine even the green of the mako. Sephiroth stood before him, studying him as if he was a bug under glass.

"Still you resist," the former general murmured. The glass and liquid should have distorted his words, but they seemed to echo directly in the mind, inescapable and inexorable. "Your spirit is admirable, but ultimately futile. I will consume you in the end, and then I will destroy the rest of the world in punishment for the sins of humanity. And this time you will be the instrument of its destruction." Sephiroth smiled - smirked, rather, a condescending expression that made it easier not to think of this as the same man he'd once admired so much.

"But do keep fighting," the silver-haired man encouraged him. "It is most amusing. All you are truly succeeding in doing is wearing yourself down. In the meantime, I will be desecrating and destroying everything you hold dear. Perhaps I'll even allow you to watch, once I have you appropriately cowed."

Wildly he thrashed, struggling against the resistance of the mako to try to break through the glass and get at the man on the other side. Sephiroth laughed at him, a horrible twisted sound that made him want to stop fighting so he could cover his ears and hide from it. But even that wouldn't help, not when the man's voice was in his head like this.

Thumping and scraping his fists against the tank wall, he choked on his own scream of defiance and denial. He would not let Sephiroth destroy everything. He would not let himself be used in the process. He would not allow it.

The effort was futile, as they both had known it would be. The tanks were designed to withstand attempts at escape made by creatures even stronger than a SOLDIER 1st Class, and he had no hope of breaking free by sheer brute strength. Cunning wouldn't work either, not with Sephiroth standing right there watching him.

Still, he couldn't make himself stop trying. He battered at the glass, shouting denials in his mind because he couldn't shout them out loud, and all the while Sephiroth kept laughing.

"You're mine," the former general told him, his eyes glowing with victory and power. "I will never let you go, and you will never escape me. You may slip free briefly for a while, but you will always end up right back here."

The worst part was that there was no insanity in his slit-pupil eyes, or at least not the sort that caused people to be locked away for safety. Sephiroth looked perfectly sane and rational, as if he was holding a pleasant conversation with a friend. Yet it was that very appearance of sanity that made him so utterly bone-chilling in his madness.

"Now, be good," Sephiroth commanded him with another patronizing smirk. "I have things to do. There is so much lost time to make up for, and I can't have you interfering." Turning, the man walked away, his silver hair swaying behind him like a living cloak, reflecting firelight that wasn't there.

Gathering himself, he made one last massive effort to be free of his green prison, throwing his whole body at the glass. He must... get... free...

With a gasp that nearly choked him, Zack startled himself violently awake. The haze of green overlaying everything was gone, leaving behind true darkness, but his movements were still hampered by something. With a strangled yell he thrashed his way free of the restraints, panicked by the remnants of his nightmare, and found that the only things hindering him had been his blankets.

Cool night air poured in through the window; Cloud must have opened it at some point, because Zack was fairly certain it had been closed when they'd gone to bed. He was grateful for the shock of it, his breath sobbing in his throat as he all but threw himself out of his nest of blankets and staggered over to look outside.

Edge was mostly quiet in the small hours of the night, unlike the underside of Midgar. But there was enough activity that Zack could see lights and hear noise in the distance, and slowly his racing heart calmed as he reassured himself that everything was as he remembered it. Only a dream, then. Another nightmare, one among the many that would surely plague him for the rest of his life.

Sighing, he turned and saw Cloud draped over his narrow cot, his blankets much neater than Zack's. Not surprising, really; Cloud had always been a less restless sleeper than Zack. Looking closer, though, Zack winced when he saw the deep furrow in the younger man's brow and the way his visible hand was clenched into a fist around the sheet. At first glance Cloud's sleep looked peaceful, but obviously it was anything but.

Figuring his friend's nightmare probably wasn't any more enjoyable than his own had been, Zack moved forward and cautiously leaned over the blond. "Hey, wake up," he called softly, reaching out to touch Cloud lightly on one shoulder. "It's okay, it's just a dream..."

With a cry Cloud flailed out at him, and only Zack's quick reflexes kept him from getting a fist in the face. In the next moment Zack had his hand clamped over the blond's mouth, muffling his continued shouting. "Cloud! Hey, it's me! It's Zack, calm down!" Zack implored him. He didn't dare move his hand, or the whole house would be woken by the noise. "C'mon, kid, wake up!"

Something about his words or voice made it through the haze of sleep; slowly Cloud stopped struggling, looking up at Zack with dazed eyes. When he hadn't made any noise in at least ten seconds, Zack cautiously eased his hand away. "Zack?" Cloud murmured, sounding just as confused as he looked. "What... where... I thought..."

"It was just a dream," Zack assured him, moving now to stroke his hand through Cloud's mussed spikes. Not ruffling his hair, but almost petting him. "I had a nightmare and I got up to get some air at the window, then I saw you were dreaming too and it didn't look pleasant."

"It wasn't." Cloud grimaced, and shoved any and all thoughts of his dreams away from his conscious mind. "Thanks for waking me. I didn't hurt you, did I?" Zack's hand in his hair felt good; better than he should have let it, probably. It was all he could do not to tilt his head to encourage more, but he felt enough like a little kid seeking reassurance as it was.

"Nah, no worries," Zack shook his head. "I got out of the way fast enough, and I kept you from making too much noise."

"Thanks," Cloud said gratefully. He pushed himself upright, letting the sheets fall away from him. He was in his boxers again; he kept a pair of sleep pants at Tifa's, but he'd given them to Zack since the older man still didn't have anything of the sort to wear in bed. Now he was glad for his generosity, because if Zack had been naked Cloud thought he'd probably have ended up doing something to embarrass himself. Having him half naked was bad enough.

Perching himself on the edge of the bed, Zack faced him. "Dunno about you, but I doubt I'll be getting back to sleep any time soon," he told Cloud with a sigh. "What do you usually do when you're up at night? Go work yourself to exhaustion somewhere?"

"If I'm in the church or on the road, yeah," Cloud sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Here, I mostly just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Tifa worries if she hears me leave, and I swear Marlene has some kind of supernatural sense for when I might be sneaking out on her."

"Ah, well." Zack chuckled softly. "At least now we can lie in bed and stare at the ceiling together. Misery loves company, and all that. Shove over."

"What?" Certain he'd misheard, or at least misunderstood his friend's meaning, Cloud stared at him. Zack made a shooing motion towards the wall, and Cloud eyed him in disbelief. "Zack, we've got about as much chance of both fitting in this cot as a snowball has against Ifrit's flame." Even if he'd been as small as he was when he'd been a trooper, they couldn't have managed it. He barely fit on the damn thing all by himself!

"Oh, ye of little faith," Zack teased him, grinning. "Shove over, I'm serious. I want the company. We may not be able to get back to sleep, but we can at least stop ourselves from getting tension headaches."

In the end they had to fold the cot up and shove it in a corner, setting Cloud's blankets on the floor next to Zack's and making a 'double bed' that way. It took them a few awkward moments before they got themselves sorted out, but they eventually settled on their sides facing each other with Zack's arm extended beneath Cloud's pillow and the blond's head tucked against Zack's shoulder.

"Why does this feel so familiar?" Cloud wondered, grateful for the dim light that masked his blush. He was sure he'd never been in this position with Zack before, and his imagination was on overdrive from the older man's proximity. Why had this seemed like a good idea when Zack had suggested it?

Wait, it hadn't. Well, that was fairly typical of things Zack suggested - Cloud would object and then find himself going along with it anyway, not quite certain how or when he'd ended up agreeing.

"Because we slept like this for almost a year," Zack replied, his voice warm and intimate in the close darkness. "I'm not surprised you don't remember, though. You were only rarely aware enough to realize I was there."

"During the escape," Cloud realized, and nodded. Then he winced. Had he been snuggling up to Zack in his delirium? He wouldn't put it past himself. It could have been an instinctive attempt to seek out comfort, but still. He would never live down the humiliation!

He wasn't even sure how to ask without embarrassing himself further. "Ah... how did we end up like this, though?" he asked cautiously. Zack shrugged, making his arm shift under Cloud.

"I wanted to keep you close enough to be sure you wouldn't wander off if you woke up in one of your semi-lucid phases," the ex-SOLDIER explained. "And just to reassure myself, I guess. Having you right there with me meant I remembered the situation right away when I woke from a nightmare."

Not his fault, then. Cloud relaxed and tried not to sigh too obviously in relief. "I'm... glad I could do something for you, then," he said softly. "Since I wasn't much use any other way."

"Don't say that. Don't ever say that!" The fervour in Zack's voice surprised Cloud, and he thought it surprised Zack a little as well. Cloud looked up to find Zack's indigo eyes glowing at him fiercely from inches away. "Don't you realize how having you there kept me going?" the older man continued in a slightly less intense tone. "It gave me a purpose, something to focus on. I couldn't give up, because that would mean leaving you to suffer. There's a reason I stopped fighting when they told me you were dead, Cloud. Don't ever think you did nothing to help on that trip from hell."

Flushed, and feeling both pleased and chastised, Cloud nodded and edged himself marginally closer. He could feel Zack's body heat across the small space between them, and it was soothing to know his friend was so close. Closing his eyes, he breathed in Zack's scent and gave himself permission to enjoy the proximity for just a few minutes. It wouldn't hurt anything, and Zack was the one who had initiated it; he could feel the older man relaxing against him slowly, soothed by his presence. Zack was right; if they were going to lie awake all night, they might as well do it in such a way that was a little more relaxing. Just for a few minutes...

Zack smiled to himself as he heard Cloud's breathing even out into sleep, and the blond tucked himself a little closer with a soft murmur. He'd missed this closeness, he recognized. It was a habit formed from necessity, but it was still nice. Not to mention it was about a hundred times more pleasant when Cloud was actually shifting and making tiny noises in his sleep, as opposed to lying unnaturally still and quiet in Zack's arms. Pity he probably wouldn't be able to get away with this often, at least not without taking unfair advantage of Cloud's crush on him, because it really was nice.

To his own surprise, Zack caught himself yawning and realized he was drifting off again as well. He'd honestly expected not to be able to sleep, but having Cloud against him seemed to have chased off the worst of the reaction from the night terrors. Shifting, Zack angled his head so his cheek was pillowed on Cloud's hair, and closed his eyes. Maybe, just maybe, they'd both be able to get a few hours of unbroken sleep this way.

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