Chapter Text
Fenrir glided along the abandoned streets, its guttural purr bouncing off concrete slabs and the sides of derelict buildings. Early morning mist formed banks of fog along the cracked road, and the black motorcycle cut through them, leaving a billowing, swirling trail in its wake. Above the ruined city, the last stars glinted in the purple predawn light.
Denzel huddled closer against Cloud’s back, hiding from the morning chill. Cloud let one of his hands fall from Fenrir’s handlebar, wrapping it over one of the smaller ones clinging to him. It reminded him of finding the boy and bringing him home to Seventh Heaven. Back then, Denzel’s hands had shook from fever and weakness. The tremor in his small fingers now was only from windchill.
He felt kind of bad getting the boy up so early, but the church would have its first visitors by mid-morning, and he didn’t want to deal with them. Strangers who thought they knew him from his involvement with AVALANCHE, the WRO, and his fights against Sephiroth. Or, worse, saw him as a SOLDIER and a remnant of Shinra.
He didn’t resent the pilgrims for wanting to come to the wellspring at Aerith’s church. Old, ill, broken, and hopeful, they came from all over Gaia to find peace and healing here. Just like he had. He couldn’t begrudge them that, even if it meant sharing his sanctuary.
He brought Fenrir to a stop several yards from the crumbling stone building’s wooden doors. Behind him, Denzel perked up and slid from the bike. The morning cold hit Cloud’s back and he held back a shiver as he pressed the release for the bike’s side compartments, unfolding them like wings.
The six blades inside went into the harness on his back, and he pulled out a satchel full of empty glass vials that clinked together delicately as he lifted the bag’s strap over his head, arranging it so it didn’t bother his neck. The sound of hands rubbing fiercely together caused him to look over at Denzel, who was blowing warm air into his cupped hands as he waited for Cloud at the top of the steps.
His lips twitched into the faintest of fond smiles. “You could have stayed home and waited for me to get back.”
Denzel shook his head obstinately, his mop of brown hair swishing with the motion. “You promised I could spend the whole day with you.”
“Guess I did.” He joined the boy at the doors. “I’m gonna leave you here for a little while though. Reeve asked me to clear out some monsters that are rumored to be in the area.” Likely, the creatures had been drawn in by the number of old and ill who came to the church.
Denzel looked up at him with a mixture of disappointment and awe. From anyone else, it would make him uncomfortable. Still did, with Denzel, but to a lesser degree.
“Are you going to be gone long?”
Cloud shook his head as he pushed open the heavy doors. “Shouldn’t take too long, just a sweep of the area. An hour, maybe.”
A grin spread across Denzel’s face. “Alright,” he beamed before running down the aisle to the pool of clear water at the far end.
Still on the threshold, Cloud murmured, “Hey, Aerith. Just stopping by to pick up some water. Tifa says hi.” He paused before adding, “Maybe you already know, but Marlene’s started a garden on the bar’s roof. It’s winter, so she’s growing pansies, cy~la~men or something like that, and cabbage and carrots. She wanted to grow camellias and winter squash too, but we don’t have the room. Barret’s going to head out to Cosmo Canyon next week, wants to talk about windmills. We’re thinking about taking the kids and visiting Nanaki while he’s there. So… yeah, that’s how we’re doing right now.”
His mouth felt hollow. There were always so many more things he wanted to say, but finding the right words had never been easy for him. With a sigh, he gave a small nod. She would understand.
His soft footsteps on the wooden floor made a steady beat. The sweet, familiar scent from the yellow and white lilies that grew around the spring’s edges filled his head and lungs, settling around him like a cloak, seeping into his skin and bones. Denzel was crouched in front of the water, one arm wrapped around his knees, the other pushing a fallen petal around on the water’s surface. The small wake it left behind sent ripples dancing over the spring.
He knelt beside him, mindful of the flowers. Noticing Denzel’s arms had goosebumps, he asked, “Still cold?”
“A little. The water’s cold.”
He eyed Denzel’s short sleeved hoodie. “I told you to bring a heavier jacket.” He’d even put on his own leather jacket, hoping the kid would follow his example. He hadn’t. Cloud rolled his eyes and unzipped the jacket, holding it out. “Here.”
Denzel’s eyes widened. “But what about you?”
Cloud shrugged. Midgar’s winters had nothing on Nibelheim’s or the North Continent’s. “Roll up the sleeves so they don’t get wet.”
He helped roll the sleeves up over Denzel’s wrists - Cloud wasn’t a big person, but Denzel was small for a nine-year-old. He was almost swimming in the jacket. Cloud shook his head with a silent chuckle as he reached into his satchel and pulled out two vials.
“Ready to help?” he asked, passing over one of the empty bottles.
“Yeah.” Denzel pulled out the stopper and dipped the glass into the water. It bubbled as water rushed in and air was forced out.
Cloud filled his own, capped it and set it to the side, then pulled out another two. Together they filled around thirty of the finger-sized vials with the healing water before putting them back into the bag.
As Cloud slipped the satchel back over his head, Denzel asked, “Do you still find people with the stigma?”
“Sometimes.” It was rare these days, and he was mainly giving out the spring water as a replacement for potions, rather than as an antidote to geostigma. Cheap, mass-produced potions had been easy to find a few years ago, churned out by Shinra, but the WRO’s replacement, though more effective, was also harder to come by. They had fewer factories, and scammers and hoarders soaked up a good deal of the released products, despite Reeve’s efforts combating them. Cloud didn’t charge for the water he handed out. It was free to whoever needed it, and as effective as a mega-potion.
“I’m going to put these in Fenrir, then look around. I’ll be back in an hour or so.” He said that, but didn’t leave the church immediately. A bad habit, Tifa said, of just wandering around an area, exploring, before going and doing what he needed to. It was a hard habit to kick when half the time he was rewarded with some overlooked treasure - a potion or two, equipment, a materia.
Denzel wandered around the church with him, finding a white dove feather and a lost doll. They placed it on one of the benches, in case its owner came back for it. Cloud found a phoenix down snagged in the broken colored glass of a window, and a blue whistlewind scarf forgotten in the corner.
“Denzel.” He waved the boy over to join him near the Buster Sword, set as a monument beside the pool.
“What?”
Without saying anything, he wrapped the scarf around Denzel’s neck, just like his mother used to do with him. And like he used to, Denzel pulled away, tugging on the scarf. Stepping back, Denzel slipped on the uneven stones, slick with morning dew. Cloud reached out to catch him, got one hand wrapped around a thin arm. His arm was nearly pulled out of his socket at the unexpected weight.
Denzel was heavier than any formerly malnourished nine-year-old should be. Energy crackled in the air around them. Goosebumps that weren’t from the cold crawled over Cloud. He threw his free hand back, catching hold of the Buster Sword’s hilt, trying to arrest their fall. The blade came loose from the stone and they were both pulled into the water.
Looking over his shoulder, through a haze of blurry blue, the world seemed to stutter, pause, and fall away. Split. Above him, he could see an image of himself pulling Denzel to his chest, back from the water’s edge.
The image faded, telescoping away as dark clouds and lightning formed a tunnel. A tunnel he and Denzel were free-falling through, down, back, to some destination he didn’t know. Frantic, he slipped the Buster Sword into his harness and pulled Denzel to him, holding the boy firm so they wouldn’t get split up. Denzel’s hands clutched at the wool of Cloud’s zipped turtleneck.
In the lightning, images flashed by. His fight with Sephiroth atop the ruined Shinra tower; fighting the Remnants; the first time he saw geostigma’s gray infection crawling across his skin. There were other images, too: running at Bahamut bare handed; sitting in the back of a truck with a bunch of kids; Tifa’s kind eyes as she pressed a damp cloth to his forehead. Not Cloud’s memories. Denzel’s.
Bringing Denzel to Seventh Heaven. Gaskin’s death, Cloud running his first delivery, designing Fenrir. Holding up a wood-framed wall as they built the bar, pulling a dented but still-sealed tin of soup out of the city ruins, helping an old man up the ramp to his new apartment in Edge. Ruvie’s death, Meteor and Holy, the northern crater. All of it, triumphs and failures, happinesses and sorrows. But it was all wrong, like he was watching through a screen or someone else’s eyes, instead of through his own. The memories started and extended past what he knew.
Ill at the Mideel clinic with Tifa beside him, Aerith’s body sinking under the blue water, Cait Sith alone in the temple just after they left, Aerith trapped in the science department with Hojo leering at her through the glass. White-knuckled watching a tv report of the Sector 07 pillar collapsing, the Sector 07 pillar collapsing under his feet. Tifa leaning over him at the train station, Zack on the cliff in the wastes reaching a torn and blood-stained glove to the sky… He looked, from this uncanny angle, like he was reaching out to Cloud. On pure instinct, Cloud reached back… and his hand caught Zack’s.
Zack was yanked out from the image, falling with them down the stormy tunnel. Frozen and unable to process, Cloud stared at him. He’d been awake in the image, smiling with what had looked like relief, but here - It was Zack, passed out, eyes bruised, mouth slack, blood from his wounds streaming behind them like macabre ribbons.
“Cloud!?” Denzel’s voice was a shout of alarm as he looked back and forth between Cloud and the man he’d pulled from thin air.
More memories, more visions, flashing by. Cloud didn’t look. They needed out now. He pulled Zack close, shifting so he could hold both of them in one arm. Denzel grunted as he was squished. With his free hand, Cloud unslung First Tsurugi, his base blade. He focused, channeling his energy down the long blade as it opened into its wider battle form. Energy like blue fire licked along the blade and he swung it, slicing through the dark clouds and lightning, forcing them to part. Light flared from the gash as they fell through it. The heavy pull of magic vanished, leaving behind the more familiar but no less dangerous pull of gravity.
Cloud twisted his body so he wasn’t falling head first and frantically pulled swords from his back, flinging them away as a silver rain on the rapidly approaching scrubland. He wasn’t going to land nicely, the last thing he needed was for somebody’s foot to get cut off as they hit the ground. He curled his arms around Zack and Denzel, protecting their heads, and braced for the impact. Cloud’s attempted roll did little to cushion them as they landed in a patch of scratchy shrubs. Denzel’s pained gasp and a bubbly, bloody oof of air escaping from Zack drowned out Cloud’s own quiet grunt.
Pain went through his body like a red lance and he lay sucking in air. His legs had taken the worst of the impact, so his ankles and calves felt like they’d had nails driven through them. His right shoulder, which he’d improperly thrown himself onto to avoid crushing the others, felt as though a bomb had gone off inside the joint.
Denzel’s face, scratched and worried, appeared in his vision. “Cloud?”
He took a deep breath and tried to focus, reaching out and tapping into his Master Magic materia. Full Cure washed over the three of them as a soothing breeze, and the pain faded to a manageable soreness. With a grunt, he sat up. “You alright?”
Denzel nodded. The thin red scrapes on his face had vanished. “I am. But…” He looked at the bloody man sprawled in the bracken. “Who’s that?”
Cloud didn’t answer immediately, checking Zack’s pulse instead. There were inch-wide holes peppered in his uniform pants and turtleneck, the fabric stiff with blood, and weeping wounds dotted up and down his bare arms. Full Cure had done some good, stopping further bleeding, but his friend was still close to death. Stubbornly not thinking about the how or why this was happening, Cloud cast the spell twice more until Zack was no longer ashen gray from blood loss. Bullets forced out by regrown flesh littered the ground around them. Cloud had dealt with his fair share of gruesome after-battle healings, but his gut still clenched, looking at the lethal little missiles. There were so many.
He sat back. With the adrenaline fading, his hands were starting to shake, and a realization he’d never wanted was creeping up on him like a migraine. Zack had still been alive when Cloud had taken the sword and wandered away. He had left him there, all alone on the cliffs. He wanted to retch.
Denzel’s hand on his shoulder made him look up. “Is he going to be okay?”
He took a steadying breath. “Yeah. Think so. Denzel, meet Zack.”