![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Wishes
Author/Artist: GW Katrina aka![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
icedark_elf
Beta:forgottenlover
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Characters: Cast, mostly Tifa
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1,551
Summary: Wishes are tricky things.
Wishes
They say you should be careful what you wish for.
Tifa could understand why they said that, now. Wishes were tricky things, granting you what you thought you wanted, but leaving only bitterness behind.
Sometimes, not even that.
After everything with Meteor and Sephiroth’s madness, the world had slowly started to rebuild. It had been going so well, too, then, one day, Reeve had come by and asked for their help. He had plenty of hands to help haul away rubble and rebuild homes. What he needed were trained fighters and people who already knew Shinra’s dirty little secrets to handle a very sensitive and dangerous matter.
He needed someone to go through the labs and reactors.
When Meteor had come, and Holy reacted, things had gone more than a little chaotic around the reactors, leaving them in disarray and contaminated monsters everywhere. What few SOLDIERs were left were already being sent out, but Reeve didn’t want anyone he didn’t trust fully to be looking through the labs. They had really kept Sephiroth’s involvement quiet, not wanting to let anyone know that the man who had been declared dead five, almost six years earlier had almost ended the world. Given the state of said world, any more panic could be...awkward.
At least that was how Reeve worded it, and he had been trying so hard to prove to them that he was on their side, not so hard after everything they had gone through. So the group had agreed, even Yuffie working on checking the places closer to Wutai, and the rest wandering the world.
By that point, Cloud had a small flock of golds that he had lent to those who had needed them, and Tifa did have to admit they were some of the most gorgeous birds she had ever seen. Fast, as well.
So, with the necessary supplies, they started their search. Reeve was able to give them at least a partial list, and Tifa noticed both Cloud and Vincent avoiding the one in Nibelheim. Not that she could really blame them, given even she was avoiding it. It wasn’t home anymore, but it was still disturbing to watch those people, those actors, living where she used to. They didn’t do their act anymore, settling in to actually just live there, but to see her home like that made things crawl up her spine.
She still remembered the day things had changed.
They had gathered to meet with Reeve, just like they tried to do every month, and he reported to them that Barret had found someone. Not something. Some-one-. A test subject, left in a lab and forgotten. Lucky for the person the generator had never given out, or he would have been dead.
Reeve had looked stressed as he had given the news, eyes flickering towards Cloud more than once, and Tifa felt her stomach tighten. Who had they found in the lab? Was it another Sephiroth clone? Or something worse?
After stalling long enough to make everyone away of his nerves, Reeve finally admitted it wasn’t Sephiroth, it was Zack. The same Zack Cloud had taken the persona of for a time.
There were no scars, so Reeve was fairly sure it wasn’t the man’s original body, and the notes seem to be that they were attempting refine the cloning process when Sephiroth’s clones had woken up. It was far better than anything they had been able to produce for Sephiroth, given the fact they still had the original body.
That wasn’t the biggest news, though.
Zack was awake.
Tifa never thought she would ever see Cloud smile like that again. Not the way he had when he had seen Zack for the first time, and the other man had grinned back and asked what had taken Spike so long to get back. He asked if Cloud still wanted to be a mercenary, and Cloud had responded with a hug tight enough that Tifa could hear Zack’s bones creak from where she stood.
It really was him, and Tifa couldn’t help but be delighted as well.
The man had recovered from his stay in the labs rapidly, given the modifications that Hojo had included. Zack was still human, barely, with all sorts of odd gene-sequences and strange quirks in his DNA, but he still tested as human. No Sephiroth components, though Jenova was present.
He and Cloud fell into an easy friendship that made Tifa smile. It was good to see Cloud so lively again, ready to smile and to tease.
Now that she could see the original version of the habits Cloud had near flawlessly picked up, Tifa could see why Aeris was reminded of her former lover. Sometimes Cloud and Zack acted so much alike it was creepy, and over time, she noticed that a few more quirks popped up. Nothing much. The tilt of their heads, the way they smiled, the shrug they used. They started to match more and more, but not bad. She had picked up habits from Aeris in the time they had spent together, most friends did it.
So she had just nodded and went along with it.
Then, with Zack joining the group and traveling with Cloud as they continued to search labs, the pair found something else.
The arguing match after they had returned to the monthly meeting was something to behold, and Tifa hoped she never had to deal with it again.
Though she couldn’t blame Barret or Cid for being unhappy. One look at the calm green eyes of the Sephiroth clone had her reaching for her gloves and adrenaline spiking through her body. Only Zack’s stubborn refusal to -move- kept Sephiroth in one piece that day. That, and Cloud’s calm words to get everyone to stand down.
She hadn’t realized that Cloud could sound like that.
It took a long time for her to realize that he never had before. That it was another person who she associated that calm pattern with.
They had found Sephiroth asleep in a tank, just like they had found Zack. And, on a rather stupid notion claimed by both of them, the two had woken him up, hoping that with Jenova gone he would no longer be the madman who had burned Nibelheim.
Sephiroth remembered what he did, and he had simply told those who stood around him that he would accept any punishment that they would dish out.
That did more to quiet any calls for his blood than anything else he could have done.
Cloud and Zack had simply made him join them on their travels, and if those two couldn’t keep the man out of trouble, Tifa was sure that none of them could have.
Again, things were subtle in their descent into eeriness. Tifa wasn’t the only one to notice it this time. Yuffie came to her, and Vincent. Both wanted to know if she had seen it as well. The way that Cloud moved, a slow glide slipping into his walk, the way he thought over his words at times, the expression in his eyes. Once or twice, Tifa was almost sure that she had seen them flicker green, or the pupils thinning out into slits.
Little by little, Cloud was slipping away from being him, and slipping into other patterns.
They had discussed it, everyone else, not wanting to let Cloud or the other two know their fears. It was Reeve who had finally put his finger on it.
He reminded them of two very, very simple facts. One, Cloud had -become- Zack for how long, simply to cope with the world? Two, he was, pure and simple, a Sephiroth clone. A failed one, yes, but still, he had the very core of the man built into his blood by Hojo, just has he had built Zack into the core of his personality.
Flesh and blood, mind and soul. One redesigned by Hojo to become everything the scientist had lost, the other reprogrammed by Cloud to survive what had been done.
Every day he was spending with the two that he had been patterned on was another day of Cloud losing himself into what he had been manipulated into becoming.
Tifa found the taste of that bitter. Cloud had never been happier, but was he even going to really be Cloud for much longer?
She had wished for him to be happy. Zack made him happy. Sephiroth made Zack happy, and that, in a twisted way, made Cloud happy. Tifa just wished she knew how much of Cloud’s happiness was for his friend, and how much was for the part of his mind that still whispered thoughts of his time in SOLDIER, times that weren’t his memories, that wanted Sephiroth to be there.
Now she watched him sink into the two that he had been, and she wasn’t sure how to pull him from the siren’s call that she could see taking him without a fight.
She would have to remember all the stories told around the fireplace from now on, and remember even the best things had a dark side to them. That wishes were easily twisted.
Tifa just wondered if she would be able to save Cloud from himself.
And if he wanted to be saved.
Author/Artist: GW Katrina aka
icedark_elfBeta:
forgottenloverFandom: Final Fantasy VII
Characters: Cast, mostly Tifa
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1,551
Summary: Wishes are tricky things.
Wishes
They say you should be careful what you wish for.
Tifa could understand why they said that, now. Wishes were tricky things, granting you what you thought you wanted, but leaving only bitterness behind.
Sometimes, not even that.
After everything with Meteor and Sephiroth’s madness, the world had slowly started to rebuild. It had been going so well, too, then, one day, Reeve had come by and asked for their help. He had plenty of hands to help haul away rubble and rebuild homes. What he needed were trained fighters and people who already knew Shinra’s dirty little secrets to handle a very sensitive and dangerous matter.
He needed someone to go through the labs and reactors.
When Meteor had come, and Holy reacted, things had gone more than a little chaotic around the reactors, leaving them in disarray and contaminated monsters everywhere. What few SOLDIERs were left were already being sent out, but Reeve didn’t want anyone he didn’t trust fully to be looking through the labs. They had really kept Sephiroth’s involvement quiet, not wanting to let anyone know that the man who had been declared dead five, almost six years earlier had almost ended the world. Given the state of said world, any more panic could be...awkward.
At least that was how Reeve worded it, and he had been trying so hard to prove to them that he was on their side, not so hard after everything they had gone through. So the group had agreed, even Yuffie working on checking the places closer to Wutai, and the rest wandering the world.
By that point, Cloud had a small flock of golds that he had lent to those who had needed them, and Tifa did have to admit they were some of the most gorgeous birds she had ever seen. Fast, as well.
So, with the necessary supplies, they started their search. Reeve was able to give them at least a partial list, and Tifa noticed both Cloud and Vincent avoiding the one in Nibelheim. Not that she could really blame them, given even she was avoiding it. It wasn’t home anymore, but it was still disturbing to watch those people, those actors, living where she used to. They didn’t do their act anymore, settling in to actually just live there, but to see her home like that made things crawl up her spine.
She still remembered the day things had changed.
They had gathered to meet with Reeve, just like they tried to do every month, and he reported to them that Barret had found someone. Not something. Some-one-. A test subject, left in a lab and forgotten. Lucky for the person the generator had never given out, or he would have been dead.
Reeve had looked stressed as he had given the news, eyes flickering towards Cloud more than once, and Tifa felt her stomach tighten. Who had they found in the lab? Was it another Sephiroth clone? Or something worse?
After stalling long enough to make everyone away of his nerves, Reeve finally admitted it wasn’t Sephiroth, it was Zack. The same Zack Cloud had taken the persona of for a time.
There were no scars, so Reeve was fairly sure it wasn’t the man’s original body, and the notes seem to be that they were attempting refine the cloning process when Sephiroth’s clones had woken up. It was far better than anything they had been able to produce for Sephiroth, given the fact they still had the original body.
That wasn’t the biggest news, though.
Zack was awake.
Tifa never thought she would ever see Cloud smile like that again. Not the way he had when he had seen Zack for the first time, and the other man had grinned back and asked what had taken Spike so long to get back. He asked if Cloud still wanted to be a mercenary, and Cloud had responded with a hug tight enough that Tifa could hear Zack’s bones creak from where she stood.
It really was him, and Tifa couldn’t help but be delighted as well.
The man had recovered from his stay in the labs rapidly, given the modifications that Hojo had included. Zack was still human, barely, with all sorts of odd gene-sequences and strange quirks in his DNA, but he still tested as human. No Sephiroth components, though Jenova was present.
He and Cloud fell into an easy friendship that made Tifa smile. It was good to see Cloud so lively again, ready to smile and to tease.
Now that she could see the original version of the habits Cloud had near flawlessly picked up, Tifa could see why Aeris was reminded of her former lover. Sometimes Cloud and Zack acted so much alike it was creepy, and over time, she noticed that a few more quirks popped up. Nothing much. The tilt of their heads, the way they smiled, the shrug they used. They started to match more and more, but not bad. She had picked up habits from Aeris in the time they had spent together, most friends did it.
So she had just nodded and went along with it.
Then, with Zack joining the group and traveling with Cloud as they continued to search labs, the pair found something else.
The arguing match after they had returned to the monthly meeting was something to behold, and Tifa hoped she never had to deal with it again.
Though she couldn’t blame Barret or Cid for being unhappy. One look at the calm green eyes of the Sephiroth clone had her reaching for her gloves and adrenaline spiking through her body. Only Zack’s stubborn refusal to -move- kept Sephiroth in one piece that day. That, and Cloud’s calm words to get everyone to stand down.
She hadn’t realized that Cloud could sound like that.
It took a long time for her to realize that he never had before. That it was another person who she associated that calm pattern with.
They had found Sephiroth asleep in a tank, just like they had found Zack. And, on a rather stupid notion claimed by both of them, the two had woken him up, hoping that with Jenova gone he would no longer be the madman who had burned Nibelheim.
Sephiroth remembered what he did, and he had simply told those who stood around him that he would accept any punishment that they would dish out.
That did more to quiet any calls for his blood than anything else he could have done.
Cloud and Zack had simply made him join them on their travels, and if those two couldn’t keep the man out of trouble, Tifa was sure that none of them could have.
Again, things were subtle in their descent into eeriness. Tifa wasn’t the only one to notice it this time. Yuffie came to her, and Vincent. Both wanted to know if she had seen it as well. The way that Cloud moved, a slow glide slipping into his walk, the way he thought over his words at times, the expression in his eyes. Once or twice, Tifa was almost sure that she had seen them flicker green, or the pupils thinning out into slits.
Little by little, Cloud was slipping away from being him, and slipping into other patterns.
They had discussed it, everyone else, not wanting to let Cloud or the other two know their fears. It was Reeve who had finally put his finger on it.
He reminded them of two very, very simple facts. One, Cloud had -become- Zack for how long, simply to cope with the world? Two, he was, pure and simple, a Sephiroth clone. A failed one, yes, but still, he had the very core of the man built into his blood by Hojo, just has he had built Zack into the core of his personality.
Flesh and blood, mind and soul. One redesigned by Hojo to become everything the scientist had lost, the other reprogrammed by Cloud to survive what had been done.
Every day he was spending with the two that he had been patterned on was another day of Cloud losing himself into what he had been manipulated into becoming.
Tifa found the taste of that bitter. Cloud had never been happier, but was he even going to really be Cloud for much longer?
She had wished for him to be happy. Zack made him happy. Sephiroth made Zack happy, and that, in a twisted way, made Cloud happy. Tifa just wished she knew how much of Cloud’s happiness was for his friend, and how much was for the part of his mind that still whispered thoughts of his time in SOLDIER, times that weren’t his memories, that wanted Sephiroth to be there.
Now she watched him sink into the two that he had been, and she wasn’t sure how to pull him from the siren’s call that she could see taking him without a fight.
She would have to remember all the stories told around the fireplace from now on, and remember even the best things had a dark side to them. That wishes were easily twisted.
Tifa just wondered if she would be able to save Cloud from himself.
And if he wanted to be saved.
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That...shouldn't be so funny.
But, yeah, I was just looking at it and going "What if...?"