Cloud woke up screaming, then fighting for his life. Sephiroth was on top of him, trying to pin him down and he had to get away, oh Planet- where were his weapons?! He was being attacked he... what...?

"Cloud, Cloud, please calm down. I have you, you are safe, it was a nightmare..."

Cloud went limp, panting up into the glowing eyes of his mortal enemy. Who was looking down at him in... concern. "Sephiroth?" He was slick with sweat and his heart was pounding so hard he could feel it knocking in his chest.

Sephiroth smiled.

Cloud gasped at the sight, his heart clenching for a different reason now.

"Cloud?"

"Yeah... yeah..." Cloud closed his eyes and let Sephiroth's weight on him soothe him, ignoring for the moment that it was soothing and just rolling with it so he could figure out what had just happened. Oh. He had died. Hojo had... ok. Well. That was unpleasant. So when is he? In bed with Sephiroth is the where, so he can't have skipped more than three days back in the timestream or off into a different reality entirely, thank the Planet- that had been plenty bad enough at the end for the Planet to have said there was no chance and cut him off this life entirely... or he's in a complete alternate universe where he is in bed with Sephiroth for some other reason. That seems pretty unlikely, but stranger things, Cloud supposes.

"What do you need, Cloud?" Sephiroth asked him, low and rumbling between their chests.

"Just, stay a second. I'm thinking..." He calmed his breathing and was becoming increasingly glad for the furnace above him, otherwise his cooling sweat would have made him cold he was sure. "Hey, let my arm up, will you?" He muttered to Sephiroth. Cloud looked to the side where his and Sephiroth's PHS's were on the side table on the charging pad. Cloud groped for his PHS and looked at the date and time- o'dark thirty Sunday night (or Monday morning, depending on your preference). Ok, so that was a lot of time to relive... it was only the first night they had gone from awkward cuddling to Sephiroth refusing to sleep alone.

This physical affection was a hugely new thing. New things were good to stave off the boredom, but usually Zack was the puppy, not Sephiroth. If this kept up Cloud wasn't sure which would happen first: going absolutely insane with sexual frustration or melting into a puddle at all the sappiness. Regardless, he was truly grateful that this was the save point and not when he woke up in Hojo's lab. He wouldn't mind coming back to this moment every time he looped from now on, though thinking about looping and losing where and when he was was... something he wasn't going to do while on vacation.

"Cloud?" Sephiroth asked softly.

"I'm ok. I'm awake now." Cloud smiled wryly. He wouldn't be really 'ok' until he got Jenova pinned down long enough to tell her that was not conducive to him getting her off this planet and maybe killed Hojo. Then Phoenix Downed him... and killed him again. To be safe.

Cloud looked up at Sephiroth's face as it relaxed into a corresponding smile- well, as close as his non-expressions got. What was really arresting was the way Sephiroth's eyes glowed in the low light and his pupils relaxed into calm ovals. Cloud's laughter died off a bit and he forgot how to breathe.

Cloud tore his gaze away and coughed in embarrassment and to get his throat to stop being seized up. "So... want to get up? I want to do something active." He left unsaid that being carried around like a teddy bear all day had not burned off much energy and now he was getting really twitchy after how he'd died. Last time around had been delightful torture, but he would rather not repeat it.

Sephiroth didn't move- not to roll over back to sleep nor to let Cloud up.

Cloud looked back at Sephiroth and noted the confused twitch to the other man's eyebrows and the rigidity of the body holding him down. "Tonight we can use your bed- it's a much better mattress." Cloud said, pushing at Sephiroth's shoulder with his hand- the only part of his body free of that huge weight. Sephiroth relaxed almost into a slump at the words and allowed the movement.

Cloud rolled out of bed and to his feet. He stretched enthusiastically until he was up on his tip-toes and his arms stretched out above him. "I'm taking a shower." He announced, rubbing his eyes. At the silence he looked down and caught Sephiroth staring at his belly like it held the keys to the Planet. "And then we can go track down some coffee." Cloud decided. Lifting an eyebrow when there was no response he shrugged and went into the bathroom. It would be nice to get out of the clothes he'd been wearing since Saturday.

OOOOooooooOO

"A wandering soul needs no rest."

"Hello, Genesis." Cloud didn't look up from where he was trying to get a few dings out of his blade. Which, due to its unique nature, meant that he was casting a very directed full Cure at the edge to try to get it to reform.

Masumune was not something to go against lightly. Cloud really hoped Sephiroth would agree to alternative weapons. It would help both of them level faster to not have to stop all the time for repairs. Though the training they'd just done had been pretty fun- no strategy or trying to win per se, they had gone through various stances as fast as they could (which with the two of them had been blindingly fast) until one of them broke from the form they were on and 'lost' then they continued in the form that had been the mistake. It had been quite the challenge to identify the forms, use the various moves of that form in a proper rhythm, switch when there was a 'mistake' (or one of them got bored)... it had been a lot of fun. And helpful, actually, as it was easy to get trapped in complacency and a single style.

"So. You've been fighting Sephiroth."

Cloud looked up, surprised that Genesis had said it so baldly. "Yes." Of course he had- who else could keep up with them? And the man was being positively clingy lately- better to direct that to something to burn of some frustration like fighting epic duels. Sephiroth was even eying the two of them over by the entrance to the First gym where Angeal was talking with him. Cloud gave a little wave which made a silver eyebrow twitch.

"You have been neglecting the rest of us." Genesis grumbled.

"Oh?" Cloud felt his mouth stretching into a wide (and probably not nice) grin. "You want to try one on four? Angeal is here, and I'm sure you could get the Puppy and his helmeted friend to join in."

"Four!" Genesis was affronted.

"You're right- that's hardly fair. You can have a few more to fight me." Cloud smirked.

Genesis sighed dramatically. "While your penchant for exaggeration is amusing, I'm sure, I meant to suggest a team effort."

Cloud cocked his head. "What teams?"

Genesis grinned. "You an I against Angeal and Sephiroth."

"Grace versus power?" Cloud laughed. "It does sound like fun." He paused, gripping his chin in his fist. "Do you think this could be the time we use whips?"

Genesis laughed. "You are truly a 'gift of the Goddess.' We can do whips just the two of us later." He waggled his eyebrows.

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Save it for Rufus Shinra."

Genesis grinned. "I've booked the large training room for the whole morning. 'The arrow has left the bow of the goddess?"

Ah. That would be why this hadn't happened the first time. Cloud had been a bit curious. But this time instead of curling up for a lazy morning, he and Sephiroth had come to the gym and done resistance training against each other's strength before most people were out of bed, gone and terrorized the cafeteria staff for coffee, then come right back to do their form training. Last time around they probably had missed Genesis' window.

"Yeah, let's go." Cloud sent one last Cure to his blade and bounced out of his chair.

At some point he did need to get to his office. He remembered last time getting into a bureaucratic battle involving far too much paperwork... But, compared to a four-way battle the machinations of Palmer could wait for later. The man was trying to reprimand him or something for actually getting work done. But Cloud had an alien to rocket off (who was apparently impatient enough to capture and torture him to death). Political sabotage was not in keeping with him enjoying his vacation. Maybe he could throw the man out the window or convince one of the Firsts to 'go mad' briefly and skewer him...

Cloud's thoughts brought them out of the main gym area and to the training room entrance. Cloud gleefully bounced inside, nodding to Angeal and Sephiroth. Angeal narrowed their eyes at him before he turned and activated the scene, which changed the huge, bland, square room to a large open canyon with tall, lush walls of dripping waterfalls, vegetation, and a cool breeze blowing through it.

"Huh. This is different. We're going to utterly destroy it, of course, but it's nice to look at to start with." Cloud commented.

"This is a team game, myself and Sephiroth versus you two." Angeal brandished his sword and gave it a few warm up swings. "Are you ready?"

Cloud unsheathed his weapon, calling its power to it with a wave of his hand. Beside him, Genesis did the same. "Might it have been more fair to put one of the magic users per team?" Cloud questioned.

"We did it by height." Sephiroth noted, his sword out and in his ready position- which was essentially no different than just standing there looking bored. Maybe a bit more wind flapping his coat.

Cloud tried to keep his eye from twitching at the height comment, but he didn't quite succeed. "Well, you know what they say... 'the bigger they are...'"

"The harder they fall!" Genesis crowed before launching himself at Sephiroth, who countered with a lazy raising of his arm to block the rush. The two leapt away.

Cloud shrugged and turned to look at Angeal. Who was already rushing him. Cloud smirked and knocked the broadsword out of its dangerous path. "If you would only use the Buster sword, maybe you would have a chance." Cloud taunted.

"Let's see how you fare against another opponent." Was all Angeal said in reply.

They traded blows- pretty standard and even a bit bland to Cloud. It took him a while to figure out why, though- it wasn't as if Angeal wasn't a skilled swordsman. It was rather because Angeal fought like Zack, or more accurately, Zack fought like him. And Cloud's weird history meant that therefore his base style was Angeal's. But... that had been many Sephiroths, infinite lifetimes and some ninjas ago. Cloud's style had seriously and fundamentally evolved from that base style. Angeal, simply put, didn't have the experience to match Cloud, especially when Cloud was fighting as if he had been taught by the man- Cloud was very familiar with what moves Angeal was going to do, but Angeal had no way to know some of the moves that Cloud did. Seeing as they included some extremely bizarre alternate worlds like the one with the mouse king, or the one where he and a bunch of emo heros like himself had battled their various nemesis. Both of which had served well to unhinge Cloud from taking reality all that seriously, as a matter of fact.

Basically, he was bored.

Cloud looked over to Sephiroth and Genesis and saw that the silver-haired man was similarly blocking without really paying attention. Well... this had to change.

Cloud shoved Angeal hard, hooked his sword while he was off-balance, and sent it spiraling off into a pond at the base of one of the waterfalls. To the man's benefit, he was prepared and reacted quickly... but Cloud wasn't attempting to press his advantage. Instead he spun on his toe, throwing up a Wall to reflect Genesis' fireball back into his face, causing the redhead to yelp in surprise. Cloud raced forward, used Genesis' shoulders as a catapult, and leapt through his barrier. As boring as the battle with Angeal had been, it had gotten him to a Limit, which Cloud brought to bear in his downward slash.

His sword stopped in a clash so strong it was more like a wave of light. For a second, everything seemed to freeze as he was held aloft only by the point where Masumune and the Cure blade crossed, entirely supported by Sephiroth's one arm.

And then the force of it released. Cloud was sent shooting up into the air, a wild grin firmly on his face. Sephiroth was a bit more stone-like than normal for a brief second before he crouched and shot up after Cloud. The two of them traded a flurry of blows, Cloud cackling gleefully as they both directed the force downward and out. They slowly rotated and continued to rise, the flash of the blades flaring bright between them. Cloud, given his head start, was still above Sephiroth when he suddenly felt his proximity awareness screaming at him. Confused he fumbled a parry. Masumune speared into his side- but Cloud ignored that. Nothing out of the ordinary.

However, the scream of metal twisting above his back and the hissing snaps of electricity sparking all over his skin- that got his attention.

"Ow! Hel! What in the! Hel and damNAtion! Oooh! Odin's balls!" Cloud ranted, every spark causing an increase of volume. Sephiroth below him had managed to pull most of the power of the strike past the initial piercing- partly due to the resistance as it hit concrete, but more so due to his unfair floating ability. He didn't even have a wing. Well, out anyway. "Mother of a common whore!" Cloud swore. He was pinned to the electricity. "Stop staring- Hel's bells! At me and pull- Thor's beard! That damn toothpick Hel! Ow! Out of my side!"

Sephiroth shook himself out of his shock or momentary sadism or whatever and placed his feet on either side of where Cloud was dangling from the fake sky and tugged. He started to fall (gracefully, of course) whilst Cloud began to spin in a bloody free fall, droplets of gore trailing him.

Cloud grunted and stabbed himself with his own blade, causing Sephiroth to almost fall out of his float- he had heard of Cloud doing this of course but it was a bit shocking to actually see. The blade did what it was supposed to when Cloud activated it, and healed the much larger wound, and subsequently the one he had suffered from Masumune.

Sephiroth touched down as if he had been standing still the entire time, the only sign of his movement a slight flaring to his hair and leather coat tails.

Cloud smashed into the fake ground and could faintly hear an ominous rumbling of distressed reinforced concrete. The image did not form a crater like the real ground would, mostly because it was too busy flickering out of existence.

"Cloud!" Genesis yelped, his mouth hanging open.

"Why is there a ceiling in the sky?" Cloud grated out.

"Because... it's a room." Angeal quirked an eyebrow, looking interested to see that Cloud seemed likely to live after the whole ordeal.

"Yeah, and?" Cloud huffed as he levered himself up with the help of his blade.

"You got too far away from Genesis and I." Angeal smirked. "Some of us can't fly." The anymore went politely unsaid.

"Gah- my spleen!" Cloud whined.

"Sacrifice, at world's end...'" Genesis quoted absently, his face looking a bit white.

"Oh, Genesis, stop being a baby. You've seen me do that before. Are you or are you not a SOLDIER?" Cloud teased.

"'Where never lark, or even eagle flew — / The high untrespassed sanctity of space.'" Genesis flourished his blade dramatically.

Recognizing the poem, Cloud's eyes widened. "'I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth/ And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; / Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth/ of sun-split clouds'" Cloud quoted the first few lines. "Genesis, you are a genius!" He grabbed the man and hugged him before Genesis could transition his mind from literary to combative. Genesis had barely opened his mouth to protest before Cloud was off and running out of the gym.

"I don't understand you three at all, but I am seeing the 'love triangle' theory." Angeal noted.

"There is no 'love triange'." Genesis straightened his coat with a huff.

"Correct." Sephiroth said. He gave such an intense look at Genesis' back it caused the other First's skin to spring into twitching unease until he looked over his shoulder cautiously. The glowing look in the cat like eyes made Genesis gulp and decide to just leave as quickly as he could. It was lunch time. He was hungry... that's why he was running. Right.

OoOOOOOo

Cloud was feeling pretty twitchy. He hadn't seen Hojo since the loop and though he had deliberately not avoiding the scientist as suddenly doing so could trigger the whole situation earlier than in two days like it had last time... but he hadn't yet seen the man. Usually there would be a glimpse of him in the corner of the eye, especially while Sephiroth was training. Which, though he hadn't really thought about it before as that way lead to stress and thus he had ignored it... it was pretty creepy.

Anyway- time to focus. He had a brilliant and glittering idea about how to get a certain parasite launched into space. And it didn't even involve much learning of rocket science. Thank the gods...

"So- today we are going to learn how to jump off of things. You all are at a high enough level where you should be able to get some decent hang-time." Cloud gestured around at the trains scattered about the open area. They had cleared out all of the monsters and boxed, trussed or otherwise disabled them for later eating. It was a good location for this- his troops should be able to jump to the top of the trains with the help of some of the strewn beams, ladders and other metal leaning against the sides of them. For Cloud... the sides of the area should prove more interesting. There were the remains of service platforms between many of the pillars holding the plates up. He should be able to leap from one to the other. The trick would be to do so without stopping for a rest on the platforms and instead jumping all the way up.

"Jump off of the trains?" Kobe asked.

"Exactly. Like you were doing catching the mobs, but this time, you are going to try to hit each other mid-air." Cloud nodded.

"Hit each other?" Nasir asked dubiously.

"Well, not actually hit each other, of course, but you will want to hit off of each others' weapons in such a way that the force will propel you up into the air." Cloud explained.

"How does that work?" Nasir scratched his head. "That's totally against physics."

"That's because we aren't using physics, we are using our Limits and attacks." Cloud replied patiently.

"But..." Nasir protested.

"No buts! It just works, alright." Well, Cloud's patience was apparently not all that long-lived. Especially when he didn't know how these things could work. Nasir was right- they really shouldn't. "Ok, so if one of you will jump up and attack the air, I'll bounce off you to demonstrate." All eight immediately found their shoes overly interesting. "I won't hurt you." Cloud huffed.

"Not on purpose." Kobe muttered. The others followed suit.

"I'll help you demonstrate." A voice came from over Cloud's shoulder, causing him to stiffen in instinctive panic. Sephiroth had got behind his back! He found himself immediately relaxing as the heat of the man came up behind him, which was if anything more distrubing. Sure they had slept together for a week (from Cloud's perspective) but... Sephiroth had been his nemesis for so many loops and lifetimes- surely that couldn't have been erased so quickly?

"Sir!" The eight recruits snapped into attention while Cloud had a mini-crisis.

"At ease." Sephiroth muttered. He moved around a dazzed Cloud to look the blond in the eye. "If you will allow."

How had he not sensed the other approaching? He could always sense him. What was going on? "Uh... sure." Cloud shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "We can probably get half way to the plate without touching down anywhere."

Sephiroth frowned and looked up at the gloom and haze that was the underside of the upper plate. "That is quite a distance." He commented, though he looked like he was mentally measuring against the height of the training room and coming up at 'reasonable'.

"Well, I think with a bit of practice and some luck we can get all the way up there, but the boys won't be able to see how we are doing it." Cloud shrugged.

"Hmm." Sephiroth continued to look up.

"Well, let's do this then." Cloud rubbed his hands together. This was going to be interesting.

"Won't you get injured falling from that height?" Sephiroth finally looked at him. "You hit rather hard this morning."

Cloud felt his eye twitch. "No more than you would."

Sephiroth nodded then leapt backwards and Cloud followed suit. They both sprung off of debilitated trains and came together with swords clashing. Clashing very carefully downward. The force sent them sailing up into the air. They both twisted expertly and fell back together. This time Sephiroth hit him a bit harder and Cloud almost fell back out of the air, but he managed to barely come back and hit Sephiroth with a Limit Break, which caused both of them to shoot upwards from the force of it.

Cloud grinned as the wind whistled through his hair, his eyes tracking Sephiroth as the other gracefully, almost weightlessly fell through the air and back into a striking position. This time Cloud locked their blades, even as Sephiroth shook at him to get him to release, the two of them spiraling down towards the ground.

"We are going to crash." Sephiroth intoned.

"Plenty of time." Cloud smirked, looking into the cat-slit eyes and seeing the sparkle of amusement there. "Ready?" He asked. At a minute nod of confirmation, he broke the lock and the two of them shot apart, ricocheting off of train carcasses on either side of the yard. They came together in a clash of sparks to destroy the momentum and touched down gracefully in the dirt, a mere twelve feet from where they had started.

"Wow." Romeo said, his eyes wide.

Cloud broke his stare with Sephiroth to spin and address his class/helpers, though he kept the silver-haired General in the corner of his vision. "So! That's how you do it. Obviously, you won't get that much lift until you have a lot more practice, but it is something that can be learned to a reasonable extent even at your level."

"Alright!" Gianni crowed, racing to attack Kobe, who laughed and darted away from the other boy.

Cloud chuckled after their antics but stiffened as Sephiroth got closer.

"I'm sorry." Sephiroth said lowly.

Cloud blinked. "What?"

Sephiroth wasn't looking at him, exactly, and seemed embarrassed. Cloud swallowed nervously. "I am sorry." He turned to look at Cloud more fully. "I obviously did something that day that has made you uncomfortable."

"Er..." It was times like this that Cloud was glad that his response to stress was monosyllables, unlike some of the Turks who seemed unable to help babbling when things weren't going their way.

"You said I could have as many hugs as I wanted." Sephiroth accused.

"I... you can... it's just... I don't sense you anymore." Cloud frowned. Sephiroth mirrored his expression, looking too much like a kicked puppy for Cloud to stand. Cloud stepped forward and folded himself around Sephiroth with a sigh, immediately feeling better. "I'm too comfortable." And it wouldn't end well- it never would. They would go back to being enemies and Sephiroth wouldn't recognize him. Once this vacation was over. Cloud burried his face into Sephiroth's chest and even felt better with the neck-snapping grip of the other man under his chin.

"I see." Sephiroth said. Which Cloud didn't even try to interpret all the meanings behind. "Would you like to try to reach the Plate?"

"Oh, Hel yes!" Cloud said gratefully. This whole conversation was getting much too heavy for him. "Hey, guys! We're going to go back up the hard way- will you be ok bringing the fixings to the restaurant?"

"Yeah, boss!"

"Ok, remember to bring us some back or else!" Cloud threatened, brandishing his large sword at them.

"Sure!" Romeo chirped from where he was sailing through the air after bouncing off of a overturned dumpster.

Cloud shook his head before turning back to his adversary. Sephiroth took that as a sign and leapt into the air. Cloud grinned and took off in a surge after him. Their lightening fast blows left sparks glittering into the train wastes.

OoOOoOOOooOO

A/N: This story is so damn hard to write. Whyyyyy!?

Poem about space is "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oblique reference to Kingdom Hearts and Dissidia