"Hello, Cloud."

Cloud snarled like a rabid animal, his breathing raw and erratic. "Where is Zack?"

"He's where you left him. I doubt he got very far, anyway. Not with injuries like that."

Tifa's hands clenched over her mouth, biting down a cry. Her vision blurred as hot tears rose, burning her eyes like acid. Cloud wasn't looking at her – he was staring into space, teeth bared and fists clenched, fighting not to crush the phone in his grip. "Aerith, and Shinra?"

"Oh, they're with me," Sephiroth cooed, a slick endearment through the phone. "Yes, we're having all sorts of fun. Isn't that right, Aerith dear?"

There was a strangled scream.

Tifa bit the inside of her hand so hard she broke the skin, her mouth filling with blood.

Cloud howled.

"I will kill you!" He roared, shaking from head to toe. "I will kill you and I will make you beg for death on your knees before I do. Do you hear me, Sephiroth?!"

Sephiroth laughed at him, high and lilting, and Aerith screamed again. "Did you really think I would fight on your terms, Cloud?"

The only response was the sound of Cloud's teeth grinding together. He closed his eyes, brow creasing in agony, lip curling in fury.

"Tomorrow, you're going to come to me. Alone, and unarmed. I will be watching you. If I see a weapon, or another human being, I will kill one of these two. If you don't come, I will kill them both. And then I will scour this country until I find your little girlfriend, and I'll kill her. Nice and slow."

Cloud's eyes snapped open, fixed on Tifa. She shook her head frantically, hands still gripping her mouth like a vise, tears pouring down over her fingers. Hands trembling, Cloud breathed out through his nose, fighting for control.

"Do we have an understanding, Cloud?"

He hissed into the phone, speaking through his teeth. "If I come – "

NO, Tifa screamed inside her hands, the word catching in her throat, a choking sob.

"Will you let them go?" Cloud finished, his eyes still on Tifa.

The reply was swift and smooth. "Of course I will. But mark me, Cloud. If you fight me, if you struggle, if you do anything but smile and thank me for granting you death – I will kill them all."

Cloud looked at Tifa.

She was sobbing into her hands, cheeks wet and the tears still coming, looking up at him and shaking her head as hard as she could, hair flying around her head. She was begging.

He closed his eyes.

"Where do I meet you?" he asked, and his voice was empty.

"Go home, Cloud."

And the line went dead.

"You can't," Tifa screamed, leaning forward to grip at his clothes, her fingers digging into his pants leg. "You can't, you just can't, we'll figure something out, Cloud, oh god, Cloud, don't do this, please."

His forehead creased, his mouth twisted, and he put his hands to his face just before he sobbed.

She dragged him down to his knees, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and cried into his shirt, and he kept his hands over his face and wept and wept, great shuddering gasps that shook Tifa with him. "Oh gods," he gasped, "Oh gods, not again."

And then his head snapped up, so fast he almost hit Tifa, and he looked at her in horror, swollen eyes wide.

"Zack," he said.

She stared for a moment, uncomprehending, her brain shorted out by grief and horror.

He gripped her shoulders and shook her hard.

"He might still be alive!"

Comprehension dawned on her face, horror riding hard on its heels. She clutched at his arms, her mouth working, struggling for words, until she gasped out: "Go."

Cloud almost protested, but she overrode him, crying, "You're faster – I'll be right behind you. Cloud, find him. Go."

And then he was running.

…

It wasn't hard for Cloud to find Zack.

Zack had been waiting, five miles up the mountain road, in a trailer with Rufus and Aerith. The trailer was still there, lights on and door open, undisturbed.

From there, Cloud just had to follow the blood.

Zack was a few hundred yards off the road, sitting propped up against a tree. There was scarlet dripping from his lips onto his chin, then to his chest. His left hand was curled into his shirt, over his stomach, and there was blood staining the cloth, blood seeping between his fingers, just so much fucking blood.

Cloud's knees hit the ground.

Distantly, he heard his own voice say, "God, Zack, no."

Zack coughed, a spray of crimson, and his eyes fluttered open.

"Zack," Cloud screamed, and then he swallowed and put his hand on Zack's; tried to peel it away from his stomach. Zack's fingers tightened, digging into shirt and the split skin beneath, and the soldier grimaced at the pain.

"Let me see, Zack," Cloud ordered, his voice still far-off, toneless in his ears.

Coughing again, Zack shook his head weakly, lifted his right hand to shove uselessly at Cloud's shoulder, pushing him away.

"Zack, let me see the wound." His voice was so still it frightened him, but his hands were beginning to shake, fluttering uselessly over Zack's abdomen.

"No," Zack rasped, clenched his fingers.

Cloud's mouth trembled. He pressed his hand over Zack's, trying to apply pressure but just shaking shaking shaking, and even though Zack was the injured one, Cloud didn't think he'd have the strength to pull Zack's hand away if he really tried. "Zack, just – let me help you."

"No," Zack said again, a little stronger, and blood dripped down his chin.

"Goddammit," Cloud said. "Goddammit. Let me help you, I can fix this, I can fix it, you'll be all right. You won't die, you'll be all right. I can make it all right if you just let me, Zack, damn you."

Zack smiled with that bloody mouth. His left hand stayed on his wound, red pulsing steadily between his knuckles, but his right came up, slow and shaking and barely strong enough, to curl around the back of Cloud's neck and pull him down, until their foreheads pressed together.

And Cloud sobbed, a deep, horrible heave that shook him down to his soul, and gasped, "Don't die. Please Zack, don't die. Not you. Please. Zack, please."

Smiling thinly, Zack dragged in another breath, coughed it out, a thin, weak wind against Cloud's face that splattered his chin and cheek with blood, blood that mixed with the tears coming bitter and hot on Cloud's cheeks. Cloud wept helplessly, shaking uncontrollably, his fingers curled tight and desperate in Zack's shirt.

"Why you," he begged. "Gods, why you, I can't – I can't take it, Zack, not now, not you, too."

Hand falling from Cloud's neck, Zack slumped against his tree. Crimson stained his teeth as he fought for words. "He made," he began, sucking in another breath, wincing. "Aerith choose. Which of us…to keep."

Cloud touched his shoulder. "She chose Shinra?"

Zack's laugh turned into a cough in his chest, his red mouth twisting up in pain as his body shook. "No," he gasped. "She chose…me. That's why…Sephiroth…killed me."

And Cloud was shaking again, his tears gone dry, burned up, and he said, "That son of a bitch," and he said, "I will kill him."

Zack's weak grin turned into a frown, clutched frantically at the front of Cloud's shirt. "Shinra," he began. Rattled in another breath. "He begged."

"For Aerith to choose him?"

"No." Zack's head lolled back and forth, a feeble mockery of shaking his head. "To die. He wanted…wanted Sephiroth to…let me live. Got on his…his freakin' knees…begged to…die instead."

"Okay," Cloud said. "Okay, that's enough. Don't talk anymore, okay? You can tell me later. I'll fix you up and then you can tell me everything. Okay?"

Zack rolled his eyes, snorting, and then there was blood running from his nose, too. "Don't be…stupid. Got a…few minutes…tops. Freakin' hurts."

"No," Cloud said, and the tears rose again. "No, you gotta get up. We've gotta save Aerith, man. You're not gonna just leave her, are you?"

Eyes drifting closed, Zack coughed up another dribble of blood. "You gotta…look out for her…for me. And tell her…love her. And she should…be happy. You tell her that. 'Kay, Cloud?" Zack's eyes opened, and he was crying for the first time, irises gone misty and unfocused, and the tears cut pale tracks through the blood and dirt on his cheeks.

"Yeah," Cloud sobbed, and goddammit, he couldn't see, his vision hot and fuzzy with tears, and he couldn't see Zack's face, and no, god, please not Zack.

"Aah, hell," Zack sighed, and Cloud choked between a sob and a laugh. "Didn't want…to die like this. Too young. Shoulda been…some crotchety old fart. Dammit. Dammit, didn't…didn't wanna die."

"Zack," Cloud begged, clutched at Zack's shoulders, shook him hard when Zack's eyes went unfocused and dim. "Oh god, Zack, you stupid fucking hero. Don't die. Don't die, not today, not yet – god, Zack, not you. Not like Angeal, right? You said – you said you didn't want that. Zack, you can't die yet. What about the sword? Who's gonna take the sword, Zack? There's just you. There's just – oh god, Zack, there's just you! Zack, you don't have a son."

And Zack's eyes fought back into focus, on Cloud's face, misted with pain and tears but focused, looking right at him because this was the last thing he was ever going to see. So he smiled again, and the blood flowed down his chin, down his throat, over his fingers and his stomach and his chest, just blood everywhere until Cloud's vision was red and Zack.

Zack's left hand lifted, and Cloud stared at it instead of the gaping hole in his stomach, and Zack touched Cloud's cheek with crimson fingers.

"Don' needa son," he mumbled, blood and pain slurring the words, his eyes fighting to stay on Cloud, the last thing he was ever going to see, his fingers leaving red shaking tracks on Cloud's face.

"Don't need a son," he repeated, smiled.

Cloud Strife. With the stupid blonde hair and the stupid blue eyes, like sunshine and the sweet summer sky. The last thing Zack Fair was ever going to see, and dammit, he was okay with that.

"Got a brother."

His hand fell to the ground.

And Cloud screamed.

…

He was still kneeling there when Tifa found them.

Slowly, she reached out and closed Zack's eyes.

Cloud breathed out.

…

One hand on his shoulder, Tifa said, "Cloud. We should bury him."

He stood, legs full of pins and needles as blood rushed back into his lower body. "No," he said, took a few shaky steps away from Zack's body. "No, not him."

When he started to walk away, Tifa didn't follow. She stayed by Zack's side, called out after him. "Where are you going?"

Cloud kept walking, his stride getting steadier, stronger. "I think there's a can of gas in the trailer."

…

He washed the blood from Zack's body with gasoline.

"Cloud, I'm not sure this is what he –"

"Don't." He soaked Zack's clothes, the grass around, the tree trunk smeared with his blood. "Just don't."

Behind him, Tifa was silent. Eventually, he heard her walk away, footsteps crunching through fallen leaves and brush. He didn't turn around.

He folded Zack's hands over the hole in his stomach. Straightened his shoulders, put his feet together. Spread the gasoline in a circle, ten feet in diameter, soaking trees and leaves and grass and all the fresh new growth of spring.

When the can was empty, he let it fall to the ground.

A hand touched his shoulder. He turned.

Tifa held up a matchbook, her face blank. When he took it from her fingers, she pushed past him to kneel next to Zack. Whatever she said, she whispered it too quietly and too quickly for Cloud to understand, still standing yards away, outside his circle of accelerant.

He wasn't really listening, anyway.

…

He wanted there to be some meaning to it. The matchbook was from a diner fifty miles back in the direction of Edge. The gas had probably been from a fill-up joint near there. The can was made of red plastic. He didn't know what kind of tree Zack's body was propped up against. He didn't have any words to say.

It wasn't until he was trying to line up the striker of the match with the strip of sandpaper on the back of the matchbook that he realized his hands were shaking.

Tifa stood behind him, wrapped her arms around his, pinned his elbows to his sides. It felt like she was holding him through sixty layers of clothing, far-off and muted, just faint pressure and only the lightest hints of warmth. He felt them vibrating against each other, thought she was shaking around him. Eventually looked down at his hands and realized he was the one trembling.

"Cloud," she said into his shoulder. "Someday, you're going to wish you had said something."

He wanted there to be some meaning to it.

Grinding his teeth together, he struck the match, vicious, the flame kissing the tips of his fingers. He never felt the burn.

He watched the fire work its way down the slim wooden shaft of the match, watched his fingertips turn red and blister. Instead his eyes focused behind them, where he could see Zack on the other side of his hands.

He wanted it to mean something.

"I loved you," he told the match. "My brother."

And then he threw it to the ground, watched it find accelerant and spread, and then everything was in flames.

…

Tifa pulled him away, he knew. Tugged him away and out, out of the fire as it grew and spread, until it wasn't just his gas-soaked circle, until it wasn't just the stretch between Zack's body and the road, until the entire mountainside was going up in flames.

He didn't remember sprinting the five miles back down into the valley, barren compared to the tree-covered slopes of the mountains, didn't remember ducking into their now-familiar stone cave, seeking shelter where there was nothing to burn, but he did remember the fire, the way it filled the cave mouth with orange and cast Tifa into red, her eyes unfathomable dark in the firelight.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but it had probably been hours by the time she spoke. She didn't look at him, just watched the fire rage across mountains.

"It's going to burn the entire valley," she said. "Everything that only just started to grow."

"Good," he said. She still didn't look at him, just closed her eyes.

"I wish it would burn more," he told her, staring at her while she put her head on her knees. "He deserved more. More should've burned. Not just this."

She looked at him then, her cheek resting on her knees, her eyes black and her skin painted crimson. "Cloud," she said. "I don't think he would've wanted the world for his pyre."

Cloud shook his head, turned to watch the fire as it ripped across the brush and the trees, left everything behind it in shades of black and grey. "No," he agreed. "He would've wanted it to rain."

…

"I'm sorry," he said, lying on his back and staring up at the cave ceiling. "I just. I just wanted to mark it somehow. His death. It should've been. Louder. I don't know. Everyone should know. The whole world should be crying. It shouldn't just. End. Not like this."

"Cloud," she whispered. "You and me. Humans. We're mortal. You know that, right?"

He closed his eyes.

"Yeah. I know. I just. Wish we didn't have to be."

For a long time, there was silence, and the crackle of the fire outside.

"Cloud."

"Tifa?"

"Look outside. It's raining."

…

Then, Cloud cried.

Tifa crawled over to him, held his head against her chest, made soft noises into his hair while he bawled, clutched at her and pushed her away by turns, screamed and sobbed into her shirt until it was soaked through to her skin, and it was hours yet before he hiccupped and sniffled his way into sleep.

Outside the cave, the rain slowly, slowly, put the fire out.

…

He woke up the next morning, eyes swollen and crusted. His face felt dirty and stiff, and Tifa's shirt was cold and damp under his cheek. His neck and back were sore, and even though the daylight outside told him he'd been asleep for hours, he was exhausted, wanted to roll over and go back to sleep for another few hours or few days or maybe just forever.

Tifa's hands pulled through his hair, soft, slow.

"He saved you, didn't he."

Cloud whimpered, tugged his hands in close to his chest like he could keep the words from getting inside, from touching the sucking wound inside him.

"It was Zack who hired me, you know. Over the phone. I never went to college, didn't have a medical license, couldn't even make it into the city for an interview – but he said he liked the sound of my voice. Hired me right then and there."

She ran her nails over his scalp, her hands down the back of his neck, her fingers over his shoulders, stroking, coaxing. "And then I when I actually came to work – can you even imagine what all that must have looked like to him? On my first day, I beat up one of his patients, gave the same one a panic attack, fainted on the job, and started sharing a bed with you. And he never said anything against me. Just took care of me when I got hurt, helped me when I needed help, gave me the space I needed to deal with everything that was happening."

Dammit, the tears were coming again, hot and bitter, sour and foul tasting in his mouth. He was shaking again, deep tremors that went up and down his body, heaving. Tifa kept talking, her voice low and thick and steady, heavy and unyielding in his ears.

"He was like that, wasn't he. He didn't push, didn't force us into anything. But time and time again he helped, wiped up our messes and cleaned us up when we got ourselves dirty. He was just always there. He was so good, Cloud, he was just good."

He gasped, messy, nose running and sobbing again, thick and hot, fingers digging into Tifa's back.

"I think he was happy, Cloud. He built you an asylum. He built you a home. That's all he ever wanted, I think. Not to be a soldier, not to be a war hero, not even to be remembered. Cloud."

Her fingers were on his face now, under his chin, dragging him up. He met her gaze with tear-fuzzed vision, her eyes dark and warm and wet, crying quiet and soft. She shook him, just a little.

"Cloud, he saved you. That's all. That's enough."

He kissed her then, hard and artless, smashing the tears together on their cheeks. She sniffled into his mouth and he sobbed into hers, his fingers digging into her hair and gripping, her hands stroking soft over his shoulders and then curling into his shirt, clutching tight. He could taste the tears between them, salt water and bitterness, like all the sick clutching sorrow in his chest is pouring out his eyes, Tifa was pulling it all out of him, all that he had to give.

When they broke apart, he lifted his hands and wiped his face, scrubbed at the crusted tear tracks and the dirt on his cheeks. Tifa rubbed at her eyes, swollen and red to match his, gave him the smallest of smiles as they both tried to clear the evidence from their faces.

Cloud didn't expect the smile that tugged at his lips, hesitant and frail, but curving his face nonetheless. He coughed out a chuckle, still half a sob, said, "He really was good, wasn't he."

"So good," Tifa agreed, turned her face and muffled a giggle in her own arm. "He was the best, Cloud, really."

"Yeah," Cloud agreed, and stood up.

His legs were shaky underneath him, but he managed to stumble to the cave entrance. Ashes floated by, stirred by a slight breeze, but the fires were gone, drowned by the rain.

Cloud breathed carefully, deeply, the familiar scent of flame and charred wood, and lifted his eyes to the mountaintops.

"He's in Nibelheim," he said.

Tifa stepped up behind him, put her hand on his back. "Cloud?" she asked, faint.

"Sephiroth. He told me to 'go home.' He's in Nibelheim."

He turned, looked at Tifa. Her face was still swollen, dirty from the cave and the ash on the wind, her hair tangled and filthy, her clothes singed and torn.

She was so, so beautiful.

"Tifa, if I don't go, he'll kill Aerith and Shinra. He'll find you. I won't be able to hide you from him. He'll kill you, too. And I won't be able to protect you."

He put his fingertips against her mouth when she started to speak, silencing her. "I forgot. I got too proud. I forgot this isn't about him and me; this isn't about some grudge or man-on-man showdown. He's a murderer, Tifa, and he had to murder Zack before I remembered that. This isn't about me. This is about everyone. Every soldier who died, every person in Midgar that he will kill, Tifa, every single one. This is bigger than me. But I've got to do it."

She gripped his wrist, tugged it away from her mouth so she could speak. "Cloud, letting him kill you isn't going to save all those people."

"I know," he said, and touched her hair, pushed it away from her face.

"That's why I need your help, Tifa. I need you to save me one more time."