Welcome! I just found this on my computer, cleaned it up a bit and thought I'd post it :) It's sort of a prequel to my other fic Lone Wolf. Sort of. If you squint.

Hope you like!

Everyone often wondered why I left. I got many messages asking as much, as well as where I had gone and when I'd be back. I never responded because I thought the answer was so obvious.

I had nothing left. Nothing but ghosts.

After Meteor, after the danger had passed and Sephiroth was gone, there was a brief time of celebration. We spent several weeks in Cosmo Canyon in relative peace. Even Aeris' absence didn't seem to dampen the overall mood as we rejoiced in what it was to live.

But all good things come to an end. Eventually, the past catches up to you and you have to look at yourself square in the face and remember what you are and what you've done.

I am weak. I'm a fake.

Everyone else was able to pick up and move on, able to leave the past in the past. One by one they left Cosmo Canyon, first Barret, then Cid, Yuffie and Vincent. They all went off to pursue their own dreams and ambitions. Perhaps it was because their sins were not as great as my own. Either way, I was glad they were gone. They didn't have to watch as I fell apart from the inside out.

"Cloud?"

I looked up from cleaning the Buster sword to see Tifa staring down at me. "Yes?" I asked.

"I've been calling you downstairs, Cloud!" she said, arms crossed and her burgundy eyes shining irritation mixed with the barest hint of concern.

"Sorry," I murmured. "Guess I zoned out."

'You know you didn't just zone out, Spike.'

She sighed and came up beside me, propping her back to the wall and sliding down to sit on the ground with me. "Marlene went with Nanaki to look around Cosmo Canyon. They said they'll be back in a little while."

"Good." Get to the point, Tifa. She always beat around the bush like this. Why could she never just come out and tell me what she wanted to say?

'Give her some time. She just isn't sure how to take you.'

She watched me pick up the whetting stone again and run it up and down the blade for a minute before suddenly saying, "I think we should go back to Midgar."

I frowned. "Midgar? There's nothing left."

"But there's a refugee town outside. Reeves calls it Edge. I'm thinking about opening up a bar again."

I didn't respond. I didn't really want to go back there. There were too many memories in that downed metropolis. Too many ghosts. At the same time, I didn't want to stick around here. I had to put on a show for Nanaki, Marlene, Cait, and even Tifa sometimes. Right now, I could just pretend to be tired from staying up late, but even she would start to notice soon enough.

"I just think it would be good for us to do something," she continued into the silence. She had never liked silence. That was something she and Zack had in common. "We can't spend the rest of our lives sitting around Cosmo Canyon."

But what could someone like me spend the rest of his life doing? I didn't know if it was Cloud or Zack talking, but I knew I wouldn't like being cooped up in a little bar. I needed to travel, to keep moving.

"Cloud? Are you alright?"

I turned to her and forced a bright smile to my face. "Yeah, Teef. I'm just a little tired, that's all. Yeah, opening a bar doesn't sound like a bad idea." The words were like a well-worn recording, easily played past my lips from someone else's mind. Zack's personality seemed to work much better than mine when relating to other people.

I knew now that Zack and I were not the same. That fragile, horrible façade had been yanked out from under me, leaving me with only a shell of a mind and a fractured personality. I had spent important years of my mental development in a lab or a Mako-induced coma, and another whole year trying to reconstruct my broken mind with Zack's personality. Without Zack's strength, I probably wouldn't have recovered. If this could count as recovering.

It wasn't so bad while we were trying to save the planet. Things were falling apart around us so fast; there was little time for me to make a fool of myself as I tried to detangle myself from Zack. Now, however, there was nothing to hide behind, and my faults were slowly being laid bare for the world to see.

It was especially painful when I was forced to interact with those from AVALANCHE, who had met me when I was under the full force of my delusions. Now, it was like Zack was living inside my head, a shared space between us, and all the others wanted to hear was Zack's side of it. They didn't even know me. But then again, I couldn't begrudge them. I didn't even know myself.

Tifa gave me a skeptical look, but didn't argue. And why would she? She had always liked Zack-me more than Cloud-me. Those were the words she wanted to hear, from the personality she wanted to hear them from. "Alright. We can leave in the morning. Reeves said he'd send over an airship."

She already called? Nice to know my opinion was relevant. "Alright." I smiled. "I guess I'll see you in the morning."

She lingered a moment longer before rising and heading out the door, closing it back behind her. The smile had melted off my face before it clicked shut.

'What are you afraid of, Cloudy? You think they won't like the real you?'

That wasn't it at all. Though I knew they wouldn't like me, of course. That was just a given. Zack was confident, assertive, friendly. I was shy, indecisive, and sometimes downright hostile. Who wouldn't like Zack more?

But what really had me was my shame, my weakness. I couldn't handle the strain of it all. I had to have Zack handle it for me. How could I let the others know how pathetic I was? How would they respect me then, when they figured out everything I am is a lie?

'Cloud, you just need to have some faith in yourself.'

I rubbed my hand across my face. "Easy for you to say."

I spent the rest of the night finding creative ways to avoid sleep. I had no desire to be revisited by my usual gamut of nightmares.

We boarded the airship early the next morning, carrying our meager supplies and all of the gil we had collected from our travels in two small backpacks. Marlene hugged Nanaki tightly around the neck and patted Cait Sith on the head before bounding up the ramp and into the ship with her stuffed mog doll in her arms. Tifa waved hurriedly and followed after the girl before she got into trouble.

I wanted to just follow after them, without a word of goodbye. Because I hated goodbyes. But Zack was stronger, and Zack wasn't afraid to say goodbye. I smiled. "Thanks for letting us stay, Red. Give us a call if you're ever around Edge."

The large cat-like creature bowed his head. "Certainly. May you have a safe journey."

"Goodbye, Cloud! Take care!" The smaller cat atop Nanaki's head waved with more enthusiasm than was probably warranted.

I gave a friendly wave in return, because that's what Zack-me would do. Then I boarded the ship and we left.

I was friendly with Reeves, smiled with Tifa, laughed with Marlene. Each time, it felt like I was betraying myself and Zack, but what else could I do?

'There's nothing wrong with you being you, Cloud. You're a good person.'

"That's not what I'd call it."

"What was that?"

I looked up to see Reeves regarding me curiously. Tifa was also watching me from the floor next to Marlene.

"Nothing. Just thinking aloud." I smiled. "What were you saying about the construction work?"

At first, it wasn't so bad. I was able to keep my mind off of everything by helping Tifa build her new Seventh Heaven. It was good, hard work that left me dead tired by the time evening came and kept most of the nightmares at bay. As the work diminished, however, so did my defenses. I would purposely stay up as late as I could to avoid sleep, because I knew what was waiting for me there. Aeris' pain-filled eyes as Masamune pierced her body, Zack dying in the rain, Sephiroth's voice whispering in my head, scalpels and blades carving up my body and drowning in Mako.

"Cloud?" Tifa asked as she unloaded boxes full of glass goods from Mideel and put them away in her newly finished bar. "You haven't been looking very well. Have you been sleeping?"

I rubbed the roller in my hands up and down the wall more vigorously than intended. She was starting to notice. How much longer could I last? Then again, wouldn't it be better if she blamed it on insomnia rather than a fractured personality?

I'm not who you think I am.

'Cloud, you don't have to keep hiding.'

The roller snapped in my hand, the head falling to the ground and sending paint splattering across the floor.

"Cloud!" Tifa slid out from behind the bar and came to see what had happened.

"Sorry," I apologized. "Guess I gripped it a little too hard." I flashed her a winning smile. "They don't make these things SOLDIER-strong."

She smiled. "It's alright, Cloud. We'll clean it up."

"I'll get it," I said, stepping over to the bar. I grabbed an old rag and put it under the faucet. It sputtered a moment before sending out a halting stream of water. Guess I didn't do something right with the plumbing. Just one more thing to check. Not that I minded, really. Work was starting to become scarce.

'You can't hide behind work forever, Cloudy.'

"Cloud, you're not listening again."

I looked at Tifa. She had her hands on her hips and looked annoyed. At least she wasn't worried.

"What?"

She sighed, and suddenly looked very tired. "Cloud, why don't you just go to bed? You can finish painting tomorrow."

That was the last place I would find rest. "It's not even nine yet, Teef," I informed. "Besides, I want to get this last wall done. I have to work on the plumbing tomorrow, before we bust a pipe." I turned the water on to illustrate my point.

She listened to it choke and shook her head. "I'm just worried about you, Cloud."

I shut off the water and smiled again, "Hey, there's nothing to worry about. I just have a lot of stuff to do if we're going to get this place up and running by next week. Then there'll be plenty of time for sleep." Or avoiding it, anyway.

"It's not necessarily that, Cloud," she said, her eyes glued to the rag in my hands. "You're not acting like yourself. At least not all the time. Is it JENOVA?"

The name sent a jolt through my body, a mixture of terror and trepidation. I physically flinched at the sound of it, a nauseating flash of green light and a blinding migraine burned inside my head as the remaining cells flared in recognition.

She may have been destroyed, but she still held sway over me.

I was so weak.

'That's not true.'

"Cloud?"

"It's not her," I rasped, my throat suddenly dry with a suppressed scream. "It's not her." I breathed deeply and squeezed my eyes shut, willing my heart to slow. I was finally able to straighten and look at her in her concerned eyes. "I'll be fine, Tifa. I promise."

How on Gaia could I keep a promise like that?

Tifa stepped aside as I knelt down and began scrubbing the paint from the floor. "I trust you, Cloud."

I felt my body freeze up.

Don't trust me. I just lie. I get people killed and steal lives and dreams. Look what I did to Aeris. And to Zack. They trusted me, too.

'I still do.'

"Don't lie to me," I sighed.

"What?" Tifa broke through my thoughts.

I blinked up at her. "Oh, I was just thinking about something else. Thanks, Tifa. That means a lot."

She didn't look convinced. "Are you sure you're alright, Cloud?" Her tone had changed into something pleading. She was begging me to let her in, to talk to her. But I didn't know how. Zack did, though. Even when he was alive, Zack had done all the talking. I just never related to people well, I guess.

I felt so alone. Isolated and deserted. But what could I do about it?

'You could try letting her see the real Cloud.'

That was no better, if not worse than the lie I was living.

"Yes, Tifa. I'm sure."

The bar opened on schedule. Patrons flooded in in hopes of drinking away their problems and their memories, seemingly oblivious to the futility of their efforts. Their problems would only grow in their absence.

As for myself, I was dying. I was slowly drifting away, drowning inside of myself. As ironic as it is, I think only the voices inside my head were keeping me sane. Carrying on conversations with Zack became as normal as talking to any living being. Maybe because I felt like even though he was dead, he had always known me the best.

'Because you've never let anyone else in.'

"Why would I do that?" I murmured as I scrubbed the dishes clean from dinner. Tifa claimed she could run the bar all by herself and that I should focus on getting better, whatever that meant. It wasn't like I could sleep off my problems. Besides that, half my problems started when I was asleep. So I had convinced her to let me run the kitchen while she was manning the bar out front. Marlene helped me sometimes, when she stayed up late enough. I would wash and she would dry, or we would organize the merchandise or sweep the floor and wash the counters. But tonight, she was staying at a friend's house, leaving me to finish the dishes from dinner and a crate of dirty shot glasses.

'Remember when we used to do the dishes?'

"Zack, stop it!" I hissed, trying vainly to block the water he splashed on me.

Zack laughed. "Why should I? You can't make me!" To prove his point, he immediately threw the wet washcloth in my face.

"Zack!" I screeched, peeling it off and throwing it back. He deftly caught it before it made contact, which I was impressed by. Even while being supremely irritated. "Would it kill you to act your age?"

"Would it kill you to have a little fun?" he returned, a grin splitting his face.

"It might," I grumbled aloud. "Chores with you always ended badly for me."

"Chores with who?"

I was surprised to see Tifa had entered the room with an armful of empty bottles. She was staring at me knowingly, a quiet fear in her eyes.

"I was talking to myself," I responded, plastering on that fake smile that made my insides hurt. It was too much like Zack's. It didn't fit on my face somehow.

'It wouldn't kill you to smile, either.'

She shook her head. "You're never talking to yourself. It's always someone else. Are you hallucinating?"

"I'm not hallucinating, Tifa," I said, careful to keep my tone bored. "I just like to talk to myself when I'm alone. Keep myself company."

"You talk even when you're with us. What's going on with you?" Her own voice was becoming heated, dangerous.

"Nothing that concerns you, Tifa," I assured her, letting my own emotions seep into my words, just an edge of warning. She needed to learn that not everything was her business.

'She cares about you, Cloud.'

"See? That's not like you! You're not acting like yourself!" she accused.

So that was it? If it wasn't Zack-me, then there was obviously something wrong. Cloud-me just wasn't enough. Because Zack-me would have smiled, eased her mind, assured her. Cloud-me wanted to be left alone.

"Your patrons are waiting on their drinks."

She ground her teeth, opened her mouth, closed it, then dropped the bottles and left.

I finished the dishes and left too.

Tifa caught me talking aloud to him more and more, and that's when she became more concerned than angry. She pleaded with me to see a psychiatrist, to which I responded "never in a million years." If I ever encountered a "doctor" again, it would be too soon. Besides, what's wrong with a few voices in your head? It was better than the alternative, which was a complete mental break.

Then I overheard her on the phone downstairs in the bar, talking to a shrink of some type, something about forcibly bringing me in. That spooked me more than I thought possible. The panic attack I experienced had me gasping on the floor, and when Tifa heard and came up to see what was wrong, I almost threw her down the stairs in my terror and put a sizeable hole in the door during my escape.

That's how I found myself in Aeris' church the next morning, hiding behind the ever-blooming flowers and nursing an arm full of splinters.

"Zack," I whispered. "I don't know what to do."

"Why won't you just let me take care of it?"

He stood in the kitchen, pouring himself a glassful of milk and watched me with concerned glowing eyes.

"As if," I muttered from my seat at the breakfast table. "I have no respect as it is. I can't just let you go fighting my fights. Besides, you've done enough."

"We can't just let this keep going, Cloud," Zack insisted. "If you don't take care of it, as your superior officer, I'll have to."

"Zack," I pleaded, "Please don't do that-"

"It's poor soldier conduct. Beating you up every time you walk down the hallway is grounds for dishonorable discharge."

"There's always someone else to take their place," I sighed. "What difference will it make? I'm just a good target. About the only thing I'm good at."

"That's not true!" Zack protested. "And besides, it's what friends are for. Just let me take care of it for you, please?"

"You always take care of it for me," I said quietly. "It's time I take care of things myself."

All this time, I had been using Zack to solve my problems. When Cloud didn't know what to say, Zack did. When Cloud didn't know what to do, Zack always had an answer. What good was I if I couldn't rely on myself for something as simple as conversation? I was tired of living a lie. It was time I figured out who I was, for my own sake.

"Zack?" I asked the sky. "I think we should stop talking for a while."

"Good idea, Cloud."

Zack always wanted us to be "jacks of all trades." That's what I could do. I could get away from everyone, do some odd jobs all around the continent and spend some time alone with myself. I could figure out who I was, without the distraction of keeping my ruse with the others. I wouldn't have to pretend to be Zack for everyone else. I wouldn't have to be the confident, outgoing soldier that everyone wanted me to be. I could be me.

"Whoever that is," I muttered, then frowned. "Like talking aloud to myself is much better."

I hid in the church until night, then made my way to Tifa's bar and into my room through the window. I filled my backpack with all the supplies I had, as well as all my spare gil from our travels. I then scribbled a note to Tifa, explaining that I was going to be gone for a while, then grabbed the Buster sword and headed for the window. The glint of plastic caught my eye and I paused at the sight of my phone. I didn't exactly want to be harassed by phone calls and messages, but at the same time, I wanted a connection. I eventually grabbed it, tossing it in my bag and ducking out the window.

That morning I bought a motorcycle from a man that had obviously pulled it out of the ruins of Midgar. It was dented up pretty bad, but it ran fine, and I think I got a pretty good price on it. Besides, I could probably fix it up along the way. Despite Cid's claims, I was actually pretty good with machinery. At least I could do something that Zack couldn't. He'd always had two thumbs when it came to these things.

I left town as soon as that was done. I had to be gone before Tifa came looking. On my way out, however, I couldn't help but pause on a certain plateau. The place was nothing but dirt and a few weeds struggling to survive.

"Move on, Cloud," I heard Zack say, his voice a whisper in the wind. I couldn't be certain that that time it was all in my head.

But I couldn't just forget him. That wasn't right. Just because I didn't want him living in my head didn't mean I wanted to forsake his memory and all he stood for. As much as it killed my ego to admit it, he was very much a part of who I was, even without existing as him for almost a year. He had been my best friend for years.

I pulled the Buster sword free from its sheath and planted it firmly in the ground.

"You didn't deserve to just slip out of this world unnoticed. At least now maybe you can get some of the recognition you deserve."

"I thought we weren't going to talk anymore?" I could hear him laughing.

I frowned. "Shut up, Zack."

I mounted my bike and left in a cloud of dust. I might have imagined it, my mind in the state it was, but I could have sworn that through the dust, I saw a human figure swirl into existence. The silhouette raised a hand, as if to wave, then it evaporated into the air.

I couldn't help but to smile.

"Bye, Zack."

"See you around, Cloud."

Yep, Cloud's trying to be sane XD It's an odd look for him.

So there you have it. My sort of explanation of how Cloud got from being so confident and outgoing to all broody like in the movie lol.

Please review, and have a great day! Merry Christmas!

God Bless,

-RainFlame