I own nothing, make no money from anything, and am writing this purely for personal enjoyment.

Cloud waited for the reporters to settle before striding out onto the stage with his most severe expression on his face. "Good afternoon. I would remind you all that you are here purely as a courtesy. If any hint of the contents of what you are being told here today is published before we give you the go ahead, the people responsible will be punished with the full might and power of Shinra. This is not an idle threat. People's lives depend on the integrity of this operation. If any one of you feel that this is not a commitment you can live up to, this is your final chance to leave."

Unsurprisingly no one moved, but he still let the silence drag on to an uncomfortable length. They had sufficient resources in place to halt a leak before it became dangerous, but that would be messy. Better to intimidate them now, and remind them of the darkness that still lay underneath the kinder, gentler Shinra. It was what they would shortly be reporting on, after all.

"In approximately an hour, Shinra will take action against the criminal organisation known as AVALANCHE. We will no longer permit them to hide behind the screen of the well-meaning in order to slaughter innocents. We will no longer wait for them to prove their barbarism again and again in these unprovoked attacks. We will be taking the fight to them. We will not show hesitation,and we will not show mercy. We know that our people will forgive the disruption this will cause to their lives in order to achieve the peace they all deserve."

The journalists looked avarious and Cloud concealed his grimace. Death should never be something to look forward to. Although he supposed he couldn't really blame them that they had no real appreciation of the horror he was about to unleash. Except the few that had been in Wutai, they'd probably never seen a real battle.

Cloud motioned one of his people forward. "This is Captain Firth. He will be assigning you to your locations. You will obey his orders and the orders of his men. They are the people who are going to be keeping you alive over the next few hours, so unless you are bored with living, you will do everything you can to make their jobs possible. I will speak with you all again once we have finished cleaning up after the operation, which will not be for some time. Captain Firth will let you know when the blackout is lifted."

Cloud stepped out of the way to allow Firth to take the podium, and ignored the barrage of questions as he strode out the room. A few doors down, Cloud's next audience was a good deal better behaved, but no less filled with inappropriate excitement.

"Everyone should already know what they're doing, but to be entirely certain, I will go through this one last time. You will proceed, in your assigned teams, to a known AVALANCHE base and surround it. The snipers will remove any threats from the exterior of the building or buildings. The senior officer will then inform the remaining
terrorists that they have ten minutes to surrender. Anyone who takes us up on our
generous offer will be removed from the area and stunned. Once their time is up, we will detonate the bombs that have already been placed within the bases. Remain in place until it has been confirmed that all threats have been neutralised. Your team lead will keep you informed. Now let's go out there and save some people."

They cheered, low and angry. Most had been kept in the dark about the potentially high numbers of innocents within the bases, but Cloud looked at them now and realised that they wouldn't have let that stop them. He hoped that in the years and decades to come, when they thought back on what they had done this night, that the reticence might help them find peace with themselves. Cloud did not want his legacy to Shinra be the kind of indifference to human life they'd all shown in the other future, but he didn't want his people to break under the guilt that belonged to Cloud alone.

Cloud himself went with to the main base. Everything - common sense, personal desires, the recommendations of his planners - agreed that his presence was a bad idea, but Cloud just couldn't bring himself not to be there. Cloud did not let his hand shake as he answered his PHS. He wasn't sure whether he was grateful or furious to
hear from Yuffie after all this time. Now, she reached out to him, when it was entirely too late to reach an acceptable compromise.

Yuffie didn't bother with pleasantries. "I know Shinra got its claws into you, but surely you haven't sunk as low as this. Your old self would have despised you."

Cloud kept his bitter comments to himself about AVALANCHE having no problems sinking to new lows (the least of which the attempts to kill Cloud). She might want a fight, but he wanted a conversation.

"I've been using Shinra to make things better. And we have been making things better. AVALANCHE hasn't. You cannot tell me that AVALANCHE is concerned with our future with your recent attacks. You weren't even targeting the Mako generators, you were just there to be as pointlessly destructive as possible. However much I might sympathise with your ideals, I couldn't allow that to continue."

"It wasn't pointlessly destructive. Things like the space program and the rockets are exactly the type of thing you should have been stopping all along - Shinra desecrating our planet for personal whims. We need to put our resources into saving the planet. Or have you forgotten all about Second Calamity in your new pampered little existence?"

"We need the rockets to get rid of JENOVA – a danger I would note you don't seem to have cared about much in your new pampered existence. Did it ever occur to you that the things I have set in motion are part of my plan to save us from Second Calamity? Did it ever occur to you to even ask what I was doing?"

"So you could lie to me like you're lying to yourself? The rocket program might help with JENOVA, but there are other, better, options. It won't help with the Second Calamity at all, because that spreads from human to human too quickly. We considered that and dismissed it as a possibility before we even came back, if your memory hasn't disappeared to the same place as your loyalty."

"I don't intend to use the rocket program for destroying the victims of Second Calamity.I intend to have no victims at all. We can knock Second Calamity away from the planet before it even gets here."

"It's not a rock, Cloud. It's a living, thinking, creature. I mean, unless you're intending to use the Black Materia on it or… you're intending to use the Black Materia."

I might honestly have believed I was just keeping it safe, but as long as I had it, I was thinking about ways I could use it, he quoted to himself. He didn't let his self-directed irony enter his voice. "It won't crack the planet this time. We've built up sufficient mako in space to power it from there. We won't be putting anyone in danger."

"And let me guess, you're going to hand it over to Sephiroth to cast. Again."

Cloud was indeed going to hand it over to Sephiroth. Irony was thick and fast today. But that didn't make what Yuffie was implying right. "Sephiroth is a good man. Much better than either of us."

Yuffie sounded disgusted. "You've been brainwashed. Considering how weak your mind is, we should really have known better than to trust you with anything important."

You didn't trust me at all, thought Cloud, but the years had washed the betrayal from the thought. Now all that was left was a weary resignation. "That doesn't matter anymore. What matters is that you have no way of escaping before our attack. Please surrender. You still look like a child, so I can arrange to have you treated leniently. We can discuss our plans and see if we can come to some sort of compromise once it's all over."

"I will never submit. Not to someone like you." Yuffie hung up.

Cloud didn't try to get her back. He'd hoped for a different outcome, but he didn't really expect one. He'd had plenty of time to resign himself to this moment.

An officer approached to confirm what he already knew. "The ten minutes is almost up, sir."

Cloud took a deep breath, held it, and then released it. He keyed himself to the designated communications. This was his idea, and this was his responsibility. "On my mark, trigger the bombs."

Another breath. "Mark."

Cloud took a half step back as the shock and the noise hit him, but held himself still as the building sunk in on itself. It would not be complete destruction. Even with the best the Turks could do (and the best they could do was pretty impressive) they couldn't manage that. But from here, with everything partially concealed in a cloud of smoke, it looked very much like the building had simply ceased to be.

After a few minutes, the one lone SOLDIER in a group of Security edged forward. No response - the Turks had successfully eliminated the clone. SOLDIERs and Security swarmed forward looking for survivors to take into custody. Yuffie, in the command post with the majority of the explosives, would not be one of them. Somewhere in that mess of boulders and splinters was the broken body of a teenage girl. Zack would never forgive this revenge, but Cloud thought of the citizens of Wutai, and could not bring himself to feel guilty. He pressed his lips together, afraid he might slip into inappropriate and hysterical laughter. He was President Shinra, and he had just destroyed AVALANCHE. Yuffie was right about one thing– his old self would have shot him for this.

The attacks hadn't all gone completely smoothly, but what problems had arisen had been minor and easily dealt with. Cloud ordered JEVOVA and the remaining clones destroyed immediately, and SOLDIER was once again free to resume their duties. The legacy of the discontent would linger, but it was over now and fatalities had become almost unheard of. A small fraction of the population was vocally indignant about the AVALANCHE massacre, another vocally ecstatic, but most citizens didn't seem to think it had anything to do with them.

Cloud made the decision to make the existence and proposed solution for Second Calamity public, now that it was detectable by Shinra's best equipment. They'd been afraid of a panic, but without any knowledge of the horror it might unleash, the public was largely indifferent. The Shinra workers, on the other hand, threw everything into it. Cloud suspected that had more to do with wanting to please him than any appreciation for the risk itself, but the outcome was the same. They had their flight, and Sephiroth used the Black Materia, drawing only on the mako stored in space.

It was a few tense weeks waiting for the results. Cloud spent the time wavering between absolute certainty that their theories were correct; and absolute certainty that it was all going to go horribly wrong. Aerith had been kept ready to cast HOLY just in case, but that was a move of desperation. If they had to resort to that, then the expense to the lifestream would be little better than the combined damage of the double impact of METEOR and the Second Calamity.

He stood finally in the glare of the camera lights, doing his best to look calm and collected. Despite the absolute uselessness of the gesture, Cloud held his breath.

"The Second Calamity has been diverted. I confirm, Second Calamity has been accelerated away from the planetary surface."

The low rumble of approval and excitement erupted into noisy chaos. Cloud felt too disconnected from his body to be happy. They had done it. Cloud hadn't made things worse. He had (and he found it difficult to believe it was really true) succeeded.

"Congratulations everyone. The planet owes you more of a debt that they will ever know. I am proud of you all."

Cloud couldn't make himself heard any further over the cheering. He waited them out. He had one last thing to do. The very last part of his plan to save the planet. They had saved the planet from Hojo, from JENOVA, and from Second Calamity, and now they just had to be saved from Cloud himself.

"As many of you will have heard, this will be the last major project of the current Shinra Corporation. Over the next few months, we will be dividing the company into component parts, and transitioning some of them to the management of elected officials. This is a period of growth and opportunity, and I hope the new leaders will enjoy the enthusiastic support you have always shown—"

Death to Shinra.

Cloud had hoped to avoid a leaving celebration entirely, but he should have known better. By not organising one himself, he had effectively surrendered all control over it, and the guest list showed that. He pasted on his most fake smile on to discourage yet an over-familiar politician wannabe. Their sudden emergence to pick over Shinra's carcass was almost enough to make him change his mind about returning control to the people. Almost. If the people allowed their leaders to screw up, that would be all their own fault. Their privilege; their responsibility.

The man laughed at nothing. "I've hear that you've always been precocious, Shinra, but you didn't need to apply that to retiring as well."

Cloud just shrugged, and deftly avoided the attempted shoulder clasp.

"What are you planning on doing now? We could really use your help on some interesting—"

They could really use Cloud's presence to help them gain power, the man meant. But the best thing about putting it all behind him was that Cloud no longer had to bother with being diplomatic. "Planet, no. That kind of political nonsense is one of the reasons I'm leaving. I've always been suspicious of people enjoy that part of the task, aren't you?"

"I… ah… yes, I see."

Cloud let the man squirm while he stared at him with fake innocence.

Eventually, the man surrendered. "Ah, I think I see someone I need to have a word with. If you would excuse me?"

"Of course."

"He's right, you know," said Sephiroth from behind him.

Cloud turned just enough to see him out of the corner of his eye, but kept an eye on the politician. Hopefully the man would spread around the gossip that Cloud didn't like being approached. "He's an idiot."

"That too."

Cloud's lips twitched, but he refused to be tempted into good humour.

Sephiroth stood by his shoulder, speaking too quietly for anyone to overhear. "He doesn't understand what you've done to understand why you're giving up now. You've achieved everything you've been working towards all these years, and now you feel like there's nothing left for you. What's that Wutian saying? The three greatest misfortunes are to lose your child in old age, to destroy your health in your prime, and to achieve your life's goal in your youth?"

Cloud silently cursed Sephiroth, both for his perception and for his willingness to bring it up.

"He's right that you're too young to retire. You have plenty of time to fulfil other goals."

"I know."

"Are you planning to come back to SOLDIER? You're not part of the civilian command anymore, so there's nothing stopping you." Sephiroth's tone was neutral enough to indicate he was stating a fact rather than making a suggestion.

"No. I'm sure you already know what that would do to your own command structure if I tried. I think I might once have found satisfaction in defeating monsters, but we both know that no one will be able to treat me as just another SOLDIER. Half of them will suspect I re-joined as part of some undercover plot."

Sephiroth hummed an agreement, but didn't push any further. Cloud felt faintly guilty at how willing Sephiroth was to let Cloud keep his silence. This was hardly anything that needed any secrecy, or affected any others. Cloud wondered how much of his own reticence came from the necessity of saving the world, and how much of it was simply because it made his life easier.

That was one thing he could work on. "I'm thinking about Wutai, actually. They lost a great deal of their leadership and infrastructure, and there's still a lot of prejudice against them. They don't deserve to be abandoned to bureaucrats."

"You have done nothing to them that you need to atone for, you realise."

Cloud let that pass with a shrug. "But there's a lot of things I can do to help them. Things I can't really do here, without running the risk of becoming a dictator. Again."

"When were you thinking we would leave?"

Cloud turned to face him fully for the first time. "We?"

"You didn't imagine we'd let you go off into exile alone, did you? Angeal is more than ready to take over running SOLDIER by himself. Tseng has been leaving the day to day control of the Turks in his subordinate's hands since you became president. Reeve has been dropping some fairly heavy-handed hints about projects you might be interested in for months now. Highwind will need to stay near the space centre of course, but it's an easy matter for him to visit and he'll bring along your Lady Infinity when he comes."

"She isn't my Lady Infinity," complained Cloud, but he couldn't fight his smile anymore. He should try to talk Sephiroth and the rest out of it, but a tense knot in his stomach unravelled at the thought of having their support and moral standards to rely upon. There was work enough for all of them. Cloud didn't have the detailed plans that Sephiroth no doubt expected of him, but that didn't matter. They could make things up as they went along for a change. Wasn't this final step all about letting people make their own choices? If they wanted to come with, who was he to tell them that they weren't allowed to?

Cloud felt content in a way that made him realise just how long it had been since he had last been truly happy. For the first time in a long time, Cloud had no idea what was going to happen in the future, and that was wonderful.

THE END

Author's notes: Thank you for joining me on this journey. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! :)