A/N: Well, after 8 months of study, endless procrastination and all round hard work, I've finally finished my first year of University. This achievement has been nearly ten years in the making. Due to my questionable life choices when I was eighteen and a general intense and all-consuming fear of failure, I never made it to University. And while everyone else my age was planning the rest of their lives, I was off wasting mine with a man nearly ten years my senior, who turned out, in a rather bad cliché, to be a real douchetard!

Needless to say, you can understand why I'm so thrilled to finally be achieving one of my longest held dreams.

In celebration of this occasion, instead of going out and getting drunk and/or high as my younger self would have very likely done, I've decided to treat you all to the much requested sequel to Twenty Four Hours.

This celebration is, I've no doubt, of little consequence to most people. However, it means the world to me, and I'd like to share it with you all.

Happy reading, and I hope you enjoy the beginning of this long awaited story.

Disclaimer: All people and places belong to Square Enix and/or Disney. No infringement intended, no profit made. All lyrics belong to Tom Odell.

"And I promise… if you let me, I'll look after you. And I promise I'll never, ever hurt you. And I'll never let anyone else hurt you. Ever again."

1

Heal

Take my mind and take my pain
Like an empty bottle takes the rain
And heal.

Take my past and take my sins
Like an empty sail takes the wind
And heal.

And tell me some things last.

Tom Odell – Heal.

"What do you mean, what did it feel like?" Cloud asked; his voice tight and irritated. His brows were drawn and he had to remind himself to uncurl in fingers from the arms of the chair. It wasn't that he disliked this person. Sometimes though… Cloud felt tired. And right now, he wasn't sure whether he had reached his limit for the day, or whether he was just mildly irritated by the man's seemingly obvious question. What did it feel like? Honestly? What did knowing you were about to die feel like? Cloud was having trouble seeing past the obtuseness of the question. What did this guy think it felt like?

"It felt like I was going to die!" Cloud answered rather shortly, his tone not unnoticed by the rather expensive looking shrink sat in the armchair opposite him.

Cloud noted the darkening of the man's eyes, and the almost exasperated expression that the therapist was too professional to actually let slip, as he came up against yet another wall so expertly placed by the young blond. Cloud was well aware that he was testing the man's patience. But well… he was testing Cloud's.

"Were you scared?"

Cloud wasn't so professional. He scoffed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he tried to push down his fluttering anger and exasperation. "Of course I was scared." He offered no more.

Some people could talk for hours. Some people talked just to fill a silence or because they were afraid of it. And others talked because they were afraid that they had nothing really very important to say at all. Some people had no idea just how hard it was to string two feelings together and push them out past reticent teeth. Cloud had never been very good at talking.

"What else did you feel?" the question was asked after a few moments of dense awkward silence and it was the question that Cloud had come to dread the most in his two months of this psychoanalytical bullshit. What did he feel? What the fuck did it matter, it was over with! In all of his years and experience, no good had ever come of asking himself how he felt. He usually never liked the answer. However, he reminded himself, he had promised Leon - he had promised to try.

Pulling in a large breath through his nose, he clenched his jaw, pushing past the overwhelming urge to punch his therapist in the face and he concentrated. He steeled himself as he thought back and felt the cold rush of remembered feelings flood him. He put the fact that he couldn't remember a great deal down to knowing that he didn't particularly want to remember, but as he dug and sifted through what he could, a strange and uncomfortable realisation come to him that at first made him freeze.

"I… I remember feeling… I… Like, I didn't care. Like… I was calm. I… I was scared, but I was… I don't know." Cloud shook his head, unable to articulate any of his clogged up and foggy emotions from a memory he could barely remember. "I remember feeling like, I was ready. I couldn't… I couldn't stop what… I couldn't get out of there, so I remember thinking, 'okay… this is it… nothing I can do…' you know?" he looked up at the therapist who was staring back at him, brows down and serious as he nodded his head slightly in acknowledgement.

"You were resigned?" he asked; his voice deep and level. Cloud nodded once, feeling his frozen stomach unclench as a familiar wave of shame rolled over him. Had he really been willing to give up that easily? "And how does that make you feel now?" The therapist asked, noting Cloud's guilt ridden expression that he was too side-tracked to hide.

There was a long moment of silence as Cloud gathered together all of his scattered feelings, collecting them and weighing them up before deciding on a word. He didn't really have to think too hard about whether it was the right one. Cloud couldn't have felt more certain. He knew this feeling well.

"Pathetic."

The word was dropped like a stone and the moment it left Cloud's lips he felt like he could almost physically feel his emotions rippling out like waves; spreading, growing bigger, making it harder for Cloud to gather them back into himself and keep locked away. He clenched his fist, tensing every muscle in his body as he dared himself to lose control. He did the only thing he knew how to do and turned his pathetic emotions into anger. It sat there, a toxic weight in his chest.

"You understand that these feelings are perfectly natural, Cloud. But they aren't real. They are distortions of yourself… " Cloud let the man's words wash over him, uncaring about anything he had to say. There was nothing the man could possible say that would make Cloud feel anything different. He had felt this way since childhood. It was real enough to him. He concentrated instead on his ball of anger. In an odd sort of way, it comforted him. When he felt it, hot and heavy, pressing down on his chest, he didn't feel so impotent. When he felt its destructive mass, ironically he felt more in control than he ever did. Knowing he could hold it back, just let it burn quietly in his centre made him feel anything but weak and pathetic. It was the only way he knew. This dipshit of a doctor knew nothing!

"I should really get going, our time is almost up!" he interrupted, not caring that he was at least ten minutes from the actual end of their session or that he was being incredibly rude; not to mention completely obvious. Cloud stood without waiting for a reply, barely noticing the distinct lack of surprise on the shrink's face, tossing in insincere 'thanks for your time' over his shoulder before shutting the door a little too loudly behind him.

The further he got away from the office, out of the building and onto the street, the better he felt. he could feel his anger melting away until it eventually fizzled away to nothing, leaving him feeling empty and drained. His weekly sessions with his therapist usually left him feeling like dead weight however, so he couldn't really complain that today's session had been any different. Yet he rarely left feeling that worked up. He had certainly never stormed out before. Maybe he wasn't as in control as much as he liked to think he was?

Hefting a sigh and refusing to think about it anymore, he began the long walk back to their apartment.

Cloud had never really considered any place home. At least, not before he had met Leon. As far back as he could remember, the concept of 'home' had always seemed foreign and far away to him. As he unlocked his apartment door and entered the large open plan space, he thought that maybe this was as close to it as he was ever likely to come.

Leon had done nothing but make him welcome in every way, even way back before they could even have been considered lovers. The apartment never felt cold or aloof as his previous one had, and it never felt threatening or full of miseries like his childhood home had. Still it seemed to Cloud as though he should feel something more. A nameless, unmanned emotion eluded him and no matter how much he thought about it he could never pin it down. Something stopped him from feeling like he belonged here.

As he passed the desk next to the door, he casually flicked the answer machine on, letting the recorded voice fill the lofty room.

"You have two new messages. Message one: received today at, one twenty six, pm." The long beep sounded shrill in the echoing rafters of the room, and Cloud winced as he picked up the mail and began to sift through it.

"Leon, this is Quistis. I wouldn't normally ring you at home but this is quite serious. I've tried your cell but you aren't picking up so… just call me back when you get this. Asap!" the message ended with another obnoxious beep and Cloud only briefly frowned at the woman's voice. It wasn't uncommon for Leon to receive work calls at home, as much as Leon hated it, but there was something in the urgency of the woman's voice that made Cloud take notice. He made a mental note to ask Leon about it as soon as he got home – whenever that would be.

"Message two: received today at, two thirteen, pm."

Cloud had climbed the stairs to the kitchen, throwing the mail on to the island in the centre, and pulling his jacket off as he set about making coffee. He thought briefly about making dinner, in the vain hope that Leon would be back in time to eat with him. The second message left on the answer phone deflated that thought almost immediately.

"Hey Cloud, it's Leon. Listen umm, I'm not gonna be home for a while yet. I gotta work late." There was a long pause followed by a nearly undetectable sigh. "So don't wait up okay? I'll be home as soon as I can. I gotta go, okay, love you. Bye." Even though Cloud was well aware of Leon's dislike and discomfort of talking to an answer machine, even he had to admit that that had sounded strained.

Cloud looked dejectedly around him, throwing the discarded teaspoon into the sink and ran his hand through his ruffled blond hair. Maybe this was why he never really felt at home here? Maybe the place was just too big for one person.

Cloud sighed. Maybe he just needed to quit being such an asshole and shut his whining? He was with a billionaire for fuck sake. Any person would kill to be where he was, right? He had never been this lucky in his entire fucking life. So why the fuck didn't he feel as honoured as he was supposed to? Why did he feel that no matter how much time passed or how deep their relationship progressed, Cloud always felt like there was this huge insurmountable void between them?

In his miserably pathetic life, Cloud had known loneliness. But for some reason, stood there in the expansive space of their shared apartment, Cloud had never felt more alone.

Cloud had never been one to pass up a laugh at irony's expense. He huffed bitterly as he resigned himself to another night alone in front of the T.V.