"Heh. Course she has." The woman who gave him a bottle of Romulan ale for the holidays? Yeah, he believes it.
Cloud lets out a quiet breath. If Angeal says Zack is still here, then he probably is. One less thing to worry about, at least.
He sips at his mead while Angeal talks, but he pauses when Sephiroth comes up. His brow furrows at the rest. Even if they don't remember me. When Cloud had finally remembered Zack, he'd felt awful about having forgotten him. ...a story he has yet to tell Angeal despite his intentions, he recalls, but now is definitely not the time.
"Well...Zack's a warden. Yunlan and my wardens have said the same thing, about focusing on myself instead of others. But that's impossible. Can't just sit around navel gazing when someone you care about's having trouble." He thinks for a moment. "Last time...when you left Shinra, you mean? But wasn't that for Genesis? ...is something wrong with Sephiroth? He seemed fine this morning."
"He's the same as he was last week." Angeal does not consider that being okay, but it was ... stable. "Healthy enough by all accounts, just ... not the same man I've known half my life. Doesn't stop me from worrying though." That's an easy admittance to make, Angeal worried constantly about everyone, probably where all the wrinkles came from, if he wasn't simply aging abnormally fast. "..There do seem to be certain themes from Wardens." It's all the same job.
Cloud was on that list of people to worry about, whether he wanted to be or not. "While I left for Genesis it was also my hope to bring him back. I didn't intend to stay AWOL for long. And then ... things got out of hand. Although every SOLDIER is equal to a platoon of normal troops, we work best in groups. And Sephiroth, Genesis and I .. there wasn't much we couldn't accomplish together." Sure they were sent on separate missions all the time, but unified? "But we let our focus on ourselves blind us. And we went our separate ways, and we died. One by one."
He drains his glass in one long swig before setting it on the old wood magazine table. "I already know what focusing on myself gets."
Cloud glances down. This must be how Tifa felt. He was a totally different person when she found him in Midgar. She was worried constantly.
His eyes stay lowered and even move away slightly. Yeah, Sephiroth died. Cloud killed him. So that's...awkward.
He looks up again at the sound of Angeal putting down his glass. "Yeah, but you and Genesis were dealing with degradation then. You're not anymore here, so focusing on yourself at least enough to graduate shouldn't lead to anything too bad. Plus, you got a warden and a bunch of friends watching your back."
He sips his mead thoughtfully. "I don't get it. If there's nothing going on with Sephiroth, what did Zack disagree with you about?"
"And if my warden decides to do what plenty of others do for their inmates and grants me my full strength back? It's just a matter of how long it takes this time and how many I take down with me, then." It's in his file, but how much would that ACTUALLY affect someone's decisions? "I can't afford to sit back and assume everything will work out."
Regardless of the fact that it was a fantastic way to dodge his own problems by focusing on others. Like Zack's disagreement. "...What to do going forward, mostly." That's a paraphrase and a half. It seemed Cloud and Sephiroth were well on their way to mending whatever animosity had been there after Nibelheim, it's just another thing too precious to risk destroying. "Shaw's taking the standard track of suggesting apologizing for wrongdoings as an early step, but of the two onboard I'd owe that, Sephiroth doesn't remember any of it. And forcing him to simply to say I'm sorry would be..." Pointlessly vicious. "Too high a cost."
"...how long and how many did it take the first time?" Cloud asks quietly. "Zack never talked about what happened in Modeoheim. I was there, but Tseng and I got injured, so Zack went on by himself. And then when he came back...he didn't say a word. I'd never seen him like that. Then I didn't see him at all for a while, not until he came back on duty to rally the rookies. I never got up the courage to ask him." And this, Angeal, is why he's so worried about Zack now.
Cloud takes in the explanation about Sephiroth, deep in thought. "Nobody can force him to. He's the only one who should get to decide whether he remembers everything or not. Not even Yunlan should be making a call like that. But...sounds like Zack thinks he should. Still doesn't explain why that was so upsetting for him, though."
Then, a pause. "Of the two onboard. Is Zack the other one?"
Angeal considers this for a long moment. "I think you're chasing the wrong chocobo, Cloud. Based on what I've observed on the network, nothing about our disagreement was worse than any other he's had with others before, so it probably wasn't that at all. Sometimes things are just... bad timing." It's not just an excuse, he doesn't see the connection between hibernating against the world and their argument. It wasn't that bad. So it had to be other things, or other associations.
Why DID Zack retreat to silence and ignoring calls? It wasn't something as minor as that. He's surely faced people who've disagreed with him before, or outright fought with him before. "But I agree. It's Sephiroth's choice, and he doesn't want to." Torturing the good man he used to be wouldn't in any way be helpful.
So Angeal wasn't going to force it.
"As for the rest, it took a few months and cost two thirds of SOLDIER between Genesis and I." He studies Cloud, wondering how things would have gone for him if he'd tried to join at the RIGHT age and not much too early. "If he never told you about any of it, either back then or before I arrived here, that seems to be a pretty deliberate choice." Zack said nothing, even before worrying about Angeal hearing about it was an issue. "The things that happened there were not pleasant. I'm not sure I'm alright with you being able to spring it on him when he's made it clear he doesn't want you to know."
"Hm." Bad timing...it's true that Zack's had plenty of arguments with plenty of people and never reacted like this before. Angeal isn't just anyone, but...if he doesn't know, he doesn't know.
Cloud nods to Angeal's agreement, but then he pauses. "I think...it's less that he doesn't want to, and more that he doesn't know whether he wants to or not. I get it. When you're not sure who you are, it's hard to know what to want." He speaks with confidence, as if he knows from experience. "But - you said I came up in that argument. How?"
He gives Angeal a hard look. "Why the hell would I ever do that to Zack? And who'd go out of their way to talk about something like that to anybody? You seriously think I'd ask about the worst shit he went through when I finally get to see him again after all that time thinking I never would?" Cloud shakes his head and stares into his half-finished glass of mead. "I'm just...trying to understand. I wanna help him. I tried, back then, but I couldn't. Couldn't...keep up. And all that shit was way above my pay grade, and by the time I learned anything it was too late. We were already in Nibelheim and Sephiroth was already holed up in the basement, Zack was already at the end of his rope, and there was nothing I could do."
"He had a recording of his explanation to someone else of Nibelheim's entire chain of events, and played it for me. Needless to say Sephiroth and what happened to him was ... on topic." And brought into focus that things might not have gone that way if he'd still been around. Surely he would have been if Genesis had still been alive at that point. What his mental state would have been was.. very debatable, but alive. "He was my friend. He was for years. It's ... it might be like finding out after you wake up that Zack had gone on a rampage and killed a town full of people for no reason. It doesn't line up with what you know, and what you know is he'd never do any such thing. Not who he was. And who he is now.."
Sephiroth's not just an echo of someone gone. "Who he is now is making his own life. His own friends. His own dreams."
Without the past. Maybe the past wasn't necessary. "Not long after we first met there was an effect here that dredged up our fears, without our interest in having them displayed." Something in Angeal's bearing shifts, from concerned towards stern. "Do you think you'd have to go out of your way to gossip for ANYTHING to get around? That aside, do I think you're the kind of man who'd see a friend in distress and then try to talk to them about it?" Yep.
He spreads his hands at his sides, expression grim. "You're here aren't you? Specifically because you're concerned about Zack? Do you believe you'd still be here if he picked up your calls, or would you have gone there instead?"
Cloud's eyes stay on his glass even as he puts it down so he can lean forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "...yeah. I barely knew him, obviously, but even though I was just some random trooper, he was...kind to me. And you're right - the guy he is now isn't that guy. He's not the guy who tried to destroy humanity, either. We've both been trying to figure out who we are now...think we're doing okay so far."
That stern tone in Angeal's voice makes Cloud's face fall, making him look even younger than he is for a moment. "Course I'd try to talk to him, if I could. But I wouldn't bring up anything he didn't bring up first."
There's something reluctant in his tone when Angeal continues, though his expression is reasonably steady. The worry-lines seem a little deeper, but that might just be the light. "And because of that, because he's finding .. a new place for himself, making bonds, forming friendships, I don't want to destroy it by forcing him to remember who he used to be. Who we are is in a lot of ways dictated by our memories. It shapes what we do, how we feel. If he remembered, he might become who he is again, save now he'll know he's responsible for the deaths of perhaps tens of thousands of innocents, and who he is this very moment may die." He makes a small helpless gesture. "I don't wish the man he was to be punished for who he's become, and who he's become deserves a chance to find a life for himself. My friend is dead. Your friend shouldn't have to die too."
Remembering would take it all away, in one direction or another. He makes it sound reasonable. It isn't his problem, he's nobody's warden, he has no say in any of it.. but as a friend, he didn't want Sephiroth to suffer more. Let the crimes sit on the shoulders of the one who made them.
Maybe Wardens had a different perspective. Maybe they had to, because of their jobs. "..Of course you would. That's what you do, when you know a friend is upset."
But the problem goes back further than one argument over Sephiroth's fate. "But this ship doesn't seem much like it's interested in respecting people's privacy, from what I can tell."
"Not inmates' privacy, anyway," Cloud grumbles. It's a complaint he's had before. But he knows what Angeal really means, so he nods. "Or anybody's, when weird shit starts happening."
He goes quiet, thinking through everything Angeal's said. Was it a mistake for Cloud to remember who he'd been before? Hard to say. The situations aren't quite the same, of course, but they're similar enough that he's starting to think maybe this is the right time to tell Angeal the truth about himself, after all. Who knows, maybe it would help.
Who we are is in a lot of ways dictated by our memories. It shapes what we do, how we feel. Hoo boy, does Cloud know that.
"The question of Sephiroth's memories...what you're saying. I get it. Better than you think." He sits up straight again and pulls his feet up onto the cushion, wrapping his arms loosely around his knees. "I told you the story of what happened to me and Zack, back then, and what Sephiroth did in Nibelheim. But...there was more to it. You saw a piece of it, that...nightmare. Think this might be the time to tell you the rest, if you're up for it."
This is weighed quietly - in the context of their discussion, it could be seen as pressure. Secrets being taken or shared, when otherwise they might not. "No, it's up to you not me. You don't owe anyone your story, least of all me."
Willing is one thing. Feeling obligated is another.
"I know. But I've been wanting to tell you ever since you got here, and I just...didn't. That sword, the one Zack gave me that day, it was yours first. And you're the one who taught Zack about embracing his dreams, and he changed my life with that philosophy. So you deserve to know the rest of the story. And...maybe I need to tell you for myself, too."
Not something that would have occurred to Cloud a year ago, or even when he first arrived on the Barge.
"And...I'm sorry, that I acted like you owed me anything. You're right - if Zack wanted to share it with me, he would have."
"Hm. On that note, I do owe you, but in a different way. From what I hear you're the one left to clean up all my messes." And he did, though perhaps in a different timeline.Which means he was capable, and he would and could do it again.
Except maybe this time it won't be necessary. The world doesn't have to come to the brink of ruin if Cloud and Sephiroth are both on the same page.
He doesn't refute the repetition; surely if Zack wanted it discussed he'd have discussed it. He didn't, therefore it was the way it was wanted. "... If you think it'll help you, then be my guest. We're all in this together."
"Yup." Which may sound callous, but then-- "But they weren't your messes. They were Shinra's. And Rufus already knows he owes me and the world, big time."
Cloud nods - they're all in this together. It's something he'd learned, and then something he forgot. But the Barge makes it a little easier to remember.
"Told you about the lab and the mako poisoning. How Zack passed everything on to me. But I was so messed up from the mako and Jenova that my mind was hanging by a thread. Wasn't until I ran into my friend Tifa in Midgar that I woke up for real. She kept asking me all these questions about where I'd been and what I'd been doing, and I couldn't remember. If I had, I think...I probably would've broken for good, remembering Zack's death and everything. So my subconscious and the Jenova cells rattling around in there protected me from those memories, and...filled in the gaps with Zack's instead. He told me I'd be his living legacy, and I was. In all the wrong ways."
He picks up his glass and finishes it all at once. His tone is a shade harder now, a shade more disgusted. "I forgot Zack ever existed. Remembered his life as a SOLDIER as my own, so I could play hero. Erased him just as much as Shinra's coverups did. He was my only friend, he died to protect me, and I just...forgot him."
Cloud has to pause here. There's more, of course - the part that's most relevant to the conversation they were having about Sephiroth - but this, this is the crux of what Cloud wanted Angeal to know. He couldn't let Zack's mentor keep thinking he was a real protege, when all he really was was a delusional wannabe.
For someone admitting they forgot Angeal's protege and all but stole his identity, there seems to be little disgust or anger in Angeal's own reactions. He listens, and pieces it against what he knows.
Of himself, of what he did to his own copies. Genesis, and his own. What happened to those involved in the project, and what he'd been able to piece together afterward.
After a long moment of quiet, where Cloud has time to ruminate on his own perceived sins, Angeal frowns faintly. "Cloud, I want to ask a question that might be uncomfortable. It's related to this."
There's a pattern here. "..Are you sure you're Sephiroth's copy, or is that just what you were told? I don't mean simply possessing Jenova cells and following the S-type protocols, that's a good quarter of SOLDIER."
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-12-31 02:21 am (UTC)Cloud lets out a quiet breath. If Angeal says Zack is still here, then he probably is. One less thing to worry about, at least.
He sips at his mead while Angeal talks, but he pauses when Sephiroth comes up. His brow furrows at the rest. Even if they don't remember me. When Cloud had finally remembered Zack, he'd felt awful about having forgotten him. ...a story he has yet to tell Angeal despite his intentions, he recalls, but now is definitely not the time.
"Well...Zack's a warden. Yunlan and my wardens have said the same thing, about focusing on myself instead of others. But that's impossible. Can't just sit around navel gazing when someone you care about's having trouble." He thinks for a moment. "Last time...when you left Shinra, you mean? But wasn't that for Genesis? ...is something wrong with Sephiroth? He seemed fine this morning."
no subject
Date: 2024-12-31 02:42 am (UTC)Cloud was on that list of people to worry about, whether he wanted to be or not. "While I left for Genesis it was also my hope to bring him back. I didn't intend to stay AWOL for long. And then ... things got out of hand. Although every SOLDIER is equal to a platoon of normal troops, we work best in groups. And Sephiroth, Genesis and I .. there wasn't much we couldn't accomplish together." Sure they were sent on separate missions all the time, but unified? "But we let our focus on ourselves blind us. And we went our separate ways, and we died. One by one."
He drains his glass in one long swig before setting it on the old wood magazine table. "I already know what focusing on myself gets."
no subject
Date: 2024-12-31 03:18 am (UTC)His eyes stay lowered and even move away slightly. Yeah, Sephiroth died. Cloud killed him. So that's...awkward.
He looks up again at the sound of Angeal putting down his glass. "Yeah, but you and Genesis were dealing with degradation then. You're not anymore here, so focusing on yourself at least enough to graduate shouldn't lead to anything too bad. Plus, you got a warden and a bunch of friends watching your back."
He sips his mead thoughtfully. "I don't get it. If there's nothing going on with Sephiroth, what did Zack disagree with you about?"
no subject
Date: 2024-12-31 03:46 am (UTC)Regardless of the fact that it was a fantastic way to dodge his own problems by focusing on others. Like Zack's disagreement. "...What to do going forward, mostly." That's a paraphrase and a half. It seemed Cloud and Sephiroth were well on their way to mending whatever animosity had been there after Nibelheim, it's just another thing too precious to risk destroying. "Shaw's taking the standard track of suggesting apologizing for wrongdoings as an early step, but of the two onboard I'd owe that, Sephiroth doesn't remember any of it. And forcing him to simply to say I'm sorry would be..." Pointlessly vicious. "Too high a cost."
no subject
Date: 2024-12-31 04:11 am (UTC)Cloud takes in the explanation about Sephiroth, deep in thought. "Nobody can force him to. He's the only one who should get to decide whether he remembers everything or not. Not even Yunlan should be making a call like that. But...sounds like Zack thinks he should. Still doesn't explain why that was so upsetting for him, though."
Then, a pause. "Of the two onboard. Is Zack the other one?"
no subject
Date: 2024-12-31 01:57 pm (UTC)Why DID Zack retreat to silence and ignoring calls? It wasn't something as minor as that. He's surely faced people who've disagreed with him before, or outright fought with him before. "But I agree. It's Sephiroth's choice, and he doesn't want to." Torturing the good man he used to be wouldn't in any way be helpful.
So Angeal wasn't going to force it.
"As for the rest, it took a few months and cost two thirds of SOLDIER between Genesis and I." He studies Cloud, wondering how things would have gone for him if he'd tried to join at the RIGHT age and not much too early. "If he never told you about any of it, either back then or before I arrived here, that seems to be a pretty deliberate choice." Zack said nothing, even before worrying about Angeal hearing about it was an issue. "The things that happened there were not pleasant. I'm not sure I'm alright with you being able to spring it on him when he's made it clear he doesn't want you to know."
Can Cloud keep his mouth shut?
no subject
Date: 2024-12-31 02:57 pm (UTC)Cloud nods to Angeal's agreement, but then he pauses. "I think...it's less that he doesn't want to, and more that he doesn't know whether he wants to or not. I get it. When you're not sure who you are, it's hard to know what to want." He speaks with confidence, as if he knows from experience. "But - you said I came up in that argument. How?"
He gives Angeal a hard look. "Why the hell would I ever do that to Zack? And who'd go out of their way to talk about something like that to anybody? You seriously think I'd ask about the worst shit he went through when I finally get to see him again after all that time thinking I never would?" Cloud shakes his head and stares into his half-finished glass of mead. "I'm just...trying to understand. I wanna help him. I tried, back then, but I couldn't. Couldn't...keep up. And all that shit was way above my pay grade, and by the time I learned anything it was too late. We were already in Nibelheim and Sephiroth was already holed up in the basement, Zack was already at the end of his rope, and there was nothing I could do."
no subject
Date: 2024-12-31 03:17 pm (UTC)Sephiroth's not just an echo of someone gone. "Who he is now is making his own life. His own friends. His own dreams."
Without the past. Maybe the past wasn't necessary. "Not long after we first met there was an effect here that dredged up our fears, without our interest in having them displayed." Something in Angeal's bearing shifts, from concerned towards stern. "Do you think you'd have to go out of your way to gossip for ANYTHING to get around? That aside, do I think you're the kind of man who'd see a friend in distress and then try to talk to them about it?" Yep.
He spreads his hands at his sides, expression grim. "You're here aren't you? Specifically because you're concerned about Zack? Do you believe you'd still be here if he picked up your calls, or would you have gone there instead?"
no subject
Date: 2025-01-02 04:06 am (UTC)That stern tone in Angeal's voice makes Cloud's face fall, making him look even younger than he is for a moment. "Course I'd try to talk to him, if I could. But I wouldn't bring up anything he didn't bring up first."
no subject
Date: 2025-01-04 02:22 pm (UTC)Remembering would take it all away, in one direction or another. He makes it sound reasonable. It isn't his problem, he's nobody's warden, he has no say in any of it.. but as a friend, he didn't want Sephiroth to suffer more. Let the crimes sit on the shoulders of the one who made them.
Maybe Wardens had a different perspective. Maybe they had to, because of their jobs. "..Of course you would. That's what you do, when you know a friend is upset."
But the problem goes back further than one argument over Sephiroth's fate. "But this ship doesn't seem much like it's interested in respecting people's privacy, from what I can tell."
no subject
Date: 2025-01-05 06:00 am (UTC)He goes quiet, thinking through everything Angeal's said. Was it a mistake for Cloud to remember who he'd been before? Hard to say. The situations aren't quite the same, of course, but they're similar enough that he's starting to think maybe this is the right time to tell Angeal the truth about himself, after all. Who knows, maybe it would help.
Who we are is in a lot of ways dictated by our memories. It shapes what we do, how we feel. Hoo boy, does Cloud know that.
"The question of Sephiroth's memories...what you're saying. I get it. Better than you think." He sits up straight again and pulls his feet up onto the cushion, wrapping his arms loosely around his knees. "I told you the story of what happened to me and Zack, back then, and what Sephiroth did in Nibelheim. But...there was more to it. You saw a piece of it, that...nightmare. Think this might be the time to tell you the rest, if you're up for it."
a tiny tag cuz it got lost
Date: 2025-01-10 10:05 pm (UTC)Willing is one thing. Feeling obligated is another.
all good!
Date: 2025-01-10 10:31 pm (UTC)Not something that would have occurred to Cloud a year ago, or even when he first arrived on the Barge.
"And...I'm sorry, that I acted like you owed me anything. You're right - if Zack wanted to share it with me, he would have."
We're friends, right?
no subject
Date: 2025-01-10 10:48 pm (UTC)Except maybe this time it won't be necessary. The world doesn't have to come to the brink of ruin if Cloud and Sephiroth are both on the same page.
He doesn't refute the repetition; surely if Zack wanted it discussed he'd have discussed it. He didn't, therefore it was the way it was wanted. "... If you think it'll help you, then be my guest. We're all in this together."
no subject
Date: 2025-01-10 11:23 pm (UTC)Cloud nods - they're all in this together. It's something he'd learned, and then something he forgot. But the Barge makes it a little easier to remember.
"Told you about the lab and the mako poisoning. How Zack passed everything on to me. But I was so messed up from the mako and Jenova that my mind was hanging by a thread. Wasn't until I ran into my friend Tifa in Midgar that I woke up for real. She kept asking me all these questions about where I'd been and what I'd been doing, and I couldn't remember. If I had, I think...I probably would've broken for good, remembering Zack's death and everything. So my subconscious and the Jenova cells rattling around in there protected me from those memories, and...filled in the gaps with Zack's instead. He told me I'd be his living legacy, and I was. In all the wrong ways."
He picks up his glass and finishes it all at once. His tone is a shade harder now, a shade more disgusted. "I forgot Zack ever existed. Remembered his life as a SOLDIER as my own, so I could play hero. Erased him just as much as Shinra's coverups did. He was my only friend, he died to protect me, and I just...forgot him."
Cloud has to pause here. There's more, of course - the part that's most relevant to the conversation they were having about Sephiroth - but this, this is the crux of what Cloud wanted Angeal to know. He couldn't let Zack's mentor keep thinking he was a real protege, when all he really was was a delusional wannabe.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-17 08:12 pm (UTC)Of himself, of what he did to his own copies. Genesis, and his own. What happened to those involved in the project, and what he'd been able to piece together afterward.
After a long moment of quiet, where Cloud has time to ruminate on his own perceived sins, Angeal frowns faintly. "Cloud, I want to ask a question that might be uncomfortable. It's related to this."
There's a pattern here. "..Are you sure you're Sephiroth's copy, or is that just what you were told? I don't mean simply possessing Jenova cells and following the S-type protocols, that's a good quarter of SOLDIER."
dammit, this got lost in the deluge of breach stuff, sorry!
Date: 2025-02-04 08:18 am (UTC)He shrugs. "Shoot."
At the question, he glances up at Angeal, lifting a brow. "I'm not his copy. I'm..." A pause, as he considers how to explain.
"Ever heard of the Reunion?"