For quiet_storm. Continuing from TFLN

[potato_powerhouse]

[Well. She had told him. She's made a proper nest on his bed, using her blankets, his blankets, and every pillow she could find. It's better to make a nest, just with both the size difference, and the limited materials for a proper pillow fort.

So, when he finally arrives, she's there, sitting in his bed and wearing one of his shirts and her hair down into two simple plaits. And the moment he closes the door, she stops hugging her pillow and lifts up her arms, beckoning him to come get his hugs.

And she won't let him leave until he talked...or they fall asleep. Which ever came first.]

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[quiet_storm]

"Don't be sorry," he patted her back. "I really don't want you to hurt yourself or anything like that."

Music, dead Mako? Well, that didn't make sense either, but Cloud was used to that by now. "... But I am still curious."

[potato_powerhouse]

She nods, humming softly as she takes a moment to gather her thoughts. "It...might be more than a little tiring. But I also wanna strike while the iron is hot... let me see." She leans up again to press her forehead against his. Slowly...to Cloud it may simply seem like she's freezing up, tense, hiding from creature that can only see movement.

To her, her body is yanked around, tossed like she once was a long while back...until she finds herself simply in a lab, floating above everything, watching and hearing. A sinister man with glasses, computers with stuff she can't read flashing across it...and two men, floating in tubes. That strange stuff must be the Mako...now that she thinks on it, it all does seem a little off to her... Hmm...

[quiet_storm]

The lights turn on and off. People come and go. Computers click away and go dormant. Every so often, the tubes are drained so tissue samples can be collected from the specimens. Years go by. One of the tubes doesn't get drained anymore, the contents forgotten. More years go by.

Then everything changes in a shriek of shattering glass, fluid pouring everywhere, and the touch of a human being. Gravity shifts and turns, all the scenery starts changing wildly and keeps changing at breakneck speed. Months go by. A thudding feeling begins, faint and slow at first, from inside. More months go by. The first tiny puff of air flows in from the outside, then back out again. The air is as harsh as the bright light that appears and disappears, as rough as the hard jabbing surfaces that press back when gravity pulls down. More months go by.

[potato_powerhouse]

It is pieces itself together as she watches. There's a lot of sensory information when the glass shatters. She goes from watching to...feeling it. But the information is coming to her.

Should she keep watching. Seeing it as Cloud did, and then from the outside...

Slowly she begins to pull out. She can't speak with anybody like this. It's like watching a play. One she can move about and see different angles on, but she can't do anything (No matter how much a certain genius inventor tells her about seeing her).

"Tube not drained, ignored...but why not throw you out if you died and had no use? Sensation when you were freed...but why did your heart wait to beat?"

It just seems...off. Dammit.. the Echo doesn't work on the written word...

[quiet_storm]

Invisible wisps of Lifestream, soft and green, swirled around in the air. The energy was Aerith's and someone else's intermingling and sinking in. Then in a burst of light, everything started happening at the right speed.

The newborn soul instinctively crawled its way to its source. Mother, usually, but this time the strands of life were pulling away from the broken body of a dark-haired man. There was blood, and water, and being held against the source's chest. Then the source was no more, lifeless. The soul was utterly alone, abandoned, all hope of growing in the nourishing presence of love and comfort was gone. The new life's first sound was a scream, crying out to the confusing, empty, and painful world it had been thrust into, the one it had no hope of surviving. Birth and death with nothing but despair in between.

[potato_powerhouse]

Oh...Oh no...

Now she really has pulled out, pulled away and returned to herself and the waking world with Cloud that exists with her now.

She pulls away from him...and he can probably see her trying to quicken her pace back to reality. It doesn't make sense though. Or maybe it does. Could Aerith have been there in that form? But Cloud implied he knew her, so she shouldn't have...been exalted.

She looks up at Cloud, little tears in her eyes. "I...don't know. I don't know how to interpret what...I know what it is, but I don't know."

[quiet_storm]

Now Cloud really was worried. "It's okay, you don't have to know. You don't have to tell me anything, either. Sho... It's okay."

He reached out to invite her back into an embrace but made no attempt to pull her in. "The past doesn't change, right? And whatever you saw doesn't make a difference, I'm still the same me. It was over long ago. You don't have to be sad."

[potato_powerhouse]

Sho practically launches herself back into Cloud's embrace, wrapping every limb around him. And for a while, she just holds him, burying her face against his chest and breathing in his scent.

She shakes her head. "Even...even so...the whole thing...just now was real...to me." Tightening her grip, and another shake of her head. "I...give Shoshosu a moment. Sorry."

[quiet_storm]

"It's okay," he says again, softly. The heart that had forgotten how to beat years ago was going strong and steady now, thrumming in Cloud's chest, against her face. Lungs that had shied away at the first tiny taste of air were filling and emptying with the casual ease they were meant to have. Life, warm and vital, pulsed through him in triumphant defiance of all the forces that had tried to crush it into oblivion. "There's nothing to be sorry about."

[potato_powerhouse]

"...do you feel loved?" It's the most she can come up with, as she cuddles into him and finally gets her mind and her own heart to stop racing. To cool down and try to think about everything she's witnessed.

She nuzzles against him, kissing his chest. "Because Shoshosu loves you. The you that is now. Very much. You know that, right? Even if my arms aren't long enough to wrap around you. Or I have to pull you to me to give you kisses. Shoshosu loves you so much."

[quiet_storm]

It's really not something Cloud thinks about much, but he's pretty much come to terms with the fact that other people love him. A lot of other people. He doesn't understand, but that doesn't stop it from being true.

He hugs her a little tighter, a tiny smile forming on his face again. "Yeah. I do." If Cloud really does have a soul then maybe he's actually worthy of love after all, because that would mean he is capable of loving someone else in return.

Then again, with how upset Shoshosu seems to be, she might have just found out he didn't have a soul after all. That would explain a lot, like the Lifestream spitting him back out every time he ended up dunked in it or dissolving into it. All poison, no life.

[potato_powerhouse]

"Good." She's glad that at least has gotten through to him.

So Shoshosu finally calms down, and wiggles back up so they can look at each other without having to separate too much. "I was watching, but it was also still a very, very real thing to experience. Shoshosu could feel Cloud's emotions, see things as he saw them...and...when you came to life over your friend's body...It was so painful I had to run...come back to now and hold you."

[quiet_storm]

"Came to life?" The words felt odd in Cloud's mouth. "But... how?"

Those emotions must have been really unpleasant to make Shoshosu cry, but Cloud didn't remember them. It was all like a strange story that had been told to him by someone else. Unless she meant Aerith's body? Cloud remembered that one all too well, but was he really not alive before then?

[potato_powerhouse]

"You...you were right. Really, Shoshosu hoped it would be the other way... Your body...it stopped, or so it seems inside the tank. I can't tell you why. Nobody said why, or why they still kept you in there. Maybe because you could just...start back up."

Shoshosu held onto him, trying to find her own words. "I was only outside of you for a bit, then I saw things how you would have. And...the tank you were in broke, I assume your friend...black hair, bright eyes...and a scar on his cheek...broke you out. Time passed differently, at least for you...it was only a little later, your heart beat. Later still, you could breath...and then in the rain, a new soul formed from the Lifestream...and went into you...You crawled to your friend who was dying, bloody and broken... 'You are my legacy'."

She looks up, tears starting to build up again. "I'm sorry...that on top of being born, you saw that...even if you don't remember it." And there she goes, lifting up her borrowed shirt to wipe off her face. "It's really...I don't know if what I saw is how things work. But that's what I saw."

[quiet_storm]

That was Zack alright. Cloud had seen a picture, he didn't have to rely on his own memories or anyone else's to know who he was. Zack, dying. Blood, and rain, and the Lifestream. Tears, too, stinging agony welling up, just like the ones spilling from Shoshosu's eyes.

"You are my living legacy..." That's how it went. Was that what Zack's voice sounded like, back when he was alive?

[potato_powerhouse]

Sho looks back up at Cloud's words...and really, even though she knows she's said it a thousand times, she's say a thousand more. "I'm sorry."

It's all she can say.

[quiet_storm]

Slowly, an amused smile forms on Cloud's face. "So Zack's my dad?"

[potato_powerhouse]

"It looked that way." Shoshosu blinks, tilts her head, settling back against him. Rather just...surprised by how well Cloud's taking it. Perhaps all along he'd been hoping for this? Hopefully that doesn't mean...

No, tell Cloud what she saw. "Zack...and Aerith's souls were used to make you...bits of them...though I'm not sure how. Zack-ack was dying, but wouldn't have Aerith been fine? She wasn't there, just a bit of her soul."

[quiet_storm]

Now Cloud was flat out laughing. "And Aerith's my mom? Shiva, I'm never going to let those two live it down!"

After that little evasion when he called Aerith "mother," and the two of them declared he was too big to adopt... not too old, just too big. He would have been what, three years old at the time?

[potato_powerhouse]

"You are handling this exceptionally well!" She's laughing now to, covering her face as she giggles. "Were you hoping for this?!"

She's happy though, and her own tears are starting to dry up. True, maybe later if they see Zack and Aerith they might hear a different story, but Cloud seems happy. That matters most. "Maybe you should shout Papa at him next time you meet Zack-Ack."

[quiet_storm]

"How could I not handle it well? It's hilarious!"

It doesn't matter what the different story is, either. It will be a great joke even if it turns out to be wrong. So what if he felt like he was to blame for both deaths. The two of them managed to get together and have a "baby" after all. Living legacy? Maybe that made a little more sense now? Holy, did Zack even know? Did Aerith?

"I guess I was hoping for something interesting? It worked."

[potato_powerhouse]

Well, that takes one more worry out of Shoshosu's mind. No matter how clever Jenova may be, it would have to have done a lot of thinking on it's own to come up with something so crazy from Cloud wanting 'something interesting'. Especially when it would make Cloud, whom she's pretty sure the thing would hate and want miserable, very happy in any form.

So, she still giggles more and kisses Cloud's cheek. "Hehe. I'm glad. When I'm...a little less drained, maybe we can go see them together, yes? Tell them the happy news. Do you think they will still blush?"

If there's one thing she likes, it's teasing young lovers...even the ones who aren't so alive anymore.

[quiet_storm]

"I can't exactly go visit, but maybe you can say hi for me." He pulls her back in for more cuddling.

"You can make Aerith giggle, maybe, but I've never seen her blush. I mean, 'Mom.' I've never seen my mom blush. She did grow up in the slums, after all."

Cloud snickers. "As for 'Dad?' Who knows? He was more of an absentee father type of guy."

[potato_powerhouse]

"Mm! But love makes things a little different." She boops his nose, pouting just a little. "Don't be mean, if you do have something that takes after him, how would you feel?"

Not that she doesn't giggle, glad to see Cloud smiling. "I think this is the first time 'child of my heart and soul' could be taken literally."

[quiet_storm]

"It's not exactly his fault, though. Being dead is a pretty good excuse for missing kindergarten graduation."

Now Cloud laugh-snorts. "All that and neither of them got laid. What a rip-off."