Just something I thought up, after reading several stories (most of which can be found in my favorites). I guess you could put it between Advent Children (Complete) and Dirge of Cerebeus, but it's also part of the prequel series to my Ripples in Time verse.

And if I'm writing fanfiction, do you really think I own anything of this?

Summary: A harmless discussion brings about a shocking realization on the wake of an old mako reactor's spill. Cloud's a little surprised by their sudden attention.

"Well, looks like everyone will be alright, a few cases of Mako poisoning, but Doctors are already monitoring them." Tseng explained to the group- it was a mark of how tired they were that no one had started a fight, Barret Wallace and Reno in particular were doing a good impression of being boneless. The only ones absent from Avalanche were their leader, Cloud Strife, who was dealing with a few monsters in a different town and had been unable to get there when the call first came in, he was supposed to arrive soon; and Cait Sith, who was watching Marlene and Denzel. (Reeve was busy.)

"Mako poisoning?" Elena blinked.

"A few of the early volunteers got splashed with it, only one looks like they might not make it through the night."

"Nasty way to go, yo, hallucinations, fever, and if you survive you might lose some of your memories." Reno grinned. "Though, for a plus you get to be a lot more healthier."

"Memory loss is a side effect?" Yuffie looked up, curious.

"It can be, most people don't lose too much, sometimes they just forget that they were sick, or things that they had to do- easy enough to get back." Tseng nodded as Rude explained.

"Wait, didn't soldiers get mako shots?" Barret sat up a little. "What happened if they got sick from it?"

"Like I said, they usually just lost little things, or the fact that they got sick. Though there were some that lost more than that, especially in the early days, when the program had just started."

"What about Cloud? I mean, we knew he had some trouble with his memory, Tifa had to straighten him out . . ." Yuffie looked at Tifa, who blinked.

"That was a side effect of the mako? I thought that was just trauma from everything that had happened, being experimented on and then seeing Aerith die."

"It was probably a combination- Cloud wasn't a SOLDIER when Hojo got him, he had a high tolerance for mako because he grew up next to a reactor, but four years of it . . . He was badly poisoned when they did escape, to the point of needing Fair to carry him." Tseng paused, glancing at Reno. "Those on the scene left him to die, they thought the mako poisoning would finish him off without someone to take care of him."

"So, you're saying Cloud's an F!ing amnesiac, and has been for years- and we've never F!ing noticed?" Cid demanded.

"Memory loss hasn't affected how he functions." Vincent pointed out, spooking Rude who'd forgotten that he was there. (Actually, most of them had forgotten he was there.) "He's been keeping busy."

"And he remembers Tifa, right?"

" . . ."

"Tifa?" Nanaki looked at her when she hadn't responded to Yuffie.

"He remembers our promise." She finally managed. "He remembers that we grew up together . . . how did I miss that he didn't really know what I was talking about?" She buried her face in her hands. "He never said . . ."

There had been so many conversations where she had done most of the talking. Cloud had always been quiet, and it had never bothered her, but looking back, she could see the almost blank interest as she talked about their hometown, and the tiny flashes of remembrance that occasionally came before he interjected with a question or memory. But she might as well have been talking about strangers they'd seen on the street.

"All this time, I thought he just wanted to forget, but he didn't even remember in the first place." She had known it had been bad, she had gotten a glimpse of it when she helped untangle his memories, but she had never realized that he simply couldn't remember what she was talking about. Worse, she had been saying everything on her mind, without even thinking.

'Why should we lose to a memory?' Of course Cloud would be caught up in memories, he was trying to Remember what he'd forgotten! Sephiroth, Zack, Aerith- those three were cornerstones of his memories, and all three were dead, out of reach for the most part. How could Cloud not think on them, when they held vital (even bad memories could be vital to a person) parts of him?

Yuffie was thinking about how she had needed to explain the Wutai War to Cloud- it had been during their lifetime, after all, and he was SOLDIER. But with everything that had happened, she had just assumed he wanted to hear her side of the story. She hadn't realized it was because he had no memory at all.

Barret was thinking along similar lines, as was everyone else. They had all needed to explain to Cloud things that he should have known. They hadn't even questioned it at the time, but now that they thought about it . . . that should have been a clue that he needed help. Some friends they were, leaving him to fend for himself.

" . . . There's not much you can do, now, I'm afraid." Tseng finally managed. "In any case, it's probably easier to let the memories come back on their own, without pushing."

"Hey, they told me I'd find you here- Tifa?!" Cloud blinked as the girl suddenly tackled him. "What- was it that bad?" He looked around the room in confusion. Reno just burst out laughing, and even Cid snickered as he got up and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"I'd hate to think what you could do if you ever had your full memory." Cloud stiffened, eyes widening in surprise.

"How did you-" He cut himself off.

"They finally figured it out on their own." Vincent explained from his corner.

"Wait, you knew?" Barret demanded.

" . . . Yeah, he figured it out early on." Cloud answered for the former Turk.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Yuffie asked.

"We had other things to worry about at the time. Compared to the end of the world, my patchy memory wasn't a problem, especially since I can make new memories just fine." Cloud shrugged, a little awkwardly because Tifa still had him in a hug. "It's fine."

"So you don't remember the dressing down you and Zack got when you pranked the mess?" Reno snickered. Cloud blinked.

"You knew . . ."

"Only in passing, we weren't friends, but we did occasionally talk, mostly cause of Fair. I thought you were a little off, but I just didn't bring it up."

" … Right. You do know I'm never going to really believe a word of what you say about me?"

"You'd trust Zack."

"Zack, I remembered. You, not so much." He looked down at Tifa. "Tifa, what's wrong?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Everyone else shifted as the atmosphere became serious once more.

"I didn't know what to say." Cloud sighed. "I didn't want you to act like this, either. I know my memory is patchy, but I'm still me."

"Well, ask, and I can start clearing up anything that I confused you with."

Cloud just gave a small half-smile. "After I find out what's been happening with the reactor spill. Speaking of, you might want to start inspecting the older reactors- I had to deal with a mako-infused zolom over in Gongaga, but there wasn't a leak that I could find."

As conversation turned back to the matter at hand, Vincent gave a small smile. Cloud might have been torn apart by Hojo's manipulations, Sephiroth's control, and Jenova's calls, but even without a memory of who he was to hold onto, he was stubborn enough to keep fighting. In the end, Cloud didn't need the memories, he just needed the people he could hold onto for survival.

(Days later, Tseng would drop off some of the few surveillance videos, mission reports, and Cloud's old personnel file for him to go through. Reno would drop off old videos made by him dealing with Zack's dragging him into several different pranks. And Tifa would tell him everything that he'd forgotten, especially about his mother. But no one mentioned his lack of memory from before ever again.)

. . . This is kind of a huge plot point that people seem to forget. Cloud's mind was practically destroyed thanks to Hojo and the trauma he went through, to the point that it created false memories to protect him. Even if Tifa helped straighten him out, mental trauma doesn't just go away in a night. Cloud would have still had trouble, and any memories he did regain would have been faded or just tiny flashes.

Not to mention- 4/5 years of being experimented on? Yeah, no one gets out of that unscathed, and from what I understand of the time line, Cloud would have been around 16/17 when the Nibelheim incident happened. Most guys are still trying to figure out who they're going to be at that age, and Hojo made that entire process reset, and when Zack gets them out, Cloud's practically catatonic, not to mention the mako poisoning.

Which makes Cloud even more amazing, in my opinion, cause he's still willing to fight, even when his memory is so full of holes that he doesn't even know for sure who he is. But people seem to forget that Cloud's memories from before the Nibleheim incident would have been severely damaged and faded at best.

'Some friends they were'- I'm not saying anything against the group, just, if you found out that the friend you've been working with for years was sick/had troubles that you didn't know about, you'd still feel guilty for not helping them with them. If anything, the fact you feel that way makes you a good friend, because you want to be there for everything.

(Final note: When you Play Crisis Core- or even just watch videos online- Cloud's not a shrinking violet, or shy, when Zack is first introduced to him. In fact, he's a normal kind of guy. The insecurities we see after in FFVII and Advent Children, are most likely a result of him not having enough of his own memories, and probably being unable to be sure which of the memories he did have were real or just fabricated.)