Isolation

Summary: When one isolates themselves for as long as Cloud has, you begin seeing things: a wistful wish, a damning haunt and a regret. Cloud knows there are only apparitions that will leave him, but he welcomes all of them into his hovel. He welcomes them with open arms.

He sat on his stoop, concealing a multitude of Materia, debating whether to roll up his mattress and fold his sheets seeing as he wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon. It's not as if he anyone would be distraught with the way he kept his surroundings. There were no more guests to invite. It's not as if someone would visit him this far from Edge, this deep into Midgar's debris, not now. Cloud had isolated himself to the collapsed church; isolated for how long, he had no idea, but he assumed it had been for several months now by the accumulated delivery receipts scattered on the floor. Tifa's calls lessened. Every time he walked through the church's doors there was this faint feeling what he could assume was like being welcomed home.

He thought it useless to chain it shut at this point. If someone were to find his stash, he could easily find more by venturing out his hobble and lifting the remains of a house or place of business. Shin Ra built Midgar, Shin Ra pumped out Mako, Shin Ra produced Materia… and Shin Ra tore it all down. He heard rumours through the mouths of his patrons, heard whispers of the second coming of Shin Ra. He couldn't care less. Let them inherit the world they helped create, let them try to piece together their Neo-Midgar from the rubble; he would like to see them try.

Cloud became increasingly bitter until one day he noticed it. The feeling slithered its way into consciousness when he took on a job and on his way to his destination, on the precipice of a hill, he stopped and screamed at the top of his lungs, releasing something lodged between his ribs. He wasn't expecting a response but somewhere in the echo, he heard him. He heard his voice and a truth Cloud didn't want to admit.

"You let her die."

Cloud said nothing to Tifa when he went to refuel in Edge one afternoon, but it was clear, it was apparent in the way he walked into the bar, that something had changed in him. Cloud took an extra step between them, more space than was normal for the distant man. Tifa said nothing to that effect and allowed him to return to his tomb. Cloud turned off his phone for three weeks. He was alone. Alone with his thoughts. Alone with him. "You let her die."

His voice was so clear, especially when he laid on his mat, looking at the decrepit church ceiling. His voice slipping through the cracks of the wall he made, the enclosure Cloud put his memories. The heat licking at his uniform, singeing the cuffs and edges; a heat so strong that it could barely be contained in a memory encapsulated, shoved deep down in his psyche. His voice was enticing, confirming what he believed to be true: "You watched as she walked away. You tried to drown her memory, but you know that you let her die." He did, Cloud watched as sword rendered flesh, he watched as she floated down to the bottom of a lake.

"Is that where your mind goes?" She was his only reprieve at night, her voice at times timid, at times pounding.

"I could have done it myself. You know, I could have killed you," Cloud whispered in the dark, only faint moonlight illuminating the flowers, their petals twisted.

"Is that what you really think?"

"It's hard not to."

"You could have killed her."

"I could have." Cloud sat up, darkness spanning the entire church normally bathed in the warm light of the sun amplified by the diminishing pollution above. He saw him in the corner of his eye. Not wanting to give him any more space in his mind, Cloud turned away, but his voice persisted.

"You feel so guilty… not the angry little puppet you once were, filled with rage and revenge."

"You're right." Cloud's voice, foreign to him in the midnight dark, reverberating off the walls… or what remained of them.

Her voice echoed in response, at times. "Is that where your mind goes? You really like to carry a lot of weight on your shoulders." Her laugh reverberated on his ribs, filling the pits of self-inflicted sadness. "I saw it the moment you fell through my ceiling, crushing my flowers." Again, laughter.

He looked at the hole, outlined by soft waning moonlight, the moon hiding briefly behind a cloud. Cloud knew he could have easily been the one to have killed her, he understood he was the one letting her limp body drift to the bottom of a lake. He felt the heat slowly leaking from her body; he was almost thankful when he let her go. Cloud knew those that approached him died. "I think I'm cursed."

"You might be. But that's an easy way out. Don't you think?" Cloud watched him die. In the haze of rain droplets ricocheting off of his lapels, he saw as he took his final breath. In the back of his mind, Cloud could hear his name hissing through the empty space between synapses: Zack. And just like that, it disappeared in a fog of regret and trauma.

"I could have saved you… saved you both."

No, he couldn't. Perhaps that was why he kept Tifa at such a distance. He wanted so much to lean on someone in hopes of having his fears quipped and his traumas soothed. But he came to understand that things could easily slip out of his fingers, like water. He didn't know if he could keep her close to him so he may as well push her into obscurity, push her into safety. "That's selfish," Tifa once told him. "That's selfish."

Midgar was quiet for a moment as he let out a heavy exhale, Cloud's voice hoarse. He wanted so much for his life. Alone and chided for his aloofness, he remembered as a child how he wanted so much to be accepted. Accepted and celebrated… like Sephiroth. He wanted so much to become him he emulated every aspect of the SOLDIER's life. He would devour every newspaper clipping, every tabloid just to have a blueprint of a man who was celebrated and adored. "I wouldn't know. I never had a hometown," the man said; a man so unlike the Sephiroth he imitated.

"We share more things in common than at first glance, I suppose."

"We do." Cloud knew; he gave the Black Materia faintly feeling that connection. Cloud could hear him in the far reaches of his mind, a SOLDIER who lost the puppet strings that controlled him, a man on a mission with no goal. Cloud saw it in Sephiroth's eyes, as they met briefly, Masamune plunged into Cloud's chest: hopelessness so profound. A hopelessness Cloud began to understand in the Lifestream, with Tifa holding his hand, leading him through the maze of convoluted feelings and pieces of memories he had every hope in losing to time. "We have more things in common than I thought."

"It was you… it was you who did this," Cloud said to no one in particular, a bravado easily quelled, "not me."

Cloud rolled over on his mat, twisting the sleeping bag over. What does one do when there are no more battles to be won? Perhaps fight with oneself, Cloud mused as his eyes drooped down. "Good night Cloud, you need it."

A/N: This is what happens in self-isolation. I think about Cloud's sad ass. Let me know what you think!

Listening to... Our Lady Peace, Heavyweight