CHAPTER 5- THE FINEST LINE

In the darkness they walked on the finest line like two trapeze artests that prayed to make it to the very end. And like a tunnel that end had a light they both strived towards. But if one of them took a step too quickly, if one of them jarred that fragile rope they could both go falling into the casum bellow.

Cloud could sence Kadaj was behind him and he felt the destiny of leading him forward like a sharp stitch in his side. What if his step faultered, what if Kadaj fell and he didn't notice in time to save him? But they carried on walking towards the light and tried to ignore the spider web strands breaking beneath their feet.

It was hard to tell who was seeing what because the images looked so alien to the both of them. A patter of faces going by at the speed of rain fall and the sound of voices all merging together to creat a dizzying hush of whispers.

They sore themselves in the people they had cared for, in different spaces of time. Cloud struggling to his knee's, beaten and happy then stood at the bace of a sword looking out on old ruins that crumpled like the thoughts inside of him. Kadaj reaching out and holding his hand just so, marveling at the way it looked like he was cradling the moon in his palm, hanging of his brother's shoulders when failure was pressing down too heavy to bare.

''Why are you binding me to him?'' Cloud questioned then baffled at the way one thought had echoed out loud. The rope beneath them trembled.

''My my, you boy's. Always asking questions only you yourselves can answer,'' that girls voice, the same one he had once mistaken for his own mother seemed to resonate around them.

''I don't have the answers,'' Cloud replied and he wondered who he was talking to, her or Kadaj.

''No one does Cloud and yet still you ask.''

''Can't you...can't you just tell me why, why he's here, why now. I know you know that much.''

The girl giggled,''you never learn Cloud, maybe it's time to start. We all deserve second chances, don't you think.''

Cloud was about to reply before he noticed Kadaj hadn't said a word. He froze, managing to turn without falling on the thin balance he walked. He soon realized why. The silver line had broke and though they had not fallen a large black space stretched inbetween them, too big to cross over.

Cloud looked up at the man, wondering how they could be in the thickest, most suphocating mess togther yet be so far apart. Then Kadaj stepped of the end of the line and Cloud watched his decent into shadows that swallowed him whole, until the smallest glow of his silver head faded and the space was empty once more.

CLOUD'S POV-

I woke up on a bed of hard floors, my skin feeling too tight around my bones, lying beside your still sleeping form. I had decided to stop in the nearest hotel because i was a coward and too tiered to face Tiffa who would look at you in my arms, pale and wilting then give me that look that said ' i told you so.'

I had pealed my cloths of your body, ignoring the loud slap as they hit the floor and made a puddle. When i looked down at you i noticed the faintest scar on your chest, the one i had given you and covered you up before i could reach out and touch it.

There was only one bed so i let you sprawl out on it but really i could of fitted on there too by the way you curled in on yourself like a snail.

I wondered which dream that had been, mine or yours as i picked myself up and ran a hand through damp hair. I looked at you, really looked at you since the first time you had been back. Taking in the translucent patches of skin under your chin and on your wrist where blue veins crossed like train tracks, the sharp little half moons of your finger nails that seemed just as pearly as your teeth, right down to the small defined muscles of your biceps and chest. Your nose curved like a button, your lips shaped like wings and your eye brows were faint enough not to notice but you had his eye's. You always have and that was enough to brush aside anything that made you You.

I tip toed around you as silent as snow, pulling my shirt back on and trying to fing my goggles but you still woke with a start and i wondered if you had been falling from the thread of my dream ever since. You turned your head to me, hair mused but falling from the tangles within it's own silkiness, eye's smeared with sleep and i watched you brake out of your own 8 seconds of peace before reality got to you.

''Are you going to attack me again?'' I asked as i turned away because as i said i was a coward and seeing that broken look come over your face had the power to split me in two.

''No,'' you croaked, defencless and washed out. I wish i could show this side of you to the whole world, the side of you that looked like a rabbit insnarled in a human trap.

''Then i thought we could go back to the orphanage, you could meet the children.'' You could stay.

When you didn't say anything i asked if you were hungry, you nodded and when i turned around you were stood in front of me as naked as the day you were created. You were looking around the room, bewildered and then your eye's caught on the tv. You walked over to it, pressed all the button until it flashed on and i counted all the muscles in your back that seemed to flow like a wave beneath your skin.

My eye's turned to the screen, a child who was clutching onto the hand of what apeared to be her parent, her other hand fisted a teddy bare. Then you raised your own hand, curled your fingers until they made the shape of a gun and pointed it at her.

''Bang,'' you whispered, pulling the invisible trigger and as if the girl on tv had felt it, she burst into tears.

''You have to promise not to hurt anyone Kadaj,'' i said quietly as we stood by the side of my bike. You were staring at it like you'd never seen one before and you nodded your head briefly, giving me nothing to go on. I Climbed onto it and started the engine, realized you weren't moving i turned to you.

''This is the only way i can take you home,'' i sighed, the past couple of day's making me impatient.

''Home,'' you rolled the word around your mouth, feeling it's weight, tasting it like one would do to the name of a lover. With a deep tiered sigh you nodded your head and i felt your hips against my back and the strength of your arms around my waiste.

''Hold on,'' i said, and wondered if you even knew how.

By the time we had walked from the garrage to the front door i had breifed you on everything i could from the way the children were curious to see you to where the toilet was. I forgot however to mention Tiffa.

She was stood near the front door, hip against the kitchen counter because she had been ready since the moment she heared the rumbled of my bike coming up the road. She had her game face on, the one that said she was weary yet waiting for me to make it ok. I stood to the side so you could see each other and studied your face for the few seconds it ran over the room. There was no emotion there, only a slight curiosity behind the dead glaze of your eye's. In the distance i could hear the happy babble of children who were exsited to be free of school for the day.

You started forward, your head tilted slightly to the side with your hair hiding half your face, running your hand along the wall and looking slightly un-hinged. You moved like a panther despite the tention in your frame, all slick moves and un-hindered grace. For a moment the room was filled with the soft hiss of your fingers against wall paper.

''Kadaj, you remember Tiffa, my friend?'' I ignored the way Tiffa's lip's seemed to tighten at the edges.

''I don't care about the girl your fucking brother, i care about cloths. These ones are wet,'' and just like that you had clung onto the corner of the door, swinging your whole body around it and making your way down the hall. Tiffa and i both seemed to be dumb founded for a second before she turned to me.

''Yes Cloud, why don't you go and tend to your brother while the other members of your family that didn't try and kill you wait on the side lines until you notice us again.''

The door slamming brought the children running to me, clutching at my trousers and tugging at my hands. That's where you found me moments later, trying to wade my way from the kitchen to the play room with dozens of little fingers and hands caughts in the folds of my trousers.

You were like a shadow, stepping forward in another set of my cloths. My black combats too big, sagging down to expose the bones of your hip and my knitted body warmer hanging from your chest like wet hair. You crossed your bare arms then un-crossed them, green eye's the shade of a marble running over each one of the childrens' faces. I watched your confusion apear across your face and leave you looking open, not as insane and bitter as you had been before. I wondered if the fluxuation of your mood swings was because of your age or your genetics. Were you born a psycotic killer or simply made that way?

I didn't know what to do with myself and more importantly what to do with you. As i flipped my mobile open and scanned the 17 missed calls on the screen, from everyone of my friends that already knew about your exsistance by word of mouth the children all turned their heads and fell silent. I watched you tilt your slete grey head and examine every little face that looked up at you then felt the stiff chill of fear creep in around the corners of the kitchen.

All at once the children stepped back, as if shoved aside by the vibrant green of your eye's. They scrambled behind me as the familiarty of your face set in and they remembered you, what you had done. The man that had nearly distroyed the whole planet, standing in the middle of their home looking more emused by the second.

At that moment Hansel teetered past, still un-steady on the thin muscles of his legs with a snadwich clutched in his hand. He went to side step Kadaj, having not really noticed him in his haste to get to me, bright eye's holding mine to them. And that's when you reached out and snatched the sandwich from his grasp, bitting into it with a hunger like that of a ravenous dog. By the time Hansel turned to you you had already eaten to the crust and you lifted those mako green eye's to stare one another down.

''That was mine,'' Hansel stated as my lips broke apart to speak.

''Now it's mine,'' you replied, a nasty tint only children usually managed to slip beneath their words.

''Just because your an angel doesn't mean you can take things that don't belong to you,'' the blonde headed orphan replied and i held my breath.

''Then good thing i'm no angel,''your lips twisted into a curved smirk and i realized you hadn't changed, not one bit.