Everything was spinning.

That was the first thing Cloud thought when he became aware again. Everything was still spinning and cold and wet. He was still in the river. His back hurt. Actually, his back, neck and head hurt. Weirdly, his foot did not.

"Are you awake now?"

Cloud opened his eyes and saw nothing. Starting to panic, he raised his hands up and dragged them through the blank space in front of him, trying to touch something.

"Hey, over here."

A large, warm hand wrapped around his right wrist and stilled him. Shortly after that, the green glow of a materia orb from Lightning's sword came to life. It only gave off enough light for Cloud to see Lightning's face and chest. Everything else remained black. However, that was enough to jolt his brain's higher functions awake. He was aching along his back because he was laying on a hard stone floor. The water of the river was no longer pulling him along. Although still cold and damp, he was able to breathe and that alone was an improvement.

The nausea was still a pain, though.

Rolling over caused his stomach to heave violently and Cloud found himself regurgitating his breakfast in very short order. Lightning helped him get onto his knees and held back his hair. The tie he used for his ponytail had vanished somewhere between falling into the water and waking up.

"Feel better now?" Lightning asked after it stopped. It was a stupid question and Cloud told him so. Nibelheim burning was the worst day of his life, but this was shaping up to be the second worst.

"Eh, right, sorry," Lightning said. "Good news is, Sephiroth's gone. He won't bother us for a while. Bad news is, we've gone so far off trail that I'm only a little certain of where we are. We should get close to Merry Weather if we head south and west, but that means either going down the river or across the mountains."

There was a pause after that, where Cloud was doubtless expected to put in his two gil as to which path they should take. Instead, he vomited again.

Lightning sighed and reached for Cloud's hair.

Another Cure spell, a short nap and a slightly waterlogged granola bar later, Cloud felt vaguely alive again. Lightning helped him stand up and walk off the stiffness that came from sleeping on stone. Through pacing and several collisions, Cloud found that the cave measured about twelve steps deep and fifteen steps wide. It had two small holes in the back, neither of them big enough to stick a fist through, and the front opened up into the river, with a low hanging shelf of rock blocking off anything beyond the water from sight. Cloud imagined Lightning drifting downriver in a fast current, dragging Cloud's dead weight and that ridiculous sword with him, and could not imagine how the man had managed to find this place.

"Luck," Lightning said shamelessly. He was stretching his arms and legs, trying to get his blood flowing again after hours of sitting on the cold stone and waiting for Cloud to awaken. "I was just trying to keep my head above the water and nearly brained myself on that lip of rock when I came around the bend. I ducked under it and saw empty space."

He finished his stretches and gathered his things. The little pack he wore at the small of his back, which was stuffed full of medicine, a few snacks and more materia, and the massive sword were the sum total of that list. Everything else Lightning had had was left behind on the group's sled in the mountain pass and was probably still there unless Vincent took it down with him. If that thought bothered him, Lightning was not showing it.

"Do you think Vincent is alright?" Cloud asked at the river's edge.

The darkness made Lightning's face almost impossible to see, but Cloud still made out the firm nod. "Yes, no doubt. Vincent is much harder to kill than you'd think and Sephiroth loves mind games. He was probably just exaggerating the situation to worry me."

"Will he come looking for us then?"

"Hm, maybe. I think he'd be more likely to stick with the others. Our trail ends at the river and he has no way of knowing where we'd come out. My guess is he's gone back to catch up with the rest of the group and is trying to hustle them down to Merry Weather. When they're safe, he can come back and look for as long as he wants."

Lightning was staring at the river, his head cocked at an angle. Cloud had a feeling he knew what Lightning was thinking about – how far until they reached civilization again?

"I'm going to take us over the mountains," Lightning eventually said. Decision made, he started back towards the other side of the cave. Perplexed, Cloud followed him.

"No idea where this river empties or what's living in it," Lightning explained as he went. "At least with the mountains, we'll have ground beneath our feet and I'm pretty familiar with the monsters."

They stopped in front of the two small holes, bright sunshine peeking through to them. Cloud shut his eyes against the sudden refraction of light as Lightning carefully maneuvered his buster sword out of the harness. Their method of exit suddenly seemed clear to him. Hastily backing away, Cloud asked, "So, when were you here last?"

Just as he was beginning to swing his sword, Lightning hesitated. He turned his head back to look at Cloud. "When was I what?"

The light was better at this end of the cave. Cloud only needed one look at Lightning's face to know the man was hiding something.

"When were you here last? You kind of said you were from this area, right?"

"That… uh…." Lightning seemed to droop, the sword lowering a few inches. Then whatever was troubling him passed and he turned away, the sword going back into its ready position. "A question for later," Lightning said evasively, and swung.

Cloud felt the ground beneath his feet shake as the back of the cave shattered apart. Sunlight flooded into the small enclosure and blinded him, even as the ringing in his ears deafened him. Hissing in pain, Cloud felt Lightning's arm circle around his waist and tighten. There was a horrible moment of acceleration and displacement, then he was on a stone incline and Lightning let him go. When Cloud could see again, they were fifty feet away from the new hole in the rock.

"Sun's rising that way," Lightning said, pointing to the star half visible above the mountain tops. "Which means west is that way. So we want to go that way," he pointed diagonally from the river. "I can carry you over it, but we won't be able to move very fast. If we encounter any monsters, I'll try to outrun them, but we might have to fight. If that happens, do what I tell you, understand?"

Huffing, Cloud nodded. Then, feeling more irritated by the moment, "I still want an explanation for all of this. When are you going to talk about it?"

Lightning frowned. "You don't really need – "

"If you say I don't really need to know, I will stab you with your own stupid sword!" Cloud screamed.

Silence.

"My mom is dead! My town is gone! Some crazy man who either is or looks like Sephiroth tried to kill me and knows my name! It's your fault, all of it, I know it is! Why did you come to Nibelheim?! Why was he after you?!"

Lightning… looked sad.

Cloud just hated him even more for that.

What did he have to be sad about?

"… I'll explain as much of it as I can when it's safe," Lightning said finally. He turned his back to Cloud and made a 'come here' gesture with his right hand.

"When?" Cloud barked. "When are you going to say it's safe?"

"… When we meet up with Vincent," Lightning said with finality.

Traveling on Lightning's back as they jumped through the mountains was the closest Cloud had ever come to flying and he hated every moment of it. They were going far too fast, every time he pushed off for another jump was another jolt to Cloud's body and they were attacked in midair twice by monsters. By the time they finally found the road again, Cloud was ready to pass out. Lightning let him off gently, but he still fell to the road and did not bother trying to get up.

Lightning looked vaguely ashamed. "It wasn't that bad, was it?"

Cloud flipped him off and rolled over.

Lightning sighed and wandered off for a minute. When Cloud could be bothered to look up again, he found Lightning pacing back and forth over the road, staring down intently at his feet.

"What are you doing?" Cloud asked.

Lightning looked over at him and gestured at the stone road. "Trying to see if we're ahead or behind of the others. There isn't a lot of dirt for footprints, so I haven't figured out which yet."

"Does it matter? We could just wait for them at Merry Weather," Cloud argued.

"I suppose not, now that Sephiroth is taken care of," Lightning admitted. "Still, I was hoping to meet up with them tonight."

"Are we stopping here for now?" Cloud asked.

"Might as well," Lightning sighed.

They had no tents, blankets or firewood. Lightning slammed the tip of his ridiculous sword through the rock and sat back against it. That was the extent of his camp preparations. Cloud received slightly more care. He got the folded up puzzle sword harness to use for a very lumpy pillow and Lightning used a very weak Fire spell to warm the air around him. When that failed to last more than a minute, Lightning sighed and moved his sword closer so Cloud could lie next to his legs.

Missing a boot and sock, his bare foot shoved underneath Lightning's knees for warmth, Cloud tried and failed to fall asleep for an hour before giving it up as a lost cause.

"Will you tell me now?" Cloud asked.

"When we find Vincent," Lightning muttered quietly.

Oddly, Cloud was not angry about it. He felt drained.

"You're just stalling every time I ask you," Cloud pointed out. "Why? What are you so worried about telling me?"

"I'm not worried," Lightning corrected. "It just isn't your problem."

"Pretty sure it became my problem a few nights ago," Cloud countered.

"If I tell you I killed him a few seconds before jumping after you, would that be enough to make you back off?"

"Did you?"

"For now, yes."

Cloud thought about it and decided that it was not his exhaustion that was confusing him. "That makes no sense."

"Not much about my life does," Lightning sighed.

"Why can't you just give me a straight answer?" Cloud asked and was only mostly successful in keeping the whine out of his voice. Anger was finally beginning to give way, ground down by fear and frustration.

"Because – " and Lightning stopped there, his one snapped out word halted before others could follow it. Cloud watched him thing, could see him going over whatever unknowable choices he was sorting through, and then saw the resolution show up on his face.

"Because I have no way of proving most of what I'd say, I honestly think it would only upset you more and it might put you in even more danger."

"From who? You just said you killed the bad man," Cloud pointed out. Strangely, talking seemed to have the opposite effect he had been hoping for. Cloud could feel himself growing more and more sleepy.

"He wasn't the only person who wants me dead," Lightning admitted ruefully. "I've got a lot of enemies that I'll be making pretty soon."

"That makes less sense," Cloud whispered.

"Sure does," Lightning agreed. "It's the truth, though. I told you I had no proof, so you'll just have to go with my word. If you still want to know, wait until we find Vincent."

"One question," Cloud pressed on. "Then I'll shut up and sleep."

"…Fine. One question."

"Who are you to me?"

Quiet. It was the heavy kind of quiet that had existed in the smoke laden pre-dawn of his mother's dying breaths.

"I'm… someone you could become, if things were different."

That is such a copout, Cloud thought wearily, and then finally slept.

So, if you're wondering why I was MIA for about a year, check my profile. Otherwise, I'm back to write some more.