A/N: Big honkin' chapter! Thanks to Kelleyj17 for the beta and her advice!

"Tifa, you don't understand, he's just as rotten as Sephiroth!"

Tifa was holding her head in her hand, as if a huge headache was coming on. "Cloud idolizes you!" she countered while dropping her hand. "You died outside of Midgar after dragging him halfway across the world while he was suffering from mako poisoning. He said you gave him the Buster Sword before you succumbed to your wounds."

"To him? I'd give the Buster Sword to Yuffie before I ever did that!" Zack was frowning, and he crossed his arms and looked down at the campfire. "I don't understand what's happening. You're alive, and defending Cloud...And what's this about mako poisoning?"

Vincent nodded, his face full of confusion as ever. "I am not sure what is happening either. You seem to know me, but I don't know you."

"We weren't like best buds or anything, but man..."

Aerith was wearing an anxious expression on her face as Tifa looked back the way Cloud went. "Tifa, I...Can you tell me what you remember?"

Tifa licked her lips and glanced at the darkness, a terrible guilt welling in her gut. She felt that perhaps she had been a little too stern. She felt she should have called it even with the punch to the head. "Maybe later. I have to go find Cloud."

Yuffie put a hand on Tifa's shoulder, and she turned to look at the ninja. "Nah, let him cool off. Me and Red can go search for the pain in the ass later."

Tifa shook her head. "No, I have to go help him!"

"Really, you think he needs to talk to either of you two boobs?" When she was given a glare by the pugilist, Yuffie scoffed before continuing. "I know this guy over here may as well have crushed his balls, and you're preggers, so it's best you save your strength for when we need ya. I don't care how strong you are, you're takin' it easy. So, we'll go talk to him." She pointed at Zack and Aerith. "After we hear them out."

The two balked at Tifa. "Wait, you're pregnant?" Aerith was wringing her hands softly.

Tifa sat down again, unease growing in her gut. "Cloud and me are together..." She played with a strand of hair.

The two looked even more shocked. "You're...pregnant, with Cloud's baby."

Tifa lowered her brow. "Yes, with him."

"What the hell is going on here?" Zack plopped down next to the campfire and laid his sword next to him. Aerith curled up next to him as Yuffie and Nanaki sat between Tifa and Zack. "I know you had feelings for Cloud, and I know he had feelings for you, too, but..."

Tifa closed her eyes and sighed, listening to her three descendants mumble as they began cutting up the Behemoth. She was glad they could tell they needed their space right now. "Whatever Cloud you met isn't this Cloud. This Cloud looks up to you."

"For real?"

Tifa opened her eyes. "Yes. You saved his life at the expense of your own. Tell me what happened to you two, and then I'll tell you what I remember."

Aerith nodded while taking a deep breath through her nose. "Alright."

The two began their story. The Nibelheim Incident was completely the same. Hojo experimenting on Cloud and Zack, while Tifa escaped was the same. It began to change during the escape from the mansion. Zack had woken up alone, and escaped alone, thinking Cloud had died after stopping Sephiroth.

"When I came to it was just me and some scientist I knocked out. I put on some clothing and found the Buster Sword, and snuck outta Nibelheim." Zack made a contemplative face as he looked at the fire. "When I got far enough from Nibelheim, everything sort of caught up with me. I mean, I didn't know I had been stuffed down there for four years until a Turk that had been tailing me finally told me what year it was."

Tifa slowly nodded. "And there was no trace of Cloud at all?"

Zack shook his head. "No. The vat next to me was empty, and I mean—I didn't have a chance to check the town. Shinra was already after me." He rubbed his hands together. "Anyway, I made it to Midgar after a few pit stops, nothin' major. Just took me a while to get there. I fell asleep in Aerith's church, and she found me the next morning."

Aerith rubbed some of her stray bangs absentmindedly. "It was a relief to see him, really. I thought that maybe he had just run off after almost five years. Well, we found each other again, like it was fate."

A cautious smile came to her face. "It was so good to see him again. We didn't have much time to be alone, though. Tseng came to the church two days later, and he promised to keep Zack's whereabouts secret. The Turks were in a bit of hot water over something, anyway."

"Yeah! They were in the middle of some Shinra drama."

Yuffie raised a brow. "What kinda drama?"

Zack shrugged. "I dunno, probably nothin' too important. But it did help when I met Tifa again." He looked over at her again. "I came over to Seventh Heaven after I finished a job in Sector Seven. Heard it was a good place to take a load off."

"You met me on a lark," Tifa responded quietly.

He nodded back. "Yep. Like, at first you really didn't like the thought of a Soldier enterin' your bar, and Barret really didn't like it. But we recognized each other after I came closer to the bar. You asked me a lot of questions I didn't have answers to.

"Nibelheim, Sephiroth. Cloud. I just didn't know, or remember. I came back regularly. Eventually you mentioned Avalanche, and I mentioned that I was buddy buddy with the Turks."

"I bet Barret liked that," Tifa mused.

"Gawd, how did that hothead not blow your brains out?" Yuffie leaned onto Young Nanaki as he listened intently.

Zack snorted with amusement. "Man, he almost did! I had to tell him real quick that they weren't on President Shinra's good side at all. Well, after a tense couple of months we got a coup going."

Young Nanaki cocked his head. "A coup? How did you convince the Turks to join in on a coup?"

The ex-Soldier thumped his chest with a smug grin. "Hey, I can be convincing! Especially after everything that happened, the Turks' loyalty to Shinra was super low. Reno drove Barret crazy with his snark. But really, they got along really well afterwards."

"...Interesting," Tifa replied flatly. She swallowed despite her dry mouth. Barret, Cloud and she were still bitter towards Reno over the Sector Seven plate collapse, something that Zack seemed to have no memory of.

"We were pretty successful," Zack admitted.

Aerith rolled her eyes. "We ended up killing President Shinra after he sent some guard robots after us. Barret got him." She inhaled deeply, then blew the air out and towards her bangs. "Rufus made an appearance a few minutes after we began celebrating. He offered us positions as his new lackeys, and we refused. Why would we do that? We thought we had the tower under control, but it seemed Rufus had been working on his own coup, too."

"Yeah, guy had some of Scarlet's new robotic security detain us all and stuff us in the cells they have on the lab level. Man, I thought we were gonna be worse than dead for sure!"

"But Jenova went on a rampage," Tifa nearly whispered.

Zack nodded stoutly. "Yeah! Guess your memory is gettin' jogged a bit, huh? Well, our cells were unlocked and we followed the blood trail to the President's Suite. Rufus was sitting there with Masamune sticking out of his back."

Nanaki pulled his ears back and frowned. "Wait, you never rescued me?"

Zack waved his hands in front of him quickly. "Of course we did! Reno told us about you. He didn't feel like it was right to keep ya down there and liquidated with the experiments in the labs."

At that moment Elder Nanaki came into the camp, holding a very puzzled expression on his face that was matched by Zack and Aerith. They were introduced, and the cubs naturally had a lot of questions that they wanted answered. Elder Nanaki hushed them, and asked that their tale be continued as he sat down near Vincent.

"Uh...Right. So we left the Turks in charge, and Reeve too when we figured out he wasn't so bad. He never really fit in with the other board members."

Tifa had to agree. "That's true. He was their black sheep."

"Yeah." Zack chuckled softly before returning to a more serious expression. "I knew Sephiroth was on the loose, and he wasn't up to anything good. Not after what he said in Nibelheim. I...was hoping that maybe, I could save him still."

Aerith continued for him. "He thought Nibelheim would be a good place to find clues. You insisted on going, Tifa, and so we left Marlene with my mother."

"We journeyed by land and sea. Yuffie joined us in Junon...To this day I have no idea how she got ahold of my cellphone number. When we got to Nibelheim, you looked like you were ready to freak out. I mean I understood why, the town was burnt to the ground, and Shinra just rebuilt it. I really didn't let that soak in until I visited again…" Zack shook his head. "There were all these people in black cloaks loafing around, too. Cloud was waiting by the water tower in the middle of town, and y'know, I was really happy to see him!

"He wasn't dead like I thought. But, something felt off about him. Maybe it was the weird, tight black suit he was wearing under a traveler's cloak, or the look in his eyes. Well, both that and just...He felt wrong." Zack blew out a sigh. "When you looked at him from the side of your eye, it almost looked like he was twitching. And he was kinda standoffish. I wondered if he was blaming me at all for what had happened to Nibelheim."

"But he liked you, Tifa." Aerith glanced her fingers on her cheek. "After he told Zack some things he gravitated towards you. You looked so happy to see him…" She looked down. "He gave you a little locket he said he had kept with him since before he left Midgar, and the look on his face when you told him you didn't care that he hadn't made it into Soldier…" She looked away.

Tifa felt somber at those words. "I see."

"I saw him later on, when Zack was trying to convince Vincent to join us. He was doing something in the rooms past the hall in the basement of the Shinra Mansion. Sometime during the night, Cloud left, and so did the people wearing the black cloaks."

"We tried looking for him, but he disappeared. So we focused on other things, like what Cloud told me about Sephiroth, about where he might be. We found a bunch of crazy powerful monsters that we somehow won against. Got some really neat materia from it, at least."

Zack rubbed his belly when it grumbled in protest, demanding food. "Tseng got a hold of us after a while and said he found some of Hojo's science experiments heading to the Temple of the Ancients. He convinced Cid to join us and pilot the Tiny Bronco for us since the island was too dangerous to land an airship on."

"I was looking forward to it," Aerith explained. "I learned a little bit about my heritage during our travels, and...I wanted to know more. But, we never got a chance to explore the insides." She paused and licked her lips. "Cloud was there."

"Man, he felt off in Nibelheim, but it was even worse at the temple. His eyes were like Sephiroth's and he had two weird, black metal swords. Cloud started goin' on about Sephiroth and how he was gonna recreate the world, and he would be his right hand man." Zack rubbed the back of his head. "Well, Tifa, you started talking to him. You got through to him a little, and Cloud told us what Sephiroth was planning to do; he was gonna use the Black Materia to summon Meteor, then become a god when he merged with the Lifestream as it came to heal the wound.

"He begged us to kill him. I don't think any of us had it in us to do that, but looking back, that was probably the biggest mistake I've ever made." He looked down. "If I had done it, maybe things would have turned out different. Better."

"When the temple collapsed, he screamed and sprouted a big, black wing. He snatched up the Black Materia and flew away, towards the North Continent." Aerith sighed through her nose. "You looked so devastated, Tifa. But you still thought Cloud could be saved. And I knew what I had to do, too. I had to summon Holy. The Planet called me to the Forgotten Capital, and we flew there on the Highwind.

"The others wanted to rest, but...I couldn't. The Planet was calling me to a temple under the city. So I sneaked out, and went to pray alone. When Zack, Tifa and Nanaki found me, my prayer had already gone through."

Zack nodded grimly. "You were smiling at us. I...was distracted by everything happening. But Tifa, you knew he was there. You shoved Aerith out of the way, right before Cloud came down to kill her."

He was quiet for a minute. Everyone around the campfire was tense. "Cloud cut through you like you were nothing. But when he realized he hurt you, he picked you up by your shoulders and held you. And you said, 'You forgot your promise again, didn't you?'"

"Cloud snapped after that," Aerith said. "We fought him and he flew off after a few minutes. After everything, we let you rest in the lake with a memento of Cloud."

"What was it?" Tifa asked in a quiet and restrained voice.

"The heart shaped silver locket he gave you. We never opened it up, so we don't know what was in it." Aerith shrugged helplessly, and scooted closer to Zack for more warmth. "We followed Cloud to the North Crater, using the Highwind to get there quickly. We watched as the Black Cloaks were taken by Jenova, right before we found Sephiroth's resting place.

"When we entered the crater Cloud was ready to give the Black Materia to Sephiroth in his materia cocoon. But Barret ran over and let his gun arm loose on Cloud's arm."

Zack held the Cetra close. "He lost the Black Materia. Man, he wasn't happy about that. We fought him, and then Jenova joined the party." He made a face full of disgust. "He merged with Jenova's body when he was losing. Said he belonged with 'mother'."

He looked up towards the top of the flames as they licked the night air. "Then, after we fought that thing off, Sephiroth plopped into it! The fight had been absolutely crazy. It was so bad that after we finished it off, we had to flee before the Weapons destroyed the crater." He shook his head and looked back at Tifa. "We never had a chance to destroy what was left of that...thing."

Aerith nodded solemnly. "We had to defeat the Weapons. I couldn't make them stop on my own, so...We had to fight them. Junon wasn't too hard, since the Sister Ray was still working. Stopping the others was harder. Diamond Weapon did a lot of damage to Midgar before we stopped it."

"Mhm. But then Holy came, and it destroyed Midgar. We had the city mostly evacuated to the slums with the Turks and Reeve's help, so the casualties weren't as bad as they could have been." Zack's fingers drummed on his knee. "After that, we thought it was all over. A city grew outside of Midgar, and Aerith was making the wastes grow green.

"Shinra started looking for different ways to power civilization. Things were finally looking up, y'know? But then rumors started cropping up, of a mysterious man with spiky blond hair that brought a sickness with him wherever he went." His jaw tensed. "I knew it was him, Cloud. Somehow he survived. Or maybe it was Jenova using his image, I don't know."

"Cloud brought illness with him…?" Vincent tilted his head. "It wasn't Geostigma, was it?"

Zack nodded. "Yeah. I actually saw him once, when I was visiting Kalm. He looked like absolutely nothing had happened to him." His eyes scanned the area Cloud had disappeared into earlier. "His eyes were full of hate, though. Said he was spreading Jenova's final gift before fading into the night."

"I saw him, too." Aerith's face looked pained. "He looked horrible, like he was slowly being consumed by shadows. Then, Geostigma hit Edge."

"I watched children die because of him. Marlene..." Zack shook his head. "She was a little trooper."

Aerith nodded. "At that time, I don't know if anything of him was left, or if he was an amalgamation of the three in the crater. He never mentioned Sephiroth again, so who knows?"

Tifa was floored by the long story. In their dimension, Cloud had been the one they had to chase. "What happened to Hojo?" she asked quietly.

"Well, he got on Tseng's last nerve, talkin' about his Reunion experiment and rambling on about Jenova while we were fighting in the crater. So...Well, you know how Turks can be." Zack scratched the back of his head, then put his hand back on his knee. "So, what do you remember?"

Tifa pursed her lips before she began to make some wood skewers with the chunks of spiced Behemoth meat piled on the hide. Rice was cooking in the pot as Vesta kept a keen eye on it. Yuffie mumbled something along the lines of how far out the story was since she was barely mentioned at all. "I think we might not know you, either."

Aerith's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

"I think she means that you aren't the Aerith we knew," Vincent mused. "I'm hesitant to say you are from another past, but..."

"Eh?" Zack was frowning at him. "Another past?"

"It is roughly five hundred years into the future, since Meteorfall," Elder Nanaki said. "You did not have a Meteorfall, so I suppose it would be since Holy erupted."

"But how did we end up in another future?" Aerith was wringing her hands. "I heard Minerva call out to me, but how did she...?"

"She's been pretty active lately," Tifa said before sharply letting out her breath. "Now, I'll tell you what happened to us." She began to speak of their journey while roasting the meat over the fire. An ache in her heart began for how he must feel after the man he had looked up to for so long figuratively spat in his face.

Yuffie walked away from the campfire and into the night as Nanaki followed at her heels while sniffing for Cloud's scent trail. After a while he stopped sniffing for his friend as monster corpse after monster corpse created a trail. A Coeurl here, two Behemoths there, something neither of them could identify because it had been completely mutilated, laying scattered in the field.

The two eventually found him near a small knoll, a sword in each hand and a large corpse in front of him. He was wiping the metal off on the hide. His bright blue eyes found his friends as his head turned to see who was coming, and his face softened just a little. His pain was visible in what little light was afforded by the stars and moon.

Yuffie waved a hand in greeting. "There you are! Spike, you shouldn't run off like that. I'm freakin' exhausted, and you have me looking around for you in the dark!"

Nanaki swished and then softly flicked his tail. "Not everything is as it seems," he said gently.

Cloud cocked his head a little in question after putting his blade together and sheathing it on his back. "What do you mean?"

"They're not from our past," Yuffie drawled out.

"Please tell me you're kidding." He had been hoping that they were perhaps brought back from the Lifestream, or taken right before they died. But, it would explain the hostile greeting.

"She isn't," Nanaki replied. "They are from another reality. One where you had done some less than noble deeds."

Cloud let in a deep breath of air through his nose. "I...see."

"Yeah, Tifa had to put 'em in line."

He raised a brow. "...She did?"

Yuffie rolled her eyes. "Omigawd, Spike. Just 'cause she's pissed at you doesn't mean she isn't gonna go to bat for you. You're her pain in the ass, remember?" She beckoned with a hand to follow her. "C'mon, let's get back to camp and eat dinner."

He shook his head. "I don't know if I should go back."

"Not go back...?" Yuffie stomped her foot on the grass. "You aren't runnin' away again!"

Cloud frowned at her. "I'm not running away! I-I just don't think they want me around."

"So what? They'll have to get over the fact that you're part of the team!"

"She's right," Nanaki began. "You're our fearless leader." A wry smile crossed his muzzle.

The blond chuckled dryly at that. "I...Thank you. I just don't wanna cause Aerith and Zack undue stress, so maybe I can just...sleep out here."

Yuffie let out a groan. "Are you serious? Gawd!"

"Hey!"

They all turned to see Zack jogging up to them, his indigo eyes as bright as Cloud's in the twilight. Cloud stiffened at his approach, looking like a beat puppy. The ex-Soldier waved at the three. "I thought I'd join you."

Cloud's eyes darted about, unsure what this alternate Zack wanted with him. "Uh..."

"Can I talk to 'em alone?" Zack asked of Yuffie and Nanaki. "We'll be back in time for supper."

Yuffie's brow came up, a critical glare coming from her face as she mulled over his request. She came up close to him. "Don't you dare hurt him again," she whispered.

He shook his head. "I won't."

She stood there a few moments still, then shrugged nonchalantly. "C'mon Red, let's get some grub before everyone eats it."

"Hm. That Behemoth will barely feed us all," Nanaki mused as he began to trot towards camp.

Yuffie trailed behind him and waved with her back to the two men. "We'll try'n save ya some food, no promises, though!"

"Aww, save us just a little bit! I haven't had a good meal in days!" Zack called back with a faint grin. His stomach grumbled and he remembered that he really hadn't eaten very well in a good long while. The smell of Tifa's cooking was hard to get away from, but he knew he had to talk to Cloud. He turned to him, his face a bit more serious. "So..."

"Huh?" Cloud looked distracted, afraid.

Zack waved his hands in front of him and came a little closer. "Tifa told us that this isn't...our future, which I guess is a good thing considering what we escaped, but it's still a little confusin'." He scratched the back of his neck. "But she said you aren't the Cloud we came to know."

The blond still looked wholly uncomfortable. He didn't want to know what his alter ego had been up to. He didn't have much to say, just a wariness that this Zack would angrily yell at him again for something he didn't do.

"What she did tell me, was that you are someone I would have as a living legacy. I guess we've both seen our share of things, haven't we? I mean, I still feel a bit strange about all this, but it's not your fault."

"I...I guess...?" Cloud fidgeted in place. Zack slowly came up to him, then put his arm around his shoulder. He felt sturdier than the young cadet he had known before the Nibelheim Incident. "I don't wanna know what I...he, did."

"Don't worry, I'm all outta breath from telling Tifa. She's waitin' for you, y'know."

Cloud nodded, then swallowed hard. He was still waiting for the rug to be ripped out from under him. He still waited even as they approached camp, with Zack trying to give him some sort of gentle peptalk that was replied to with grunts; Cloud was in a mild state of shock, and Zack was too busy trying to soothe him to notice.

He was wondering how different this Zack and Aerith would be. Well, Zack was certainly still Zack, but what of Aerith? What history did they have? His mind flashed to Tifa. She was probably still mad at him, and now he had to deal with this on top of everything else. How was he going to stop Jenova? How was he going to get everyone home?

"Cloud?"

His eyes snapped downward and towards Tifa. For the first time today she looked concerned. Her hand patted the ground next to her, and he hesitated until her face fell into a pleading stare. Soon enough he was mindlessly chomping on a cube of monster meat, a small bowl of rice sitting on one of his knees. Cloud watched as Zack sat next to Aerith, who was watching him hawkishly, as if he might do something to Tifa.

Zack was tearing into his dinner like he hadn't eaten in days. He supposed he hadn't, with how sallow he looked in the light of the campfire. It was much more obvious now in a brighter light. Aerith, too. There were two sticks of meat set aside for him, but he wasn't that hungry. Cloud took his second stick, and stretched it out towards the two on the other side of the fire.

"Y'sure, Cloud?" Zack looked like he was ready to pounce on the meat.

The blond nodded. "I was loafing around all day, anyway."

With that the meat was taken and divided between Aerith and Zack. The ex-Soldier grinned at him. "Thanks! It's been way too long since we had anything fresh to eat."

Aerith still seemed unsure about him, so Cloud moved his gaze to Tifa as she began to finish up her rice. Then, he looked at her belly. Was she eating enough? He wondered if he should have given the meat to her. Tifa noticed his stare. "You okay?" She waited for an answer but only received a slack jawed expression in return. His brain was overworked. "...Nevermind."

When it came time to retire Tifa let Aerith and Zack take their tent. She said it would be nice to sleep under the stars, and the two finally crept into the tent with a few last lingering looks at the couple they never expected to see. They said good night to both Nanakis, the cubs, Yuffie, Vincent and their descendants, who had been content to talk amongst each other as the other four had tried to ease into this new twist of fate.

Cloud found his head resting on a bag of rice, Tifa resting on the other side. He was still trying to sort everything out in his head, and wondering if he could possibly sleep. He would have kept watch, but Vincent was already doing so. Would Vincent rest so he could walk about the camp? But what if that set Zack and Aerith on edge? He just didn't know.

He jumped when Tifa wrapped her hand around his. He glanced over at her, the stress he was under expressed through his eyes. She gently put the fingers of her other hand through his bangs. "I'm sorry."

She was sorry? Sorry for what? "Huh?"

"Oh, Cloud." Tifa snuggled up to him, resting her head on his shoulder. After a moment he responded, their bodies molding together comfortably. Just feeling her in this familiar pose was relaxing. "I shouldn't have been so harsh."

"Oh." He snaked his hand towards her cheek, and softly rubbed it like a worry stone. "I..." He paused, trying to collect his thoughts so he wouldn't ruin the moment. "I'm scared," he admitted in a whisper.

He felt her nod. "I am, too."

They were both quiet after that, Cloud staring at the stars above while Tifa listened to his heartbeat. She slowly inhaled. "We'll get through this."

Cloud shrugged. "Maybe."

Tifa raised her head to look into his worry filled eyes. She looked the same, but for a glimmer of hope that never seemed to leave her. A small half smile crossed her face. "I think our odds have grown, don't you think?"

After a pause and a short snort Cloud tentatively nodded. "Maybe a little bit."

She rubbed his coarse cheek, and his hand found his way to hers as he leaned into her touch. "We can do this, Cloud. And when we get back, we'll grow our family."

Cloud used his other hand to ease her to lay on him, then ran his fingers through her hair. It was a little tangled from the humid day, but still soft. "...I'll hold on to that hope."

There wasn't much left to be said between them, Tifa's reassurances being a light balm on Cloud's psyche. They had two more allies in their fight against Jenova, though he had no idea how Minerva had done it. Did he even want to know? Did she lie about the specific time she could go back to? Or did she not know she could go between timelines?

What was stopping her from pulling him or anyone else into any infinite timelines to fight Jenova or Sephiroth? Maybe some were guaranteed losses. The bizarre answers were too overwhelming for a mere mortal, he mused. But still his mind churned, and his sleep was light and interrupted as the night went on.