I'll admit, this was my favorite chapter of this story. Every time I read the byplay between Genesis and Cloud I crack myself up. XD

Genesis had to blink at Cloud's mismatched eyes. He was used to random shades of blue, not blue and green.

Zack spotted him when he left the office.

"Noticed Cloud's eyes?"

"Yeah. He switch contacts?"

"I made a deal with him. I'd stop being such a moody asshole about being dumped and he had to stop wearing contacts for a full week."

"Wait...so that's his natural eye color?" said Genesis. "Why would he hide them?"

"Something about his old hometown being full of assholes who disliked anything that wasn't exactly normal. Hopefully he'll get used to the fact people aren't going to avoid him for having two different eye colors and relax."

Genesis thought that one over and winced. If a kid had been born like that in his hometown, they would have been bullied and harassed too. No wonder Cloud turned to books...they couldn't mock him for something he had no control over.

"So...you got dumped?" said Genesis.

Zack had been a total pain the past week, and it had worried Angeal. Zack winced.

"I proposed to my girlfriend and she turned me down because I'm a SOLDIER," he said.

"Ouch," said Genesis with slight sympathy. "If she had such a problem with it, why did she go out with you in the first place?"

"I have no idea. I thought she was fine with it, and then she tells me that," said Zack.

Just the thought of it made him incredibly depressed.

"Genesis, slap Zack. We need to keep his head in the game, not about the fact a girl dumped him," said Cloud loud enough for the red haired commander to hear him.

Genesis did so with great glee.

"Ow! Cloud, you're mean!"

"And you're incredibly distracting. Unless you need me to send some of the paperwork people insist Sephiroth complete your way instead of to Genesis."

"I knew it was you!" said Genesis irate.

"People keep forgetting there's three commanders. I just share the love," deadpanned Cloud.

Genesis would swear he heard Sephiroth snort with amusement at that comment.

"Remind me again how long it took Mr. McGrumpypants to declare his unrequited love for chocobo?" said Genesis with a drawl.

"I am not a chocobo! And if anything, at least my ass doesn't look like it's on fire when I go in for a physical!" said Cloud loudly.

Zack sputtered, before he cackled loudly.

"Like you would know! I bet Sephiroth loves having an unrestricted access to your ass!"

"At least mine isn't sagging from old age. Hell, even Zack's ass is smaller than yours!"

"You take that back! My ass is perfect!" snapped Genesis.

Zack was too busy laughing his ass off at the byplay between Genesis and Cloud. The blond had gone from an anti-social bookworm to a chocobo with a hilarious bite to it.

"Can you keep it down Genesis, the entire floor can hear you!" said Angeal.

"Angeal, does my ass look fat?" demanded Genesis.

Angeal had a pained look on his face, while Zack laughed even harder.

"No, and I don't care about your ass. You're making a nuisance of yourself."

"But he started it!" whined Genesis.

"I don't care who started it, I'm finishing it," said Angeal.

Zack was about dead at this point from laughing so hard. Cloud almost killed him once Angeal dragged Genesis off and he made the innocent comment of...

"Am I the only one who felt the urge to say 'yes mom' when Angeal said he was finishing our argument?"

Zack could only wheeze from another bout of laughter. The best part was that he totally agreed with that comment...Angeal did sound like a mom at that point.

Cloud happened to be heading down to the training room with a message from Lazard when Angeal came out half-carrying Genesis. He had a nasty wound on his shoulder.

"Shit... let's find an empty room and I'll see how bad the injury is," said Cloud. "Unless you want to deal with that creepy Hollander."

"I'll take the chocobo over the scientists any day," said Genesis quickly. Cloud had made it no secret he had read the entire library left behind in the ShinRa mansion back in Nibelheim, and the only reason the Turks weren't after his ass was because the company thought Sephiroth had the kid on a short leash.

Cloud genuinely did not give a shit about company secrets, and he wasn't much of a talker either so it was unlikely he'd start sharing them with people who could do some major damage with it. Besides, the Turks had been keeping track of the online classes and the papers he wrote to various journals when he was bored.

Chances were high that the blond might become yet another scientist on the company payroll.

Angeal sat Genesis down, and they took out Genesis' shirt.

Cloud frowned.

"Why isn't this healing up already? This sort of minor wound should have been fixed by the mako, or even a partial."

"I don't know, but it hurts like a bitch," said Genesis.

"'There is no hate, only joy

For you are beloved by the goddess

Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds'," said Cloud, which seemed to amuse Genesis.

"Nice to know someone else is a fan," said Genesis.

"I like classics, and Loveless is at least tasteful," said Cloud absently. He handed Genesis a potion, mostly to see whether it would help. Genesis chugged it like a pro, but there was no recognizable difference. Cloud frowned.

"This is really odd. What sort of injections do you two get that are different compared to Sephiroth's?"

"Hell if I know. Hollander did mention once that he used dead J-cells, whatever that is," said Genesis grumpily.

Cloud was reaching into his bag for a herbal pain killer and froze when he heard that.

"Wait, did you just say dead J-cells?" he said in shock.

"Yeah, why?"

"No wonder this isn't healing up normally! What sort of idiot uses dead cells, much less from that alien parasite?!" said Cloud horrified.

Seeing their alarmed faces, Cloud didn't hesitate to elaborate.

"What do you know about how vaccines work?"

Angeal frowned.

"Doctors use dead strains of certain illnesses to build up a decent immunity in order to prevent or at least downplay the symptoms if someone catches it," said Angeal.

"Imagine J-Cells are a virus...what do you think is going to happen if dead cells are injected into a living host and the cells reach a threshold that can no longer be sustained by mako?" said Cloud.

Genesis paled.

"The infection will either die out or kill the host."

"I think the cells that were put into you are reaching a critical point where they're starting to die off. Which means we either need to flush your system out of that crap, or try to keep you alive while your body does it for you," said Cloud firmly. "Honestly, why the hell does the president keep hiring half-assed scientists and then claiming they're geniuses?"

"Would adding fresh J-cells help?" asked Angeal. Cloud's look shut him up rather effectively.

"Do you really think adding more of what made him sick in the first place would be a smart idea, when the Ancients very specifically called it a calamity, which implies that it caused more harm than good?" he said flatly.

Angeal winced.

"Besides, Gaia apparently learned it's lesson when it comes to 'outside visitors'. It took out the one that came after Jenova, despite the fact the second one was actually friendly," said Cloud absently. "And no, I'm not explaining that without enough booze to get all of us very drunk and have nasty hangovers."

"That bad?" asked Genesis.

"Worse."

That night, Sephiroth's apartment...

"So what's this about 'outside visitors'?" asked Zack.

Angeal, Sephiroth and Genesis were all pleasantly buzzed at this point, and had come to the silent agreement that Cloud was a damn good cook.

Cloud had a mischievous smirk on his face, and his left eye glowed from a light that wasn't caused by Mako.

For some reason, it made Sephiroth sit up and take notice. This was not Cloud, but at the same time it was.

"Cloud?" said Zack concerned.

Cloud darkly chuckled, and there was a wickedness that made all four men sit up. That did not sound like the blond they were familiar with.

His green eye glowed ominously in the dark. It was positively hypnotizing, and there was depth to it that made one think they were staring into the abyss itself.

"Infinite in mystery is the gift of the goddess," said Genesis staring.

Cloud, or whatever dark being possessed him.

"Is that really the best you could come up with?" he deadpanned. The accent was definitely not one they were familiar with, even if the words sounded exactly like something Cloud would say.

Genesis didn't know what made him do it. He would state that outright when he was sober.

"You think you can do better?"

Cloud smirked.

"Take my love, take my land

Take me where I cannot stand

I don't care cause I'm still free

You can't take the sky from me."

"What is that?" asked Genesis.

"Opening song of a short-lived show called Serenity," shrugged Cloud.

There was a sudden bang, making everyone jump in fright, including Sephiroth.

Cloud, or whoever was using his body, cackled.

"You should have seen the look on your faces!"

"Ha, ha, very funny. What was that?" asked Zack, not willing to admit that Cloud had scared them good.

"'If we spirits have offended, think but this and all is mended.

That we have but slumbered here, while these treasured visions did appear,'" said Cloud with a smirk.

"I like that, what is it?" asked Genesis eagerly.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream," said Cloud. "Or at least the only part most people ever remember with any reliability anyway."

"Who are you?" asked Sephiroth. He wasn't sure how to feel about this 'person' controlling his boyfriend.

"Call me Harry. I used a ritual with some unstable materia and ended up here on Gaia, though I was unaware the Planet had adopted a 'no outsiders' rule thanks to what happened with Jenova. So I ended up in the Lifestream only to be thrown out and end up being reborn as Cloud," he said calmly.

"And Cloud...?" asked Sephiroth.

"I have always been here in the back of Cloud's head. And before you ask, yes he is very well aware that I'm there and no, he doesn't want to evict me considering I'm firmly on the 'helpful' side of things. Besides, if you get rid of me then I can't help you deal with the problem Genesis and Angeal will be facing."

"Wait...you can help us?"

Cloud shrugged.

"I managed to purge Vincent of his more murderous voice in his head. At the very least my remedies should work a bit better than the standard potions you have here, even if they taste horrible."

"How do we know this kid is telling the truth? For all we know Cloud has a split personality," said Genesis grumpily.

Cloud, or rather Harry, stared Genesis down. It was extremely unnerving to see in the chocobo.

He muttered something under his breath, and there was a loud yelp as Genesis was yanked up by his ankle and hung mid air without anything holding him up at all.

"Let me down!" said Genesis. His eyes were wide with shock.

There was no materia he knew that could do something like this.

Harry eventually let Genesis down, a little more believing now.

"So, you said that you could help us?" asked Angeal.

"You and Genesis will be a bit easier than Sephiroth. He's practically saturated to the point it's going to take multiple sessions to purge him completely. But when I purged Vincent of that crap, he was throwing up black sludge for three solid hours and he wasn't getting regular injections of it," said Harry. "So you will probably have to claim you all caught some super bug that managed to get past the mako injections until it's gone. Considering Cloud and I had to nurse Sephiroth through one of those recently it should be believable enough so long as the scientists don't look too closely at your blood samples."

Sephiroth grimaced at the reminder of that. Before Cloud showed up to insure he actually rested, he had felt like absolute crap.

"When can we start?" asked Genesis. His shoulder was absolutely killing him.

Before he had a chance to react (which startled all four SOLDIERs with how fast he was), Harry slammed his hand to Genesis' wound.

Blessed relief filtered through his body and he sagged in place. However there was something else that flowed into his body and seemed to supercharge the mako flowing through it.

"Thank the gods," said Genesis, rubbing his shoulder with relief.

"You should stay here for a few hours while the spell takes effect. Once it does, you're going to be glued to the toilet," said Harry.

It took two, and Genesis was torn between wanting to kill the chocobo and being sick as a dog.

However once it passed, his head felt clearer than he could remember it being and the wound on his shoulder looked half-way to healed.

Angeal and Zack were just as miserable the next morning as they purged the infection from their bodies...and helped to establish a possible infection that went after SOLDIERs.

When Sephiroth caught it, or at least a lesser version of whatever it was, Lazard banned all five of them from work until it passed. He didn't need everyone in SOLDIER catching whatever it was that managed to get past the First's heightened immune systems.