Forget Midgar

" His memories felt odd, as if he didn't know where they belonged, all jumbled in a forgotten toy box in his mind. But now he was back in the world of the ordinary, things like road dust under his fingernails and a sea breeze stinging his eyes . . ."

-Leah S. Baird

1.

It's noon in Midgar, or what's left of Midgar, and my shoulders are burning. Meteor tore a hole in the sky, and that hole is making the sunlight more dangerous: or that's what the scientists that are still around tell us. I'm no scientist. All I know is that it's as hot as a motherfucker out here, and I'm tired, hungry, and want a drink.

Make that need a drink.

It's been two weeks since I came here from Kalm Town, where I was residing peacefully enough – unemployed, sleeping away half the day, drinking myself into a stupor nightly with Rude. If it hadn't been for that little busybody bitch Tifa Lockheart and her bullshit Midgar Disaster Relief project, that's where I'd be now – in a hotel bed in Kalm Town, blissfully sleeping off a hangover. But no. Two weeks ago she breezed into town with her strongman, Barrett, and they dragged all the former Shinra employees back to the hellhole that is Midgar.

She and the rest of her tyrannical organization threatened to charge us as war criminals if we didn't comply. The sawed-off shot gun I've been keeping with me since anarchy came onto the scene a few months ago might have said otherwise, but Elena broke down – she has guilt issues – and agreed to go. Rude and I didn't want to abandon her, so here we are.

I was given a shovel and a wheelbarrow, and thrust into the wreckage with the rest of the do-gooder idiots. Up ahead I can see most of them working – Tifa skipping from slave to slave with a clipboard, Barrett lifting steel beams with his bare hands (or, hand, I guess I should say), Scarlet pouting in her utility duds and picking up one pebble at a time, Elena working with the kind of diligence that only remorse provides, and Rude, walking toward me, eating a sandwich and carrying – no – it can't be . . .

A six pack of beer!

I don't bother asking Rude how he can eat his lunch here, where everything stinks of unrefined mako, burning rubber and plain ole death. I wouldn't put much past Rude, at this point – he's not the most observant or sensitive fellow, and sometimes I wonder if he's even noticed that the world has, in a sense, ended. I just hold out my hands as he tosses me a beer, catch it, and cradle it to me like a long lost child.

" Where did you . . . !" I stutter in grateful disbelief as I pop open the top. The beer is warm and flat, but heavenly after so much deprivation.

" Sector one – under the counter of one of the looted convenience stores," Rude tells me, grinning and opening one for himself.

" You went all the way back to Sector One to look for beer?" I ask, not surprised that Rude would do it, but surprised that he could slip past Tifa's eagle eye.

" Nope, I found it when we were working there last week," Rude says, dodging my instant punch of fury – he's been holding out on me for a whole week!

" I was saving it for a special occasion!" he insists in his defense.

" Rude, what the hell is special about today?" I ask, looking around at the same thing we see everyday: a desolate, twisted landscape that smells and feels like the pit of hell.

" I got laid last night," he tells me proudly, raising his eyebrows and taking another long gulp of beer. I snort in laughter.

" By which of the three women we know?" I ask, looking around at the people working nearby.

" Scarlet!" Rude whispers happily, and I roll my eyes.

" Oh, shacking up with a Shinra," I say darkly, not without a little stabbing feeling in my chest. " I see you've learned nothing through my experience."

" That was different," Rude says. " Things were – different – then."

What he's really trying to say is that I don't have much room to talk, that he knows that if Rufus were still alive I would still be trailing after him like a lusty puppy. He's right, of course. But that doesn't mean I'm going to condone his fooling around with Rufus's twin sister, queen bitch and pain in the ass extraordinaire.

I'm set to lecture him when Tifa stomps over to where we're standing, a look of hellfire on her face.

" Drinking on the job?" she says, eyeing our beers. " And I won't even bother asking where you got that."

" It's lunchtime," Rude says obliviously, beaming at her.

" If you've got nothing else to do, then one of you can run a little errand for me," she says smartly, glancing, of course, at me. As much as she probably wants to punish Rude, she knows by now that asking him to run an unsupervised errand is an exercise in futility.

" What?" I groan, hoping that whatever it is it will at least take me out of the wrecked city for a bit.

" I need you to go back to the dorms and find Cloud," she says, and I can hear a hint of embarrassment in her voice. She's been acting as the psychotic Cloud Stife's volunteer nursemaid for as long as I've been here, and it's pretty obvious why. Meanwhile her charge has been madly flouncing around, telling anyone who'll listen all about our Planet's Savior, a girl he was in love with who Sephiroth killed. According to Cloud her 'spirit energy' saved the planet from Meteor and some kind of alien that was trying to destroy the world – obviously a lot of wackjob nonsense from someone who can't deal with his grief.

And I know about dealing with grief. So I can't cut him a break for losing it. I've been working hard as hell to keep my head above water since Rufus died. I could have saved him, just like Cloud could have saved his girlfriend from Sephiroth. But I was too late, or too weak. And that's on my mind everyday. But I'm still standing – I haven't disintegrated into the kind of blubbering mess Cloud has become, I haven't started naming Rufus a lesser deity and railing against anyone who opposes my plans to build statues of him in every major city.

" What's the old Cloud-ster done now?" I ask, unable to hide a spiteful smirk. After all, Tifa's the one who dragged me here: if she wants my help on her hopeless, pointless mission to try to clean up a city that was never clean to begin with, then she's going to have to deal with my antagonism.

" He hasn't done anything," she says curtly. " He simply didn't report for clean up duty this morning."

" Maybe he's about as enthusiastic about cleaning up Midgar as I am," I suggest, raising an eyebrow. She glares at me.

" Cloud cares very much about the welfare of the planet," she says tightly. " He works in memory of Aeris," she adds, self-depreciating.

Aeris – that was the name of "The Ancient," or the "Savior," as some of Cloud's disciples have already taken to calling her. No one knows exactly what saved this planet from certain doom, but some chick Hojo used to have us chase after in Sector Five seems an unlikely answer.

" Just please look for him in the dorms," Tifa says with a sigh. " He probably overslept."

" Sure thing," I say, dropping my shovel and turning to go, happy to be free of work for a few hours. Even if I find Cloud on the way to the dorms I'll still linger in the outer limits of the city for as long as I can – maybe I can talk Cloud into hanging around with me. I doubt it will be very hard – I'll just ask him to tell me – again – about Aeris and her marvelous sacrifice.

The lower levels on the outside of the city were not destroyed by Meteor – Sector Four in particular remained pretty decently intact. Tifa's little operation has taken over an abandoned apartment building there and set it up as dormitories for the relief workers. Elena and I share an apartment there, on the tenth floor. She didn't feel safe living alone, so I volunteered to move in with her. I offer her protection and scintillating conversation, she offers me the occasional home-cooked meal and comfort when I go into Rufus-mode and break down. It's a charmed life, really.

Cloud lives with the other former members of Avalanche in the nicer apartments on the top floor. Each of them has their own place – Cloud, Tifa, Barrett, Cid Highwind - a badass dude from Rocket town who lives with his girlfriend –Vincent - a real quiet and solitary guy who reminds me of Cloud without the crazy ravings - Reeve, who I worked with at Shinra and who gets on my nerves, and Yuffie, an obnoxious little teenager Rude has told me he "wouldn't mind banging," though apparently he's settled for Scarlet.

The elevator in the building no longer works, of course. I take the stairs – fifteen flights up to the top. There is no air conditioning anymore, either, and by the time I get to the sixth floor I begin to wonder if this assignment is really much of a break at all. But anything, really, is better than shoveling away the sooty remains of Midgar. I don't think Tifa realizes – or, perhaps, cares – that doing so is a little more than physically painful for me. I grew up in Midgar. I lived there my whole life, and the man I loved (however resentfully) died in the first cosmic strike against the black city. When Diamond Weapon took the Shinra tower down Rufus was inside. Against my advice. Against my pleading.

He had been waiting there that night for Sephiroth. It was shortly after he had at last confirmed what he had long suspected – that the silver haired hellbeast was his brother. Sephiroth had been raised by Hojo, and told that his mother was Jenova, the name of some rogue cells Hojo had scraped from a frozen monster. But it wasn't true – Hojo had injected himself with the cells before he raped Lucrecia, a lab assistant. Sephiroth was the product of the assault. President Shinra had then forced Lucrecia into marrying him to keep her quiet and close at hand. The baby was surrendered to Hojo, and Lucrecia would go on to give the President a pair of twin heirs before she faked her own death when Rufus was ten, finally escaping the cage Shinra and Hojo had made for her.

It was something I had heard a lot about in the past year, when Rufus was able to learn the truth following his father's murder. Rufus had thought their shared, sick family history would give him a bargaining chip with Sephiroth. He wanted so badly for Shinra to be the one to reign Sephiroth in, to save the world and therefore maintain his tight grip on it.

At least, that's what he told me. I think he just wanted to know his brother. I think he thought Sephiroth could help him understand his own anger, his own penchant for destruction. He arranged to meet him at Shinra headquarters that day that Diamond weapon came. He forbade me to be present. I had a bad feeling about the whole thing, a feeling that I would never see him again. Or maybe that's just something I tell myself now. Either way, I'll never know how the brothers' conversation went.

When I finally reach the fifteenth floor my mind is spinning. I've tried not to be alone too much since Rufus's death – when I am I'll start going over the events, all the insane circumstances that led up to it, and what I could have done differently, how I could have saved him. With the distraction of other people I can sometimes get around thinking about these things, and so I've tried to keep my friends close.

Out of breath, I walk down the hall toward Cloud's room. I've been up here a few times to visit Cid, who Rude and I have grown friendly with since we came here. He pointed out everyone's rooms when he showed us around, and I go to the one that I remember as Cloud's and knock loudly on the door.

" Cloud," I call inside. " Wake up. Tifa wants you." I snort at the double entendre.

There is no response. I think about turning around and checking down in the lobby, where the volunteers – and captives, like me – gather for meals and to kill time by playing cards or mumbling quietly about how they miss having mako energy.

Something makes me try the door knob, though. When I do, it opens, unlocked. I hesitate for a moment, call Cloud's name a few more times, then open the door completely and step inside.

The apartment looks immaculate, unused. The small kitchen is perfectly clean, though the appliances are covered in dust. The living room is unfurnished, the carpet unmarked.

" Cloud?" I call, moving through the rooms, feeling nosy and, for some reason, a little freaked out. Something inside the apartment smells wrong – metallic and dank.

When I finally reach the bedroom I find the bed made, the legacy of Cloud's time spent in SOLDIER apparent in the neatly tucked in corners. At the end of the bed there is a tattered envelope. Curious, I pick it up, and the contents spill out at my feet. Feeling bad for snooping, I stoop to quickly collect them, and when I do I find that they are a motley collection of pictures and letters. I stuff them back into the envelope, trying not to look – one of them, I can't help but notice, is a thin strip from a picture booth: four tiny squares containing the smiling face of Cloud and the girl we used to chase through the Sector Five slums: Aeris, the "Savior." His savior, at least. I don't even recognize the happy Cloud of the pictures – I can tell who he is only by his dirty purple t-shirt and blond hair. Otherwise it looks like the picture was taken in another dimension.

I hear a dripping sound from the bathroom that is attached to the bedroom, and look up. The door is half-closed, and I can't see inside. For some reason a shudder runs through me. The drip had sounded like it had fallen into water, not against the tile of an empty sink.

" Cloud?" I call. No answer. I stuff the last of the pictures into the envelope, and freeze when I see a grainy, older picture of Cloud standing with a very tall, older man. The man is Sephiroth.

I can't stop myself from pulling the picture back out and examining it more closely. I'm surprised that Cloud knew Sephiroth well enough to have a picture taken with him – I knew that the infamous general cum madman was famous for not liking to have his image reproduced. But in the picture Cloud is wearing the uniform of the lowest ranking SOLDIER. Still, standing beside the impressive Sephiroth, who is clothed in his trademark black cape, Cloud looks proud. Neither of them is smiling – it's a serious portrait, but meant to capture what? They are standing alone in a field; there are mountains behind them. Sephiroth is close to Cloud – their arms are nearly touching. Something about the picture suggests an odd intimacy, and I feel uncomfortable having seen it. I shove it back into the envelope and replace the pictures on the bed.

" Cloud?" I call once more, headed now for the bathroom. He better not be naked and passed out in here, I think to myself as I push the door open.

At first I'm blinded by the bright noon light through the bathroom window. Then my eyes adjust, revealing a figure reclined in the bathtub, and what I see makes me drop to my knees.

Rufus.

It's Rufus, lying in the bathtub, his head tipped back listlessly, his eyes shut against the sun from the window, which spills onto his cold and angelic face. And the tub is not filled with water: it's filled with a pinkish, cloudy liquid. Blood.

" Rufus," I say, stumbling toward the tub to pull him out, my hands shaking, tears clouding my vision. How could – how could . . .?

But when I reach him I realize it's Cloud. My heart shudders and it takes me a moment to work up the courage to reach down and touch him. I stick my arm into the bloody water to find his arm – when I pull it out more blood seeps from the cuts he's dug into his own wrist. I have to drop his arm, my stomach lurching. I don't have the heart to try and find a pulse – I just reach in and pull him out, holding him in my arms as I run for the hall.

I have no idea what I'll do with him once I get there, though. I can't carry him down fifteen flights of stairs, and even if I did get him out of the building, what then? I need to radio a doctor, I realize, trying to think rationally. But my heart is pumping so violently I'm afraid I'll pass out – I still have the image of Rufus locked into my skull – Rufus bathing in his own blood, still waiting for me to save him.

I shake it off and put Cloud gently down onto to the bed. His head falls beside the envelope full of pictures, and I have no doubt about why he's done this. I can't think about that now, though – even if Cloud wants to die, I have to try and save him.

It's more than either us has been able to do for the people we loved and lost. And anyway, I've walked the dark paths that led him here. I would want someone – secretly, maybe even to myself – to try and save me if they found me this way.

I wrap his wrists with pieces of fabric that I cut from his sheets with my pocket knife. When the wounds are tightly sealed I check his neck for a pulse – I have a hard time finding one at first, but then there is something – at least I think there is. I fly around the apartment until I find his emergency radio – we all have one in our rooms. I get on the only working channel – the one the Midgar Disaster Relief project has been using – and pray that someone will hear me.

" Hello, hello?" I bark, not knowing what the proper protocol is. " Hello – this is Reno at the dormitory – I'm on the fifteenth floor – I need help –"

" Reno?" I recognize the voice who answers, mercifully, as Elena's.

" Elena, bring one of the doctors to floor fifteen of the dorms, NOW," I say, looking back to Cloud, who lies on the bed like a flounder, his skin as pale as the white sheets.

" Reno? What –"

" NOW, ELENA, NOW!" I scream, about to collapse into tears. It's all coming back – the way I had fought the guards who held back the crowds in Midgar as Diamond Weapon approached the Shinra headquarters, the way I had begged and cried and tried to get to him. The way I had been too late, helpless.

" Okay!" she says. " Okay, Reno. We're coming." And her radio clicks off. There are doctors on site with the relief teams, just in case injured survivors are found while we're sifting through the debris. I wonder how long it will take them to get here from there, and I realize I'm shaking. I start to sink to the floor, but then I wonder if there's anything I can do for Cloud – to call him back.

" Cloud," I say, leaning over him on the bed. He's pale but his face looks peaceful, as if he's sleeping. I touch his face, patting his cheek and trying to get him to wake up. I wonder how long he's been bleeding – I check again for a pulse, and again I'm not sure if I feel one or not.

" Listen, buddy, stay," I say, my voice breaking. Because I can hardly think of a reason myself. " You never know," I tell us both.

I lie next to him on the bed, panic wracking my body. I think of the hundreds of times I laid like this next to Rufus – Cloud's blond hair on the bed next to mine is almost exactly like his. I can't believe I thought he was Rufus when I first walked in and found him – what the hell is wrong with me?

" Ruf, help me," I whisper, reaching across the bed to again try and find a pulse. I withdraw my hand when I hear the sound of sirens on the street outside.

Leaving Cloud on the bed, I get up and go to the front door, throw it open and run to the stairwell. At the top I wait, nearly hyperventilating with relief as I hear the scrape of footsteps on the first floor.

" Up here!" I shout down through the stairwell. " Hurry!"

" What's the emergency?" a man's voice calls up to me.

" Bleeding!" I shriek, wishing for the return of mako energy so they could ride up an elevator in a quarter of the time it will take them to climb the stairs. " From the wrists," I add, hoping that this will make them fly faster up to save him. I think of his life draining away, and again the memories of the day Rufus died shake me to my core.

When the medics finally get to the fifteenth floor I lead them into Cloud's apartment, and back into the bedroom. I stand against the wall, watching them talking on their radios, checking his pulse, tapping his face.

" What's his name?" one of them asks me.

" Cloud Strife," I mutter weakly.

" Cloud," the female medic snaps, pulling open his eyelids and shining a light into his eyes. " Cloud, can you hear me?"

" Did you wrap the wounds?" the male medic asks me. I nod.

" Good," he says. " Good thinking. We've called for a chopper. We're going to take him to a hospital in Kalm." He pauses, and then looks me up and down. " You coming?" he asks.

" Yes," I say after a moment of hesitation. " I'll come. Um, is he going to . . .?" I trail off, unable to say it.

" He hasn't lost that much blood," the doctor tells me, " From the looks of him. He still has a heartbeat, and he's breathing, though both are weak. It looks like you found him just in time," he adds.

Something broken in me raises its weary head, a little bit hopeful, a little bit delivered. I couldn't save Rufus. But maybe I have already saved this other blond man, this other lonely and tortured soul. Maybe that was why I saw Rufus in his place when I first laid eyes on him in peril: because he's my second chance.

I look at him on the bed, still seemingly lifeless, and I pray for his survival, because it may mean my redemption.

And because, well. Though he is crazy Cloud, I do want him to be okay.

In the hospital at Kalm, I'm the only one standing in the darkened hall of the emergency room. Down the hall and around a brighter corner there is a waiting room, but it is crowded with people – refugees from Midgar who are still trying to get treatment for mako poisoning months after Meteor burned up above the city. And I don't feel like being around a bunch of sniffling, depressed people right now.

So I'm in the hall outside the room where they're treating Cloud. Apparently his injuries weren't as serious as they looked. He was an amateur slicer – he had cut across his wrists, a cliched and mostly ineffective method. This is what the doctor told me, and he also told me that they've seen a great increase in suicide attempts since Meteor came and went.

This surprises me a little bit, though I guess it shouldn't. Over half of the citizens of Midgar lost their homes, and those whose homes didn't perish under Meteor's crush can't exactly remain in the now unfunctional city. It's funny how so many of us blamed Midgar for our problems, cursed the lots that had placed our fortunes there, but miss it now that it's gone.

" You may go in now," the doctor says suddenly, breaking my chain of thought. I look up with surprise and narrow my eyes.

" Huh?" I ask. Go in? I was only waiting for the doctor to alert Tifa or whatever other friends Cloud still has.

" He's been awake for a few minutes now, and his pain medication is making him kind of loopy," the doctor explains, missing the bewildered expression on my face while he looks down at a chart he's holding. " But I think it would be good if you went in and spoke to him, reassured him and such."

I stare at the doctor in silence for a moment. Me, reassure Cloud Strife? I've only even spoken to him a few times – usually he was blabbering about Aeris and the way she had rescued the planet - and I know very little about him beyond what he has lost.

" Speak to him?" I ask, looking at the closed door to Cloud's room. There is a window in the door and through it I can see his feet, covered with a blanket.

" Yes – you're his friend, aren't you?" the doctor asks, raising an eyebrow.

I think about what will happen if I say no. I could have the doctor call Tifa, she could come rushing in here, weeping, probably accusing me of trying to murder her beloved or some crap. I wonder if Cloud even has the strength to handle that. Around Tifa he's always seemed a bit exhausted and overwhelmed.

" Yeah, I'll – go talk to him," I say haltingly, wondering if I'll be able to get in touch with Elena. It seems like she'd be much better than me at this.

" I'll be back to check on him in half an hour," the doctor says with a pleasant smile, walking off down the hall. I watch him go, feeling overwhelmed myself. Sighing, not knowing what I'll say, I open the door to Cloud's room and go inside.

I find Cloud lying in bed and staring out the window, past the open curtains and out at the sky. Outside the sun has already started to sink a little bit, orange-yellow light coming in and falling in a neat square across Cloud's middle, which is covered with a blanket. He's got the blanket pulled up to his chest, and his hands are folded atop it. I can't help but notice large, tan bandages wrapped around both his wrists. I look up at him to see he's staring at me with placid indifference.

" Hi," he says, his tone surprisingly even and lucid.

" Hey, Cloud," I say, forcing a laugh, trying to keep the mood light. What do you say to someone who just tried to kill themselves? Especially if you're the one who thwarted their plans?

" How are you feeling?" I ask, pulling a chair over to the side of his bed and taking a seat. He watches me with a little smile on his face, and I see that his eyes look a bit glazed over, and remember the doctor telling me he might be a little loopy.

" I'm okay," he tells me.

" Want me to call Tifa and tell her you're here?" I ask, ready to pass the responsibility of bedside guard over to someone else.

" No," Cloud says easily, almost cheerfully.

" Why not?" I ask, after a pause.

" I don't want her to know what happened," he tells me.

" Alright," I say slowly, deciding not to press any further right now. Cloud looks at me as if he's seeing right through my skull, as if he doesn't really know I'm here.

" Do you remember what happened?" I ask him cautiously, wondering if I should.

" Yes," he says. " I cut my wrists. It stung. I sort of regretted it after I did it, only because she wouldn't have wanted me to. But it was too late, and I figured she would forgive me. She did, for most things. And then I blacked out. And now I'm here."

" You don't think you're in the Lifestream, do you?" I ask, making a face. Cloud laughs a little.

" No," he says. " I don't."

" Well, I found you," I say, clearing my throat, feeling awkward. " You do know who I am, don't you?" I add.

" Yes," Cloud answers. " You're Reno from the Turks. I met you the first day I met her. The same hour, even," he says, wistfully, smiling to himself and shutting his eyes, as if me chasing he and Aeris out of the Sector Five church is a happy memory. Of course, now that he's gone, I would happily relive some of my most harrowing moments with Rufus. So maybe I know how he feels, even in his loopy, all-forgiving state.

" Yeah, that was me," I mutter.

" But what were you doing in my room?" he asks, not accusatory, merely curious.

" Tifa sent me to look for you," I explain. " When you didn't show up for work."

" Oh," he says simply, looking down at his bandaged hands.

" What's the deal with you two, anyway?" I ask after a pause, not knowing what else to talk about. And I have been curious. Tifa seems to be in love with Cloud, but doesn't seem to expect anything from him. She trails behind him everywhere he goes like a babysitter, and Cloud hardly seems to notice. As for him, I always assumed he kind of thought Aeris might come back to him if he campaigned hard enough. Maybe I was wrong – clearly he was actively trying to reconnect with her in another way entirely.

" Tifa?" Cloud says thoughtfully, looking at the ceiling. " Well, we were childhood friends. I was in love with her as a boy – or I thought I was. Later she sort of ruined my life."

I can't help but burst out laughing at this, despite the circumstances. Cloud gives me a childish grin.

" Hey, we've got something in common, then!" I say. " She ruined my life, too, when she dragged me out to this stupid reconstruction project."

" She feels bad about Midgar," Cloud tells me with a sigh. " Because all of this was kind of her fault. But she really shouldn't blame herself. It's hard, though. Not to blame yourself."

I'm not sure if I want to tell him that I know exactly what he means about blame, or ask him what the hell he means by saying that Tifa was at fault for Midgar's destruction. I don't get a chance to do either, though, because Elena comes flying in the door at that moment.

" Cloud!" she sobs, walking past me and throwing her arms around his shoulders. He reaches up to pat her back as she hugs him, crying into the nape of his neck.

" It's okay, Elena," Cloud says when she straightens up, wiping at her eyes.

" I didn't realize you two were so close," I say, frowning as Elena rounds the bed to hug me in turn.

" We're not, really," Elena says, sniffling. " It's just so sad."

Elena has been an emotional wreck since Tseng's death, which happened almost six months ago. I feel bad about not really having been there for her when it happened, because she's sure as hell been there for me since I lost Rufus, even while she's still working through her own stuff. I'm trying to make it up to her now.

There was a time when Elena actually thought Cloud had murdered Tseng, but eventually she accepted that it was Sephiroth who did it. Now she pulls up a chair beside mine and takes Cloud's clammy hand in hers, and I can only guess that the change came when she learned he had lost someone, too. We're a strange little crew here, joined by our tragedies.

" Cloud, what happened?" Elena asks, squeezing his hand.

" I tried to kill myself," he says frankly but kindly, without apology. Elena gasps.

" Why?" she asks, tears rising in her throat again. I roll my eyes. What a question.

" Because . . .," Cloud trails off, and I see his eyes starting to droop. I look up at the drip of whatever medicine they're giving him for the pain, attached to his right bicep with an IV machine.

" Because there is nothing left," Cloud finishes weakly as his eyes fall shut. Elena looks at me, alarmed.

" Is he okay?" she asks. " Should we call the doctor?"

" He's fine," I say, flicking my head toward his heart monitor, which is beeping regularly. " They gave him something for the pain. He's just falling asleep."

" Reno," Elena whispers tearfully, reaching for me. I put my arms around her and feel her sigh against my shoulder.

" This is so strange," I tell her in a whisper. " I barely know him."

" Thank God you found him when you did," Elena says, sitting back. " I can't believe Tifa's not here yet," she adds.

" Actually, I don't think Tifa knows about this," I tell her sheepishly. Her eyes widen and she raises her eyebrows.

" What do you mean?" she asks. " Didn't you radio her?"

" No," I tell her. " I was too freaked out to think of it before, and when I asked Cloud just now he told me he doesn't want her to know."

" Why not?" Elena asks, making a face.

" I don't know," I say, " I didn't want to make him explain himself, in the state he's in."

" Actually, he seems rather peaceful," Elena says, with a sigh. " But I suppose that's just the pain medicine's effect."

" Probably," I say with a groan. " I'd hate to see how he'll be feeling tomorrow morning. That's going to be one hell of a hangover."

" That's why we need to tell Tifa what happened," Elena says. " So she can take care of him."

I start to agree with her, then I remember what Cloud told me, about Tifa ruining his life. I'm sure he's exaggerating, but he hadn't hesitated to tell me that he didn't want me letting her know what had happened. And I've seen the look he has about him when she's following him around like a doting mother – maybe he would look this way anyway, but it's defeated and pathetic. I can only imagine her tripling her efforts if she found out he attempted to kill himself.

" Listen," I say, chewing my lip. " Let's wait until tomorrow morning, when he's a little more sober, and ask him if he wants Tifa to take over then."

" Take over?" Elena says, giving me a look. " Are you saying you're going to stay with him until then?"

" No need to, really," I say, swallowing a lump in my throat. " I mean, he's just going to sleep away the night, right?"

" What if he wakes up and he's frightened?" Elena asks. " What if he doesn't know where he is, and he's alone?"

" For God's sake, Elena, he's not a child," I mutter, though I know she has a point. I groan.

" I guess we could stay," I relent.

" Oh, we, huh?" Elena says with a smirk.

" You're the one who's so concerned about him freaking out in the middle of the night!" I insist, getting annoyed. " If you're going to stay, I might as well keep you company."

" I see," Elena says smartly, probably thinking I don't want to admit that I actually care about this wacko's welfare. That may be partly true, but mostly I just don't want to go back to the apartment alone after what I've been through today – I still feel shaken up by finding Cloud half-dead, and by imagining that I saw Rufus in his place.

The doctor comes back to check on Cloud and pronounces everything normal a few minutes later. After scribbling on his chart for a moment, he finally looks up at Elena and I as if just noticing we're there.

" You two are his family?" he asks. Elena instantly bursts into tears.

" Um, no," I say, eyeing her warily. " We're his – friends."

" I see," the doctor says. " I recommend that you help him to seek counseling for suicide survivors. Normally this isn't a difficult process, but after everything that's happened our therapy staff is very heavily booked. Until he can get professional help you two will have to support him. That is – if he has no immediate family to do so."

Elena chokes out a sob at this.

" We'll help him," I promise, though I have no idea how, and don't actually mean to do it. Surely in the morning Cloud will want Tifa by his side, especially when he sees that the only other option is me and Elena. I would feel guilty about calling her here now after he's asked me not to, but tomorrow he'll regain his senses and he'll want her to be the one to help him through this . . . whatever.

When the doctor leaves, Elena finds a box of tissues and blows her nose, and I turn on the TV.

" The television won't work," Elena reminds, me sniffling. " Shinra ran the broadcasting companies, remember?"

Static blares back at me when the TV pops on, confirming this statement. I curse under my breath and turn the TV off.

" Where are they getting power from, here, anyway?" I ask.

" Still using mako," Elena says, sitting back down again. " The Restoration Committee is allowing it for the hospitals only, so the victims from Midgar can be treated. They're working on alternate energy solutions in the meantime."

" Who is this mysterious Restoration Committee, anyway?" I grumble, sitting down beside her.

" Reeve's on it," she tells me, and I groan. Reeve was always a do-gooder prick, and though he mostly stayed out of the Turks' business, he got on my nerves. I still don't like him – something about him is too cheerful, too optimistic. It doesn't fit with everything the rest of us have been through.

" Tifa, too," Elena adds, " And Barrett Wallace."

" Please tell me Scarlet's not on it," I mumble. Elena laughs.

" Like they'd let a Shirna have any kind of power!" she says. " Scarlet's got a pretty rough deal since the fall of the company. A lot of people resent her, because of who she was, and because of her family name."

" Hmm," I say, folding my arms over my chest. Though I don't doubt that Scarlet deserves her bad reputation, I feel a little guilty for not having made any effort to protect Rufus's sister since his death. He never got along with her, but I'm pretty sure that he didn't want her to come to harm, and especially didn't want her to be castigated for being a Shinra, if he even could have imagined such a thing.

Elena and I stare at Cloud while we talk, not really seeing him, but also with an unconscious desire to keep a watch on him, though as heavily drugged as he is he won't be going anywhere soon. He sleeps in a peaceful delirium, his breathing regular and heavy, his head tilted to the side on his pillow. His blond hair, wilted and limp from the ordeal, fans out around his head. With his boyish features, pallid glow and bandaged wrists he looks a bit like a fallen angel.

" You know that legend about the fallen angel who founded Midgar, right?" I ask Elena, smirking in sad nostalgia at the thought of the tale I grew up with.

" No," she says. " I'm from Gongaga – I don't know a lot about the Midgar folklore."

" Well, there was plenty of it," I say proudly, having been a connoisseur of it in my youth. " But the most commonly known one is the story about Midgar having been born as a black hole. People say an angel fell from the sky and landed in the spot where Midgar was developed, leaving a scorched, black circle that the developers used as a boundary for the city. It was like they had to build a city there, because nothing natural would grow on that earth after the bad angel left his mark."

" Bad angel?" Elena says, laughing. " And I thought Gongaga's folk stories were hokey."

" Well," I say, a little offended, straightening. " It's just a legend. But it's true that nothing will grow anywhere inside the city limits of Midgar. Except –"

I pause, remembering. Aeris, the girl Cloud had loved, had kept flowers in an old church in the Sector Five slums. How had I forgotten that until now? A shudder moves through me, and I think about what Cloud has been saying about her, that she had powers comparable to Sephiroth's, and that she chose to use them to save us rather than destroy us, as he had . . .

" Except what?" Elena asks, looking at me.

" Nothing," I say, shaking my head. I hear the door opening behind us, and turn, expecting to see the doctor.

Instead, Rude is pushing into the room, a weary smile on his face and a duffel bag on his shoulder.

" Hey," he says, walking in and punching my shoulder. " Elena said you'd be here." He glances at Cloud and says nothing.

" Aww, did you bring me my toothbrush and PJ's?" I tease, looking at the bag.

" Nope," Rude says, unzipping it. " But I thought you could use one of these." He pulls out a can of the beer we had been drinking earlier, and I laugh.

" I can't think of anything I've ever needed more," I say, taking it from him and popping it open. Rude hands one to Elena, too, and pulls a chair over beside ours, taking out a beer for himself.

" Are we even allowed to have beer in a hospital?" Elena asks, sipping hers before she gets an answer. She closes her eyes in satisfaction as she swallows, and I have to smile – Elena has become a true Turk.

" We have an excuse," Rude insists. " It's a celebration!"

" Of what?" I ask, raising an eyebrow. " Please don't tell me you just made it with Scarlet again," I say, making Elena choke on her beer with surprised laughter.

" Nah," Rude says. " We're celebrating this guy being alive!" he says, raising his beer to Cloud, who is still deep in sleep.

" Yeah, to Cloud," I say, raising my own can. Elena lifts hers, too, and we all drink.

" I brought one for him, too," Rude says, lifting the final beer out of the duffel bag, and I double over in laughter as Elena clucks her tongue at his insensitivity.

" What?" Rude asks, shrugging. " I thought he could use one."

" Oh, only you, Rude," I say, wiping tears of laughter from the corners of my eye. " Only you."

We sit back and drink our flat, lukewarm beer as the sun goes down outside. The beer tastes even better than it did this morning, after everything I've been through. I think of all the cold ones I put down with Tseng and Rude over the years, all the much-needed happy hours that followed our shifts. Of all the martinis sipped with Rufus, looking out over the dark city from the giant windows of his penthouse apartment. I think about whiskey stolen from convenience stores, about tipping it back in alleyways with the other lost boys in the slums when I was a kid.

Alcohol has colored a lot of the scenes of my life, I suppose. As I down the warm, post-apocalyptic beer my friend has brought me, I can hardly think of a time I've been more grateful for the fuzzy complacency that it brings.