So I decided to go ahead and make an epilogue. Enjoy~

-0-0-0-0-

"So…what are you going to do?"

Vincent turned around and looked at Cid. Despite their words from a week before, neither had done anything since then. He wasn't entirely sure what Cid meant by the kiss and he struggled internally with the knowledge that he had no right to be happy. "What do you mean?"

"Well…it's over now. Where ya gonna go?"

"I…don't know. I might return—"

"Good," Cid interrupted. "Then we'll go back home."

His eyebrow rose devastatingly high. "We?"

"'Course. Where'd you think we would go?" His silence was eloquent and Cid looked at him in surprise. "What, you don't want to go there?"

"I don't see—"

"Well, we're datin' now."

"…We are?"

"What'd you think that kiss meant?!"

Vincent grew serious. "Cid Highwind. I did not think you were serious. Knowing that you are, I will say this once: no." At Cid's rebellious look, he cut him off before he could go into rant mode. "I cannot possibly find all the words to explain how ill-conceived a relationship would be between the two of us. We argue constantly, for one—"

"If you weren't so stubborn and just listen to me, we wouldn't!"

"That is exactly my point. It won't work, Cid. In the long run—"

Cid yanked him down again and kissed him deeply, and Vincent really had to break the pilot of this whole manhandling thing. "I don't care about the long run! I care about now and I'm gonna fight for you!" He sighed, but Cid's hands on his collar wouldn't let him move. "Don't care about that girl from before either! You can't live in the past, Vincent and if it takes teachin' ya with my body every night, I'll make you live in the present!"

A faint smile tugged at Vincent's lips, seeing the answering stubbornness in the pilot's eyes and the fact that he'd say something even that amazingly stupid and funny. Well…what else did he have to lose? "I am not convinced…but I'll give you time to do so."

"Good. Now get on that ship. I've seen enough of Midgar to last me a lifetime right now."

-0-0-0-0-

Rufus watched the Highwind take off from his hospital room and turned his attention away to the Wutaian that stood next to his bedside. Though he wouldn't say it, despite the drugs he was still in pain and he leaned back against the raised bed, rubbing at the bandages on his chest. He had been amazed that everyone had survived the car wreck and he thanked Rude's driving that the missile had hit the pavement right behind the car. It had sent them sailing through the air and crash landing…but Rude and Reno had protected him with their bodies and of course Sephiroth and Zack were fine. They'd even managed to protect Gast.

"How are they?"

"Rude has the most severe injuries, but he is stable and recovering. Reno has been…tending to him all this time when he hasn't been in here with you." Rufus almost laughed at the thought of Reno trying to help and was probably just driving the nurses crazy. "Gast is alive and fairly uninjured. He should make a full recovery, at least from the car wreck. He was severely injured and almost died when Hojo attacked him years ago. His road to recovery after that was long and difficult and he is lucky he is alive and can walk, albeit more like a shuffle."

"Very well," he said and sighed, only to blink when there was a sudden weight on the side of his bed. "Tseng?"

"I must admit, at least you've had some sleep the last week."

"I was drugged."

"If that is what it took…" There was a moment's pause before the Turk leaned in and kissed his lips softly. "You are being released in the afternoon. Now that you are president…"

"You have no right to refuse," he muttered with a smirk, and tugged him forward by his hair just a little. "So you will obey?"

Tseng bowed his head in mock subservience. "I will tend to your every whim and put your body into such ecstasy that you will be lost to pleasured madness."

"Well then…looking forward to it," he said as those lips kissed the back of his hand.

-0-0-0-0-

"What are you thinking about?" Sephiroth asked him from the bed. Cloud looked over his shoulder from the window at the naked man that looked akin to a god. Their deal was to wait until he was sixteen, but there was something smoldering in the eyes of the man looking at him. He wondered if tonight that deal would be null and void.

"Just that…I didn't think…it would end up this way. Saving the world and no one died. I didn't have to hold Aeris' lifeless body. I didn't have to watch Zack die from a body that wouldn't move. I didn't have to kill you."

There was a long moment of quiet before Sephiroth finally asked something he had expected him to a long time ago. "What changed it? Your future didn't come to pass, so what was it that you did to change it?"

Cloud left the window and the night outside, sliding into the bed in front of the chiseled man that was his lover. "I don't know. Maybe it was a bunch of little things. I didn't do anything hugely different, other than…"

A silver eyebrow rose and Sephiroth's deep voice prompted, "Other than?"

A faint blush touched his cheeks. "Well, I'd always…loved you I think, even back then, but we never…had a chance. You'd never seen me except once or twice."

"Are you saying that 'love' saved the world?"

"I'm not that sentimental, Sephiroth," he said to the skeptical man. "I don't think it's entirely due to the fact that we…started dating. Like I said, it's a lot of little things that add up over time. Like ripples in a pond, one little thing changes something else and a little thing there and then there…"

A strong hand eased into his blonde hair and they kissed softly before he was wrapped up in equally strong arms. "I'm so happy that I could almost cry. Now Zack and Aeris can be happy. You can be happy. Now everyone can be happy. I guess, with Edge, we were starting on our way to recovery, the world I mean, but it wasn't going fast. Now we've got a head's start."

"You forgot someone."

He tilted his head in confusion. "Who?"

"You can be happy."

Cloud smiled softly and tugged the big man over top of him. "…Yeah, I can, can't I?"

After that, their deal didn't last the night.