Another day, another one shot, and hopefully, it's another good oneshot. This is set in part 3, after the Corel mission and while Cloud is recovering, but before his promotion and moving in with Zack.

A Forgotten Treasure

Cloud sighed, before glaring at the unhelpful floor map. The 'Buisness Department' was directly under President ShinRa, and was divided into a couple different, smaller, buisness departments, none of which were near each other.

Thanks to being on medical leave, he'd been regulated to deskwork (Which was pretty much just editing other Soldier's reports and confirming that yes, there were things where they were supposed to be) and running messages.

Actually, he wasn't officially supposed to be running messages, but if it got him away from the desk, he wasn't going to tell. Besides, the secretary that had asked looked about ready to either kill someone or burst into tears.

"Need a hand?" A man by the water cooler, which he had passed twice, called out.

"Any idea where the 'Third Buisness Department' is?" Cloud held up the files.

"You're close, we're over here." The man left the cooler and led Cloud through a door that had been hidden by a slight alcove.

"Well, that was too easy." Cloud muttered, annoyed as his leg ached. A few more days, and it would be back to normal. The man just laughed.

"You're not the only one to think that, I think they put the door farther back than it was supposed to be."

"Yes!" Another office worker cheered, before noticing the stares from his fellow employees. "Sorry."

"Where do those need to go?" The man helping Cloud chose to ignore the outburst. As they sorted out the files, the man started a conversation. "So why's a Soldier Delivering the files?"

"Medical suspension."

"Medical? Don't you boys use materia and potions?"

"If the damage is extensive, materia and potions don't always work."

"Extensive?" Another worker came up to take a file. "I didn't think Soldiers got into that type of trouble."

"Most don't, I just had some bad luck." Cloud shrugged. Sensing that it wasn't a good topic, the workers changed tactics.

Cloud wasn't much of a gossip, but he didn't mind listening- he learned quite a bit just by listening to people talk.

"Abel's been obnoxious ever since his kid managed to say mama, the women think it's sweet, but . . ." The first man shook his head.

"He's still going on about the kid learning new words and teething." The second groaned.

"Right, I need to get going . . ." The two nodded, and Cloud walked away. As he was walking he noticed a couple photos on a desk, one was a man and woman holding a baby, the other was a personalized frame around a picture of the baby. The frame read 'My Son' on the top, and the picture itself had the weight, length and date of birth of the baby. But more importantly, it had a very familiar name.

'Denzel'.

"Admiring my treasure?" Cloud blinked, looking at the man in question.

"He's . . . Kinda small." Only six pounds and some ounces . . . Was that a normal baby weight?

He resolutely ignored the ache that came from even thinking about Denzel and Marlene . . . It hadn't ended well.

"He'll grow, he's crawling and talking- he finally said dada- actually, it was baba, but I knew what he meant!" The man grinned.

"You're Abel?" Cloud made the connection from his ealrlier conversation.

"How did you- oh, they're still annoyed with me aren't they?"

"I guess . . ." Abel just gave him a wry smile.

"Don't worry about it. Pleased to meet you, Soldier-"

"Cloud Strife."

"Cloud? That's an unusual name."

"My mom and dad had a sense of humor."

"I can tell, I'm glad we went with Denzel." Abel picked up the photo. "I heard the first part of your conversation, Soldier sounds pretty dangerous."

"Only if a mistake is made . . . It was a bad mission."

"You're pretty young . . . What if you want to have a family?"

Cloud blinked at the non-sequiter. "I've got a couple years, but I plan to have one." If they managed to take down Jenova and Hojo, and fix up ShinRa, he hoped to be able to settle down, without having to deal with Armageddon every two or three years, and some crazy freak every year.

ShinRa had left behind a lot of dark secrets, and he had kept getting dragged into figuring it out- once because Reno had actually kidnapped him.

"That's good . . ." Abel smiled. "See you around, Cloud."

"Abel." Cloud nodded, and this time, he didn't stop until he reached the elevator.

Denzel had parents. They had died when Sector Seven had fallen. Obviously they would be alive right now.

He'd stay out of it, maybe keep an eye on the family from afar.

Denzel deserved to have a mother and father, not a mentally frail substitute that had had absolutely no clue what to do. Cloud knew that, so then why did feel so bitter?

Because in some way, Denzel had been his son at one point too.

Cloud gave a frustrated sigh, before bringing his composure back. Denzel was safe, he'd focus on everything else first, then he could sort out this.

He wasn't going to let Denzel lose his family this time, he just had to figure out if he was going to fit in it at all.

He also needed to figure out how he was going to bring this topic up with Tifa . . . She'd gotten annoyed at Barret when he kept bringing up Marlene.

He'd wait until he could actually talk to her face to face, and after they figured out what they were going to do about the two of them.

Denzel's 6 during the events of FFVII, Cloud's 21, meaning Cloud was 15 when Denzel was born. (I thought Denzel was 5 when I originally wrote this, Not to mention, I have no idea how quickly babies develop, at least until they're three- after that I know perfectly well.)

Currently, at this point in time (Part 3) Cloud's going on/actually is 17 . . . Physically, that it is, mentally's a different story.

I probably should write the timeline notes in the actual story . . . Or maybe after I finish the story.