Chapter Text

WISH UPON A PLANET

-•- Lyraonyx -•-

Chapter 1

Wishful Thinking

The afternoon sun beat upon Cloud's back, a burning sheet against the sharp, dust-tainted winds of the Midgar Wastes. Parched, cracked land stretched over the barren earth, only broken by the occasional glowing stream of mako. Like the broken edges of old bones, the ruins of Midgar scratched the sky and sprawled over the ground, a gruesome scab over a wound that would never, could never heal. The roar of Fenrir's engine and Cloud's own heartbeat drowned among the silence.

He stopped Fenrir near the edge of a cliff overlooking the remains of Meteorfall, skidding on the cracked earth, and stood sentry among the settling dust. They had won. In the end, they had destroyed the meteor, killed Sephiroth and Jenova for good, and built a new, peaceful life upon the ruins of Shinra's evil.

But the cost was so high. Too high. Too many innocent lives had perished for the sake of a diabolical space alien and her psychopathic little puppet. 

Perhaps it said something for Cloud's recovery that he could understand Sephiroth's misfortune now. He remembered all too well the overpowering ecstasy that came with following Sephiroth's Reunion-enforced orders, at least until the asshole released him to watch the horror of what he had done come to fruition. If Jenova's influence over Sephiroth had even a quarter of that power, Cloud understood why the General hadn't been able to resist. The question Cloud wished he had an answer for was: had Sephiroth ever tried to resist? Had he been an unwilling puppet forced into doing Jenova's will, or had he become a god of destruction by choice? He supposed he would never know. The Sephiroth Cloud had known was cruel, calculating, and absolutely ruthless, but Zack had spoken of a kind man once, a man with a heart as broken and lonely as Cloud's own. 

Had Sephiroth even wanted this?

Cloud took off his helmet, but kept his eyes shut against the grim reminder of all Sephiroth's insanity had cost the world. He had no answers, no miracle flash of insight to relieve the constant crush of self-doubt and guilt weighing upon his soul. He couldn't seek absolution among his friends either. To them, Sephiroth had been the enemy, plain and simple. A crazed killer out to destroy the world. 

To Cloud, Sephiroth was still the enemy, but he also knew one misstep might have led Cloud down a similar path to ruin. He understood Sephiroth, at a level no one else could hope to comprehend. Once, he had even loved Sephiroth, albeit not in any way that mattered. A childhood crush on his hero would never have been enough to repel Jenova's sickly-sweet call. 

He had no idea if he could repel her hold on Sephiroth now. It was a sweet dream, though. A beautiful fantasy. If he could only go back in time, would forgiveness be enough to pull Sephiroth from the brink?

Could Cloud ever truly forgive him, even if it was?

"Gaia, I wish things had been different."

He opened his eyes to the dust-tinged glow of a Post-Meteorfall sunset. The ruddy light spilled over the ruins of Midgar like blood. Cloud shuddered at the memory of smoking rubble stained crimson and straddled his bike once more. Maybe, if it meant preventing this, if it meant he could save Aerith and his mother and all the others Sephiroth had killed without a thought, Cloud could find it within himself to let his fury go. 

But as he had no ability to bring miracles to pass, he pushed his regrets to the back of his mind and turned for home, or what was left of it.

A young boy without a name wandered the desert earth, his path lit by the glow of the Lifestream. He had nothing to do but wander, nowhere to go but wherever his feet took him. No one to care if he got lost but Aerith and her boyfriend. They took care of him sometimes, and he could have gone to them, he supposed, but something pulled him to the Wastes that night. Something he didn't understand, but had no choice but to follow. 

The sudden roar of a motorcycle piqued his interest, and the boy turned to watch a man approaching in a whirlwind of dust. The bike stopped right beside him, on his favorite cliff overlooking the Midgar ruins. Not the prettiest spot, but the boy was used to stark environments and the hollow echoes of latent misery. The solitude here made it easier to think. 

At least it did when he was alone.

The man stepped off of his bike and stared over the plains. The boy watched in mild curiosity and wondered who he was. He couldn't see much of the man's face beneath his helmet, and yet, the boy sensed some kind of kinship with him. Strange. He had never sensed much of a bond to anyone but Aerith and Zack before, and that only because they took care of him. Well, as much as a nameless lost soul could be cared for. 

"Who are you?" His quiet, unsure voice cracked with disuse, and he flinched at the sound. If Hojo heard—but no. There was no Hojo to harm him here. Aerith had made sure of that. He swallowed against the strain in his throat and kept his voice low so it wouldn't break. 

"What are you doing here?"

The man didn't speak. Well, he wasn't dead, so it wasn't likely he could hear the boy anyway. Still, the boy couldn't help his curiosity. He should know this man, even if he didn't understand how.

The man gave a quiet sigh and pulled off his helmet. Yellow spikes of wild hair sprang up and rippled in the wind. 

"You look like a chocobo."

He had seen them a few times, though he never could get close enough to touch. They sensed him somehow, he supposed. Sensed him and ran before the monster in him could get too close. 

"Gaia, I wish things had been different." The man's voice was soft and heavy with pain as deep as the ocean. Even the boy himself had never touched grief like that. 

"So do I," he whispered back.

The man's brilliant blue gaze fixed on the boy's own, and the child's heart sputtered. Oh, Planet! He knew those eyes. Mako blue with a hint of green around the edges and pale, long eyelashes. With a gulp, the boy took the opportunity to analyze the man's features, and every new discovery sent another wave of shock and wonder crashing through him. Straight, narrow nose. Full, pink lips. An almost effeminate beauty, countered by the strong line of forehead and jaw and a muscular physique, however compact. He was short, too. 

Shaking all over, the boy stared at his own reflection in the motorcycle's glossy casing. Straight nose. Wild spiky hair, though his color was nothing like the warrior's chocobo yellow. Delicate facial features on a strong jaw. Short frame with plenty of powerful muscles despite his youth. 

And brilliant, mako blue eyes, rapidly flooding with tears. 

"You—you're really my…."

Before the boy could tear his eyes from his own reflection, the sudden roar of a motorcycle carried the man away, back the way he had come.

"Wait! Don't leave me behind."

With a whimper, he ran after the man and hoped his enhanced body could keep up with his quarry.

The bar was mostly empty when Cloud returned. Good. He wasn't in the mood to chat. He greeted Tifa with a kiss on her cheek and a perfunctory hello. 

"You drove out to Midgar again, huh?"

Cloud frowned at her. "How…?"

"You didn't take any deliveries with you, you went south, and you're back in a grumpy mood."

Cloud huffed and turned towards the stairs. "I'm not grumpy."

"Uh-huh." She grabbed a glass and started polishing it. "Try to say it without growling this time."

"I'm not, not really. I just…." His shoulders slumped. "I've got a lot on my mind."

Her expression turned sad and knowing. "Cloud. We did the best we could with what we had. Please don't beat yourself up."

He shook his head and headed for the stairs. "I'm not. I just… wish there had been a better way."

"Yeah. We all do sometimes. Just try not to take all the blame on your shoulders, okay? We couldn't save them all, but we're here. It sucks that we lost so much, but we survived, and we're pulling through. We wouldn't be if not for you."

Cloud forced his lips into a parody of a smile. "Thanks, Tifa. I… just need some time tonight, okay? I'll put the kids to bed first though."

"All right. Call me if you need me."

"Will do."

With a little wave, he turned to the staircase and headed upstairs. He wiped the sadness off of his face and conjured a smile for Denzel and Marlene. The kids had been through enough hell already without having to bear the weight of Cloud's regrets, too. 

The boy ran for miles, but he lost track of the man long before he reached anything like a settlement. His sides ached and his legs wobbled, enhanced or no, but he refused to stop. The road ahead led to Edge. Surely he could find him there, if he looked hard enough. 

"I'm coming. Please, wait for me."

With a shaky breath, he gathered his strength and forced himself towards the distant glow of flickering streetlights.

Two baths, three bedtime stories, and a glass of whiskey later, Cloud flopped onto his bed and stared at the ceiling—a patched, tattered travesty of rough, untreated wood and pitch, much like the rest of 7th Heaven and their attached dwelling. Once, buildings had been nicer, but between Meteorfall and the fallout from the Geostigma and Deepground, building supplies were scarce and gil scarcer. They had lost so much more than loved ones in the war against Jenova and Shinra's greed. 

Could he have saved the trees and the earth too, if he had brought Sephiroth to heel sooner? If he had been able to drag Sephiroth away from Jenova's dark grip before everything went to shit, could they have saved the world together?

"I wish I could have reached you somehow, before everything turned against us both. I wish I could have saved you. I—"

A sudden catch in his voice, a bitter sting behind his eyelids, and he shut his broken murmurs down. No use crying now. Nothing would change. 

With a shuddering sigh, Cloud closed his eyes and turned away from the dim light under the door. He had to stop tearing himself to pieces over the might have beens. The future they had now, bleak as it was, was the only one they would ever get. He might as well stop brooding over things he couldn't change. 

Still, he couldn't help sighing into the quiet of another dreary night, nor could he stop the two silent tears that dropped upon his pillow.

"I'm sorry."

Planet help him, he was.

In a world of whispers and flowing streams of life, a man with silver hair and haunted eyes watched over the blond warrior that had ended his life. He had never blamed the boy—Gaia knew he had deserved to die—but watching Cloud torment himself for Sephiroth's failings, even years after the fact, was an exercise in torture. He wished he could reach out, touch that troubled brow, soothe the sorrow from his eyes and tell him it was all right. He wished he could hold this man's hand, the only man in the world who still mourned for him, and thank him for all he had done to stop Jenova's reign of terror. 

He wished he could answer his questions and tell him yes, by all that was holy, he regretted everything he had ever done. He wished he could fix the mess he had left behind, but though the Ancient might have helped him cross the Lifestream if he asked—his actual self this time, not a Jenova-infested clone or remnants of his worst traits—it would only do more harm. The world would panic at the sight of him, and Cloud would suffer for his sympathy for a monster. 

"I wish, so much, that I had done better by you, Cloud."

But he had no power to heal the breach, and even to try would only hurt Cloud and everyone he loved. So he stayed where he was and did penance by watching over the man he had broken. It was all he could offer him now. 

"I'm sorry, too."

Cloud scrubbed the tears from his face and drifted into dreams. Sephiroth stayed by his side and tried to fight his nightmares away from beyond the grave. If only Cloud could feel the soft touch of gentle fingers through his hair, perhaps it would heal them both.

But he couldn't, and healing was a long way away.

Sephiroth kept it up anyway, if only to know he was doing all he could.

The boy checked every house in Edge, but the man had disappeared without a trace. With a broken sniffle, he sank to the ground outside of a local bar and buried his head in his hands. So close. So close to answers about himself, maybe a chance at knowing some kind of existence beyond this bitter limbo between life and death, and he had failed. Was it really so awful to want to know where he had come from? Was it so terrible to hope that he had some kind of origin other than Hojo's lab?

Was it so bad to wish to be something more than a monster?

"Oh, sweetheart, how on Gaia did you end up here?"

Aerith's gentle voice made the boy gasp and jerk his head down into his knees. 

"I-I'm fine! Just got lost. I'm okay." 

He was as far from it as could be, of course, but they didn't need to see him in his moments of weakness. They cared about him, and he couldn't stand to lose them, too.

A stringent, nasal voice echoed in his mind. "Crying is a weakness for lesser beings." The pain that had always followed such statements had taught the boy to hide his tears quickly enough.

"Oh, kiddo." Strong arms folded about his waist and pulled him up, so he rested against a muscular chest. "Hey. It's okay to cry, you know. You've been through so much pain. It's okay to show when it hurts."

The boy looked up to see Zack giving him a sad sort of smile. 

"Hey there, love. You want to go home?"

The boy sniffled and wiped his face. "I guess." 

Gentle fingers slipped through his hair. "All right." Aerith sent healing magic into him even as she followed Zack down the road. "How did you end up here?"

The boy sniffled. "I was trying to find someone."

"Who were you looking for?"

The boy winced and blinked back more tears. "Nobody. It doesn't matter anyway. I couldn't catch him."

Zack gave Aerith a worried look. "Aerith, do you think…?"

"Maybe." She rubbed the boy's cheek. "There now, love. Tell us why it hurts."

The boy whimpered. "He—the man I saw—he looks like me! He looks—and for a minute, I thought he might be—but he's gone, and it doesn't matter anyway. He's alive, and I'm…." A stifled sob escaped him, and the boy buried his face in Zack's shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"Shh." Zack rubbed his back and kissed his hair. "It's all right. To tell you the truth, we took you in because you remind us of our friends. You look like them, and, well, we wanted our friends to be happy. And you, of course." He sighed and smoothed the boy's hair. "We didn't do so hot at that."

"A lot of pain got in the way," said Aerith with a sad nod. "But maybe it isn't hopeless." She brushed the boy's tears away and gave him a gentle smile. "A lot of wishes are pouring into the Lifestream tonight. Maybe you should make one too. It couldn't hurt anyway."

The boy sniffled. "A wish?"

"Yeah." Zack nudged his shoulder. "If you could have anything in the world right now, what would you wish for?"

The boy stared over the sleeping town of Edge. "Anything?"

"Yeah! That's the point of a wish. It's okay to wish for something wild, even if you're not sure it can come true. That's part of the magic."

The boy closed his eyes and remembered a face too much like his own. "I wish… for a name. A real name, not just 'Project SC.' And I wish—I-I wish my parents could give it to me." His voice broke, and tears poured down his face. "But I don't have parents, do I? I'm just a creation. A monster."

"Kiddo…." Zack cradled the child close and kissed his hair. "Hush. You're not a monster. You're a little boy who was hurt a lot, and you deserve so much better than what you got. And, you know, Aerith and I can give you a name if you want. I—"

The boy shook his head and shuddered. "I wish I could go home. I wish I had a home to go to."

Tears slipped down Aerith's face, each one glowing with green light. "Oh, love. I'm so sorry. Let's—let's just… get you in bed, hm? Maybe a nice rest will help you feel better in the morning."

The boy gave a listless shrug and rested his head on Zack's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be ungrateful. You two have been like parents for as long as I can remember, and I love you. I just wish…."

Zack squeezed him gently and carried him out of Edge. "I know, baby. I know. It's all right. We wish that for you, too. I wish I could've saved you when you were alive. I wish I had known you needed me."

"It's okay. You're here now."

Zack winced. "Y-yeah. Always, kiddo."

The boy sniffled and turned into Zack's embrace. Between the rocking motion of his pseudo-father's footsteps and his pseudo-mother's healing strokes through his hair, he was asleep long before they made it back to the church in the slums. 

Zack's quiet murmur into their surrogate child's hair broke Aerith's heart. 

"I wish we could be the family you need, kiddo."

She blinked back tears and let her head droop. "Gaia, so do I."

Aerith stroked her boy's hair and watched him sleep, her heart troubled by all she had heard that evening. Everyone she cared for, it seemed, had soul-deep regrets, pain too deep for the Lifestream to cleanse. 

"I wish I could have reached you somehow, before everything turned against us both."

"I wish, so much, that I had done better by you."

"I wish I had a name."

"I wish we could be the family you need."

She kissed the boy's hair and went to the back of the church. The mirror of Zack's sword still marked the spring, a monument of honour to more than one hero lost to the ravages of war. With a sigh, she touched the water. 

A dark-haired man appeared, mismatched white wings folded over his shoulders and the quiet form of his red-haired companion. He stared into the ruins of Midgar, his face marked with guilt and grief. "Oh, my friend. So much destruction. I wish I had never left you to suffer alone."

The redhead beside him curled into his side. "It was my fault, Angeal. If I hadn't been so rash…."

Angeal kissed his lover's hair and sighed. "We should have told him. If he knew what was wrong, perhaps he wouldn't have perceived our escape as a betrayal. Perhaps he wouldn't have been so susceptible to Jenova's manipulation if he believed he was loved."

"I wish we had trusted him, too."

Aerith blinked hard and touched the spring again. An image of Tifa stood watching over Cloud, her expression pained. 

"You're not happy," she whispered. "I can't make you happy. I accepted it long ago, and I won't try to force you into a mold that doesn't fit, but oh, I wish you would find someone to heal you. Even if it means you have to leave." With a heavy sigh, she closed Cloud's door and retreated to her own bedroom across the hall. "I wish I could find a way to heal, too. I wish we all could." Tears slid down her face. "Oh, Aerith. I miss you so much."

Aerith leaned over the pool, heartbroken. "I wish I could heal you, too." Two glowing tears dropped into the water. "If only I had the power…."

"Gaia, I wish things had been different."

The spring shimmered, and a silvery-green light glowed on the surface. Wide-eyed, Aerith watched as the scenes she had just seen moved backwards, then images from yesterday, then the day before, until it stopped on a scene from ten years ago. 

Fire blazed around a green-eyed man with long, silver hair, and Zack faced him down with grim determination. In the background, a teenaged Cloud watched the flames in mounting horror. 

"Sir, no! Stop!"

Suddenly, the teenager vanished, and a twenty-six year old Cloud stood in his place, mako eyes glowing in the firelight and expression as determined as Zack's. 

"Sephiroth! I know you don't want to do this! Look at me. Please. We can stop this together, if you'll only trust me."

Sephiroth turned, and a bit of the madness in his eyes faded. "Strife? What—but what happened to you?" 

"It's me, Sephiroth. The spell—it's finally over. I'm here for good."

"Cloud…." Sephiroth's eyes filled with tears, and the flames flickered and vanished, leaving Nibelheim mostly whole, if the mansion was a little worse for wear. "You're here? You'll stay?"

"Yeah. I'm going to be right by your side from now on." 

Aerith pulled back from the pool with a shaky gasp. Oh, Gaia! Was this the answer to everyone's prayers? If Cloud went back for Sephiroth, could they prevent this whole nightmare before it started? Could Sephiroth still be saved?

'Send Cloud back? Is it really possible?' 

She watched the water shimmer and listened to the voice of the Planet. 'One night… one choice… one wish to reward the hero… one wish to save the calamity's prisoner… one wish to save them all.'

One wish? Then this power was a temporary thing, a gift from the Planet to heal her hurting children, and herself, too. 

One night. Aerith glanced to the moon, just visible through the hole in the roof, and took a steadying breath. Not much time left. She stood and shook Zack awake.

"Love, I have to go to Cloud right now. The Planet has a task for me, and, if we're lucky, it might just be the answer we've all been praying for."

Zack gave her a sleepy smile. "Yeah? Tell Spiky I said hi. Good luck, love. I'll take care of the kiddo when he wakes up."

Aerith kissed him goodbye and stroked her boy's cheek. "Be safe, loves." With one last prayer for them, she raced from the church and down the dirt roads towards Edge. One night, one chance to save them all. Gaia, she prayed Cloud would take it.